Heirs of Prophecy

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Crowned by the horns of a rising crescent moon, the stone stood in the forest, dappled with shadow and enfolded deep in the whispers and creaks of trees moving in the wind. Four times the height of a person and wider than extended arms could reach, it had been hewn from a single slab of gray granite, then polished by ancient crafters until it was as smooth and glossy as the surface of a still lake.

A solitary figure kneeled before the stone, his knees and bare feet denting the loamy ground. Dressed in short leather breeches with fringe at the knees and a leather vest tooled in an oak-leaf pattern, he held a bow, the ends of which had been carved in the shape of acorns. The fingers and thumb that gripped that bow were dark, though the hand itself was no ruddier than was usual for his race.

The figure’s dark auburn hair was pulled back in a single braid, revealing sharply pointed ears, the left one pierced near its tip with a length of gilded bone. The elf’s face was long and narrow with almond-shaped eyes, and framed by bangs that hung in a series of tiny fringelike braids. A small black feather was woven into the tip of each braid and fluttered against his forehead in the wind. At his throat was a glint of gold: a ring that hung on a leather thong.

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