Disclaimer: I don't own Black Jewels Trilogy, or anything related.

Tangled Destinies

Prologue

The witch walked in the night when few dared to venture out. A harsh, cold wind howled around her, tearing down the shriveled husks of the last few leaves of autumn and whipping through her tangled black hair. She adjusted her shawl to wrap tighter around her, but the move was casual, more an afterthought than truly a response to the chill.

The land here was scarred, as the people were. Scarred by the taint that was spreading everywhere. But here, of all places, was there hope of healing. If the taint was ever gone, healing would come here. But the chances of that... No matter, that was another subject entirely, another's place.

The road she walked was old, paving stones worn into the dusty ground, but she saw it broad and lined with new white stone. Only a muddy trickle flowed under the crumbling bridge ahead, but she saw the bridge restored and standing proud over the strength of a rushing river. The castle that overlooked this rocky valley, once home to the Queens of this land but now long abandoned for their glittering but corrupted cities, was in her mind warm and open, with bright flares of witchlight in the torch brackets shining over the road by the entryway.

This she saw, through clouded eyes that watched everything and nothing. For she was a Black Widow though one broken and wandering lost in the dreamscapes of the Twisted Kingdom. She saw, through her Craft, the land not as it was now, but a vision of how it had been... and as it could be again. As it would be when the new Queen came, the one who could heal the land and soul of this Territory, perhaps this whole Realm. Not Witch, who had already come (though she was still young), but another gifted witch. She would come.

Tersa disappeared on the Winds, leaving as swiftly as she had arrived, on to another place, another vision, another twisted dream. She walked a strange and lonely road that was uniquely hers. Silent and unnoticed, she moved on, standing as unknown witness to the bitter hopes of that age, and seeing the dreams that would come to fruition in time.

A/N: This will hopefully turn into a longer story, but I need to know if it's any good. Please review and tell me what you think.