Ofrigg

She could hear them now. The soft whisper of voices, the gentle caress of their sins. Shadows writhed as she passed by, stretching and reaching, yearning for her touch. And oh, how she wanted to be free of them, wanted it to all to stop and end.

Their voices climbed to an incensed murmur, a fever pitch that rose and fell with no discernable reason. She could make out words and phrases, nonsense syllables and dire warnings. But no matter how she scrambled for a meaning, tried to appease them, it was never enough.

They snapped at her, clawed at her ears, her mind, wailing and screaming until she was screaming along with them.

It ended in the snuff of a candle, the sound choked in her throat and the whispers a background murmur. Her voice was raw, blood an ever-present taste in the back of her mouth, but she was alive. Surviving, if nothing else.

It was slow, slotting together the puzzle pieces, threading together sense from their disjointed voices. Her head was bowed, her jaw locked, and gradually, the truth was separated from the mass of tendrils and a prophecy was extracted. Then finally, blessed silence, so wholesome and pure that she wanted it to last. Yet the reprieve was always short-lived, the voices returning as insistent as ever, and Ofrigg could do nothing but let them win.

Occasionally, she spoke. When the contents of a prophecy were too dire to ignore—and even then, only to Titan—she shared the visions. Her words were dry and grating, too difficult and tiring to string together more than a sentence. Yet he listened whenever she chose to speak, and for that, she was grateful.

The shadows were invisible chains on her wrists, the voices clamoring for attention. The dead were known for talking, and she, merely the hapless vessel.