She was not born a prophet. She had grown a poor child to a poor family, destined for a small life in a small town (she would soon know better of destiny). It was on her sixteenth birthday, the day she became a woman in the eyes of the law and the gods, that she Spoke the words of those gods, Saw their majesty, their magnificence, kind and wicked and benevolent and terrible all at once (she would soon grow used to it).

That was the day she was branded as an outsider, as different. That was the week she was taken from home, to a capital of metal and eyes, all watching. That was the month they began to plan for her, the month they began to build. That was the year they locked her in a clockwork tower, guarded by a ticker-tape Sphinx and a bronze-plated dragon.

That was the day she gained everything and lost everything. For she was not born a prophet, she was born a girl. She was a girl, a person, not just an oracle, doomed to pass down tasks and trials.

That was the decade she planned to escape.