Pallas entered the temple and lit a prayer candle at the altar.

“Holy Creator,” he said. “I have been your most faithful and obedient servant. I have delivered your message to your people. I have had temples erected in your name. Why, then, have you spurned me? Why have you created more Prophets?”

The shadows on the altar flickered.

“Answer me, Holy One,” Pallas pleaded. “Tell me what I have done to displease you.”

A fierce wind blew through the sanctum, and the flame of the candle flared brighter.

The god answered, but not in words. Instead its answer came through the vibrations of esha. And Pallas knew that he had angered it. That he had been presumptuous.

Pallas bowed his head. “I beg your forgiveness, Holy One.”

A vision came to him—of himself, stripped of his power. Left without the divine word of his god. Deaf to the esha of the world.

Pallas shuddered. “It is true I am not worthy of your divine words. But please—let me remain your faithful servant. I will never question your will again.”

The shadows receded, creeping back into the darkness.

The six new Prophets stood in the Temple of the Holy Creator, facing the Prophet Pallas.

Everyone in the Pelagos and beyond knew Pallas the Faithful, the only person in the world who could speak to the Creator god. Until now.

“You have been chosen,” he told the new Prophets. “As the first and most faithful of the Prophets, it is my duty to teach you to carry out the will of the Holy Creator. We serve our god—not man. It is for that reason that you must renounce your loyalty to your kings and queens, renounce your ties to your tribes and families. Such attachments will cloud our faith and render us unfit to deliver the holy message.”

The Prophet Ananke raised her head to Pallas. “And what about love?”

“Love,” Pallas repeated disdainfully. “Our hearts belong to our Creator. That is the only love that matters.”

Ananke the Brave heard Pallas’s words, but she did not heed them. She had a love, a childhood sweetheart called Temara, a girl whose beauty and skill with the sword was known throughout the land. Temara joined Ananke’s Order, becoming one of her acolytes to stay close to her.

But their relationship was forbidden by Pallas the Faithful, and so they hid it from him.

For six years, the Seven Prophets served the Creator god, receiving its visions and sharing them with their people to guide them to their destinies. As a symbol of their devotion to their god, each year on the summer solstice, one of the Prophets chose a life to sacrifice to the Creator.

On the seventh year, Pallas was to choose a sacrifice.