The Silenced Speaker (rewritten)

Prologue

"I have found my successor, Selena," the alluring sable-haired woman cooed, her meticulously-painted scarlet lips curved up slightly in her usual callous, sardonic smile.

*

With a Speaker of Fate upon one's doorsteps, no mage could keep their cool.

A Speaker of Fate was an existence comparable to - or even surpasses - the kings of Iskeryl and Elrtiv. It wasn't their birth that incited reverence, but their power: everything a Speaker says always became truth.

Even a five-year-old child knew that.

They could decree the perish of a kingdom in one breath, and it would - just like that.

Katheryne Helles, famed for her heart of stone, was dreaded above all other Speakers of Fate in history.

When someone so powerful dropped by with a fierce afternoon storm brewing behind her, fear crept in on you like a cold, spineless worm crawling on your back where you could not lay a finger on it. The horror paralysed you.

"Who is it?" Selena heard herself ask.

*

It had been six years since Selena Taylor had last seen Katheryne Helles. 

Her eyes dimmed, in the way that a glass of water darkened when a drop of ink fell in it, swirled, and dulled its original colour. The cordial words of greeting that she swallowed scorched her throat like burning coal.

"Who else but your darling daughter?"  

Every syllable that sprang from Katheryne's lips rang with perfect clarity, thick with malice.  

"Aqui- or did you prefer Roxanne? No matter, I have made my declaration with both names, just in case - Goddess Jaistyr would know who I mean to nominate."

"Katheryne!"

A sudden draught of wind tore through the room. Selena shivered. Katheryne barely turned her head; her manicured fingers nimbly laced invisible strands of air into an incantation and flicked it at the open door leading to the balcony. The glass door slid shut immediately.

Her reputation aside, Katheryne's power was always coveted. The news would have made any other mage ecstatic. 

Not Selena.

*

She had known far too well that the status of a Speaker was a curse more than a blessing. A Speaker had to weigh up every word they spoke. There was no going-backs, no apologies for the harsh words spoken to misunderstandings, no amends for curses uttered in the midst of heated arguments.

A Speaker's word is worth ten legions of men. Indeed, a Speaker's promise secured the victory of a war better than anything else. So the great powers of the world always vied for a Speaker's loyalty - the monarchs, the churches, the oligarchies...

And if a Speaker was taken under one's wing, they would become the common enemy of the rest. A Speaker who would not serve you was only a sliver less dangerous than a Speaker who served your enemy.

Countless Speakers met untimely ends by assassination - Katheryne's own predecessor, for one, was the case.

A Speaker was always alone; always left to fend for themselves. They were too dangerous to be kept as a friend, yet even more so to be kept as foe.

It was not a fate that Selena would wish for her daughter.

"A Speaker of Fate isn't alone," Katheryne spoke, as if reading Selena's mind. Her voice was devoid of emotion, "There used to be two lines of Speakers, until one faded into the shadows..."