Precognitive Dream

News of the standoff, treated as a Kushan defeat, reaches Laban in Wyndham, who passes it to the resistance. The men are astonished that the Kushan lost, but far more struck that the victors were the reborn Band of the Falcon. Foss alone shows no surprise, having long expected Griffith to resurface after his imprisonment in the Tower of Rebirth. Laban privately concedes he too had sensed it, recalling the prophetic vision of the Falcon of Light. He then shares a further revelation: Charlotte has been seen alive at Griffith's side. That the royal line endures is fresh news to all, and it delights them, with Laban explaining that her survival has sparked new resistance cells across Midland, aided by the Kushan army's departure for battle.

Laban raises the matter of the women held captive by the Kushan, but the talk breaks off when an old woman arrives leading several children. One of them, Foss's daughter Elize, tells her father that the children have shared another collective dream of the Falcon of Light. In it they received a new prophecy: on a night with no moon in the sky, the fog blanketing Midland will lift and carry off every possessed animal and Kushan soldier, then return by morning, leaving Wyndham unsafe. Any evacuation, therefore, must happen under cover of night. The resistance despairs at moving the city in a single night, but Laban reassures them that Wyndham's sleeping people will share the same dream and know to flee. Asked what dawn will bring, the children can only say that a black shadow will engulf the city until the Falcon of Light appears to banish it, after which the true dawn will break.

The next morning finds the Band of the Falcon riding toward Wyndham. On his white horse beside the Pontiff's carriage, Griffith apologizes for rousing the band so early, but the Pontiff insists he slept soundly. Charlotte, riding in the carriage, cautions the old man against exposure to the elements, and he assures her he will not die before he weds her to Griffith and crowns Griffith king of Midland. Owen and his soldiers ride among the band; while his men eye Griffith's easy sway over the Pontiff with suspicion, Owen concludes they owe him gratitude for making Midland safe to cross again, and Griffith's closeness to Charlotte leaves him seeming beyond compare. Unhappy nearby is Sonia, who, when Griffith's cape blows onto her head, wraps it fully around herself and rides off announcing she is playing Kushan, to Griffith's mild surprise and Mule's exasperation. Mule glances back at the exiled nobles' meager contingents, which Locus attributes to the Holy See's reluctance to spend soldiers on a land it deems doomed, and Mule is told none of it will matter, for soon the true sun will shine on the world.

Laban informs the Wyndham resistance of the Kushan defeat and that Charlotte is alive with Griffith, news that inspires new resistance groups across Midland. Foss's daughter Elize relays the children's shared prophetic dream: a moonless night when fog will lift and remove the Kushan and possessed animals, requiring a nighttime evacuation, followed by a shadow that the Falcon of Light will dispel before a true dawn. The Band of the Falcon rides toward Wyndham, with the Pontiff vowing to crown Griffith king.

This twenty-three-page chapter of the Millennium Falcon Arc appeared in Young Animal issue twenty-two on November 9, 2007. The children's prophecy foreshadows the cataclysmic events soon to transform Wyndham and Midland as a whole.