Dreams and smoke

Elsewhere

Her night was restless. Islana tossed and turned in her pavillion, physically surronded by her pelts and confortable pillows but her mind ill at rest. Deep relaxing sleep eluded her after the events of this evening. She would doze off for a handful of minutes or so just to be jolted awake by strange visions or voices in her mind.

When she tried to look inwards seeking the wisdom of her predecessors she was greeted by a raging sea of whispers and vistas that served only to confuse her. She saw events long gone that would flash behind her eyes and explode in her mind. Events she could not immediately make sense of or.wven recognise just to have it ebb away into another just as she struggle to take a hold of it to explore it.

Her mind felt tired as did her body. It was as if the memories of the other Sisters were fighting with one another to be heard. To come to the fore through to her.

She was learning something that maybe she had naively believed when she took up the mantle of the spiritual leader of the Ozainae.

Despite the long line of teachings that grew among the Ozainae since the first Seer emerged from the desert there had always been dissident voices among the people to those teachings.

The Brotherhood of the Ebony Hand's coup, the slaughter of the Neph-Kin, the extermination of the Skara, the coming of Brother Grasshopper and his extremist zealots and of course the rebellion of the Northern Septs. Ozainae history and the lives of the Sisters had been filled with those that did not believe her words or followed her teachings.

But something the man said last night stuck in the back of her mind. No Horde in history had been raised without the Herald of the Maelstrom. But the man had tried and kill her...

Islana suddenly jolted up in her bed, suddenly very aware and awake. Her pavillion was filling with smoke and she could see fire spreading rapidly, lapping at rugs, furniture and silks.

Outside she heard the panicked shouts of her servants...