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When Madame Eva's hand hovers over the fifth and final card, she nearly recoils, her brow furrowing until the wrinkles split her forehead like a trench. Behind her, shadows encircle the candlelight, threatening to thrust the interior of the tent into darkness.
When next she speaks, Madam Eva's rasping voice is scarce above a whisper. She speaks with an intensity that rivals all of her previous four predictions. "The enemy you will face is an agent of death, a creature of darkness beyond mortal comprehension. Oh, it's terrible... I cannot say more without inferring things that should not be inferred directly. Listen carefully."
Her hand trembles above the card for a silent moment - and then her fingers flip it deftly, reveal its opposite side. In the darkness, the fifth and final illustration is only barely visible through the smoke and unnatural murk.
The card depicts a jar on a stand inlaid with gemstones. Inside the jar is a human skull carved with intricate regal patterns.
Madam Eva slowly exhales. "The mists obscure the events that will lead up to to this grand confrontation," she says. "But the card representing your enemy is The Artifact." She closes her eyes, and her voice takes on an otherwordly, authoratative tone. <span class="mu-s">"He lurks in the darkness where the morning light once shone - a sacred place of ruined stone."</span>
As the last syllable passes her lips, the old woman freezes - and then rocks back in her chair, her eyes rolling until their whites gleam like pearls in the darkness - and then she snaps back, the candlelight burning down to its ordinary crimson glow.
The sound of the outside world returns - the voices of the Vistani, the crackling of the bonfire, the whisper of the wind, and the lapping of the waves against the shore of the pool. Light, grey and insubstantial, filters in once more through the canvas walls of the tent, and you feel yourselves breathe for the first time since the reading began.
Madam Eva says nothing. She only regards you silently with dark, heavy eyes. She seems exhausted, completely drained of energy.
(cont.)
