Flash Fiction February 2026 Day Sixteen: Old Rules Made New (Valan)

Flash Fiction February 2026 Prompt: Rules (a rule is enforced for the first time in years) 

Caius looks at me in a way that makes me worry his eyes may just pop right out of his head. “They said what?!” he nearly yells but quickly comes to his senses and quiets down, you never know who else might be listening after all. “They said what?!” He repeats in a harsh whisper about my strange encounter last night with a couple of people who spoke nonsense about some lord and the return of a lost house that had been “sleeping” awaiting the fulfillment of a prophecy. Apparently these weirdos thought I figured into their plan somehow and grabbed me in the middle of the street while out for a late night walk. Had I not woken up with a bruise on my arm from where one had held an iron grip to keep me from running off I would have thought it all a nightmare. A really, really, really, weird nightmare. “Any ideas what they were on about?” I ask Caius who has since stopped looking at me like I had three heads and instead now paces around the small sparsely furnished house in circles. A hand on his head running through his thinning grey hair the other hand anxiously fidgeting with a spare piece of string that had come loose from the pocket of his pants. Per usual, he still isn’t wearing a shirt, the weather is too hot here for him apparently, and it’s part of his undercover assignment to look like an eccentric neighbor in order to be left alone. “You haven’t mentioned this to anyone else have you?” The spymaster asks, his voice sounding increasingly anxious. “No. Just you.” He sighs in relief. “Keep it that way.” I hesitate in asking but decide to question why. “Every few years somebody comes along claiming to be the reincarnation of Nerevar, which has something to do with an Ashlander religious prophecy. While they’re generally left alone, the Tribunal Temple really doesn’t like it when they bring up that prophecy. They like it even less when people turn up saying they’ve got something to do with it. That’ll get you labeled a heretic real quick. Being labeled a heretic will get you impaled by an Ordinator even quicker. Don’t say anything to anybody.” Well that’s terrifying. “Got it?” I give a mock salute “Yes sir!” the spy only sighs tiredly as he sits on the unmade bed. “We’ve already been over the rest of the rules, but here’s one we haven’t talked about yet because it hasn’t been needed in years; keep your mouth shut when asked about prophecies.” That’s an oddly specific rule. I know better than to question the spymasters rules though, they’ve been compiled over decades of service. I wonder what was going on whenever the last time that rule had to be used was?