Her stomach clenched, and Anna feared she was going to be sick. She must not desecrate the sacred stones of the path. The thought so alarmed her that she forced herself to stop thinking of ghosts. Emerging from the shadows of the fir trees that guarded the path, she realized that she was late. The stars were fading and dawn was already pink and yellow on the horizon. She quickened her pace. Rounding a coppice of pine, she could see the black marble columns of the Chamber, which stood outside the monastery walls, on a promontory overlooking the valley and the city below.

The columns were guardians to the one object inside the small temple. Anna hurried up the marble stairs and reverently approached the large, white marble bowl. Only when she reached it did she remember, stricken, that she had forgotten to remove her shoes. Swiftly she kicked off the sandals and, grabbing them up, flung them out beyond the columns.

She knelt down beside the bowl and took a moment to try to compose herself. That proved impossible. Anna trembled more. She poured the holy water from the pitcher that stood beside the bowl with a hand that shook so she splashed water onto her gown. Yet another infraction.

Anna forced herself to concentrate. She gazed steadily into the water, into the lapis lazuli iris of the sacred Eye at the bottom of the bowl, into the jet pupil of that all-seeing Eye, and waited for the water to cease sloshing about. Watching the water calmed her and when the last ripple smoothed from the surface, Anna spoke the ritual prayer that she said every morning, the same prayer that Melisande had said every morning, that every High Priestess before her had said every morning in a confident and even tone.

“Open wide, you that guard our realm, and let my eye see what you see.”

The Eye showed her what she always saw: the valley, the mountains, the city, the monastery of the Order of the Sacred Eye. She took it all in and breathed out a sigh of relief, only to snatch it back swiftly in a gasp that was as much bewilderment as it was astonishment.

The High Priestess of Seth did not see what she had feared and dreaded and expected to see. The Eye did not show her dragons flying toward her kingdom, bent on attacking and destroying them.

The Eye showed her a young man.

Anna rubbed her eyes and blinked and stared, wondering how the sacred Eye could have made such a mistake. The young man came from the river. He climbed over the mountains. He walked across the valley. He was a comely young man—about sixteen, perhaps, with blond hair and blue eyes that looked straight into hers.

Anna was puzzled and confused, and then she noticed something strange, grotesque. The young man had the legs of a beast. The legs, more specifically, of a dragon.