Chapter 20

Present time.

The chiefs of Eyrotia were gathered around the child who was wrapped in a light brown shawl and placed in a woven carrier. Her eyes were open and bright. Her eyes were as fiery red as her hair and they twinkled brightly against the lamp-lit palace interior.

Every chief and nobleman present was quiet as they awaited the arrival of the seer who was to come and tell them the meaning of the birth of a child who was so different from both her father and her mother.

In the birthing room, Queen Herentik was in tears as she rested on the bundles of clothes the midwives bunched around her to hold her up during birth. Her tears were born of hopelessness for she knew that the prophecy of the seer must come true.

A year before she conceived the seer had visited her in the early hours of the morning to tell her about the prophecy sent to him by the gods. In the prophecy was the birth of a child that would bring her sorrow so profound that age would w