Recorded week one, year of the prophecy

Last night I had a vision—she warned me they would come. The truth is I’ve felt them coming for some time. There have been signs, omens even, that the floating city might, at last, be falling—that the spells our ancestors spoke, suspending us in the sky, are faltering.

This morning, I saw a bird with raven black feathers and a sinister cry in his voice—the first queen spoke of such things in her journal. How low must the Divine City have fallen to see such a creature? And how exquisite a thing to see? I pointed it out to my attendant, but it flew away and she looked at me with perplexity.

I would not blame you, dear citizens of the Divine City, if you did not believe my tale. In truth, I doubt myself as much as you do. Indeed, I would think the whole thing a mirage, a trick of my own imagination, were it not for a single black feather that twirled to the ground and landed at my feet. It is the feather I now hold in my hand, scrawling these words across the pages of my journal as though my ancestors might still be able to read them.

Perhaps they can. I can feel their waning magic still. The blood of the first Mage Queen flows through my veins, passed down from mother to mother, a lineage of Mage Queens waiting for something we would never see, for a prophecy that would not come to pass, until my reign. Until this day.

For with the bird, came the mist. For millennia, our people have been drenched in the sun that only exists above the clouds. But a fog has enveloped us so impenetrable that only the tower rises above the glimmering city and into the clouds. We can no more see that which is right before us, and a mild panic has settled into the streets.

I can hear your whispers. Perhaps it is merely the climate, many citizens whisper among themselves, perhaps it is the concern of some natural phenomena. Or perhaps, as I suspect, we have fallen into the clouds.

The earth calls us from below—I can feel it. It remembers our sins even if we have long forgotten them. I wonder if life has survived upon the surface, or if we will sink to the earth only to discover the barren wasteland of our past—the memory of cities and continents our ancestors once inhabited.

Our gates once led somewhere—even if we no longer remember where. Perhaps the truth lies on the surface. Perhaps we will open our gates once more. Perhaps we will soon be home.

I consulted the grimoires, the ones passed down to me from all the mage queens past. I keep hoping for some answer in their words but I see only warning. That the city we built was always meant to fail. That there would come a day when we would have to reckon with our past. That there is nothing we can do to forestall our destiny.

There can be no doubt in my mind now, the Divine City is falling back to the earth. I only pray no evil awaits us when we arrive.

I have recorded this week’s diary entry into the city’s ledger. It can be collected here: