Free Tablet of Destinies by Traci Harding

of Maelgwn’s soul — for Tory did not horrify easily. The cup dropped from his hand as Maelgwn willed himself to Tory’s side, and he was gone before the vessel hit the ground and shattered.
    Maelgwn joined his wife in the nursery. She had ceased her screaming, but was weeping uncontrollably as she backed away from the twins’ crib.
    â€˜What’s the matter?’ He grabbed hold of Tory to pacify her, whereupon she directed his attention to their sleeping babes.
    Their tiny bodies were smothered in a rainbow flame and they were still sleeping, or unconscious or dead.
    Maelgwn’s first reaction was to retrieve his babes from the flame, but upon reaching into the brilliant spectacle of fire, he made contact with naught but the mattress upon which his children lay. ‘What on earth is it?’ He swiped his hands through the apparition of his children but their physical bodies were no longer there.
    Recovered from the shock, Tory’s mind took a stab at reasoning. ‘Perhaps it’s some sort of ethereal cocoon?’ she sniffled.
    â€˜Does this bear any resemblance to your Deva?’ Maelgwn left the crib to quiz his wife.
    â€˜I don’t know,’ Tory stressed. ‘I don’t remember anything! Only Candace saw it.’
    Without further ado Maelgwn went charging off to his study to beseech the new Governess of Kila to come to their aid.
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    â€˜That’s what I saw, alright,’ Candace confirmed for one and all, as Noah, Cadfan and Thais had also been summoned to advise on the strange celestial matter that was enshrouding the newborns.
    The past few hours had seen a new development in the condition of the twins, as the evasive image of the babies to be seen inside the fiery celestial haze had begun to change form. It appeared as if the human babes were being transformed into, or consumed by, some manner of alien creature. Tory was the first to note the physical changes in her cocooned children and, having been thrown into hysteria by the discovery, had been sedated.
    Maelgwn, only moderately saner at this point, had been left to try and determine what was afflicting his children.
    â€˜If it is some sort of ethereal cocoon, as your wife suggested, the laws of the universe guarantee that it can do the children no harm, being made of higher celestial matter than they are.’ Thais, who was employing his human embodiment for the consultation, spoke out.
    â€˜And what if it isn’t devanic in origin at all? What if it is merely disguised to be mistaken as thus?’ Maelgwn voiced some of the scenarios that had been racing through his mind these past few hours. ‘How do we know this is not some sort of alien parasite using my children as a substance to feed itself? Or some sort of viral infection that even immortals are susceptible to? Genetic warfare even!’
    â€˜If the latter were the case,’ Cadfan ventured an opinion, ‘then surely one of us would have been infected by now.’
    â€˜Maybe only infants are susceptible as they are born mortal, whereas we have all assumed our immortal state already?’ Maelgwn argued. There were a million possibilities, what he needed was hard facts.
    Noah had never known Maelgwn to be irrational, but the man’s concern for his children threatened to drive him beyond reason before too long. ‘Perhaps I would be of better service in my library. I could —’
    â€˜Your prediction.’ Maelgwn clicked his fingers as he recalled it and, turning to Noah, he startled the scholar with the sudden attention.
    â€˜What prediction?’ Noah shank from the question, as he recalled mumbling something to Tory in his drunken stupor the night her pregnancy had been announced.
    â€˜Our children would be unique in their purpose, you said.’ Maelgwn approached to tower over the prophet. ‘What did you mean?’
    â€˜I wish I could tell you,’ he tried to explain, as Maelgwn