The throng before the shrine had thinned somewhat as the hours passed, but there were still plenty of people on the Promenade, most of them Bajoran faithful, when Ranjen Shayl stepped out at close to midnight. After a moment’s excitement, the crowd quieted to hear what he might have to say.

“You have heard that three vedeks have come to the station,” he began clearly, tucking his hands into his sleeves in a familiar stance. “And I’m sure the rumor has spread of the great gift that has been brought among us. It is true. An Orb of the Prophets rests within the shrine.”

A babble of thrilled exclamations swept through them. Their excitement was palpable.

“Which of the Orbs is it?” asked a woman in the crowd, looking up at Shayl with gleaming eyes. Her question echoed that of most of the crowd, and they gave the ranjen their full attention.

“It is a newly revealed Orb of the Prophets,” Shayl said thoughtfully. “We will know soon what gift it brings us, and why the Prophets have sent it here.”

“New?” she repeated, for a second not comprehending.

“Yes. A new revelation. An unnamed Orb.”

Jaws dropped and eyes widened as it hit everyone. A newly revealed, unnamed Orb. The awed gasps were almost a chorus. While the Bajorans could remember when Benjamin Sisko had uncovered and brought the new Orb of the Emissary to them, it had been a millennium since the most recent previous Orb was bestowed upon them. They weren’t shocked that Sisko had found an Orb; he was the Emissary, it was to be expected that the Prophets would give him an Orb to assist him in re-opening the Celestial Temple. But this Orb, unnamed, its origin unknown, arriving at a time of no particular recognized importance, was staggering. The Orbs were bestowed by the Prophets in time of need. The beginning of fear showed on many faces, mixed with anticipation.

“What does it mean? What will happen?” the woman asked slowly, stunned.

Shayl smiled encouragingly. “We don’t know. But we do know the Prophets will be with us, whatever happens. And that we may all know their presence among us, here at the gate of the Celestial Temple, the Vedek Assembly, through their representatives here, have ordained that the Orb will be made public.”

His voice raised as he looked over the crowd. “Tomorrow morning, after services, any who wish may enter the shrine, and gaze upon the vault. It will remain here for public meditation for the next three days, before being taken to Peri’ketra for contemplation by the Vedek Assembly.” The ranjen paused for a second. “Those who feel they have a calling from the Prophets, may petition for the right to experience the Orb.”

Before the crowd could surge forward, Shayl repeated, “Tomorrow morning. Until then, I believe we should all rest, and prepare ourselves. Good night, may the Prophets guide us all.”

The ranjen’s words carried authority and weight, as they always did. At his instruction, the people began to disperse, still talking quietly among themselves. Shayl himself left the shrine, leaving a pair of Emyn’s deputies and several young monks on guard outside.

After a few moments, the vedeks also came out of the shrine, each heading for their own quarters.

Just inside the crowded bar, a man watched. As the crowd broke up, he finished his drink in one long gulp, set the glass on the counter, and quietly headed out to mingle with the scattering Bajorans.

The older monk walked slowly. His companions quickly outpaced him and left him behind.

He had just reached the door to his quarters when he felt the heavy hand on his shoulder. When he tried to turn, the grip tightened, preventing him from seeing who stood behind him.

“You are Prylar Hedra,” the voice hissed.

“Yes.”

“Do you share quarters here with anyone else?”

“No,” he whispered back, his voice trembling.

“Inside.”

Kira was exhausted. It had been a long day. Her shoulders ached from tension. She rolled her head from side to side, trying to ease the stiffness in her neck. She would have loved nothing better than to take a long hot shower and fall into bed, but she had promised herself, and the Prophets, that she would spend some time this evening reading about Shabren’s Prophecies. Slipping on her robe, she cast a regretful look toward her bedroom door, then resolutely turned to the living area.

Ranjen Shayl had insisted on loaning her an old text, a three-hundred-year old tome from his personal collection of spiritual writings. Figuring she’d be more likely to stay awake if she had to be holding the book and turning its pages, rather than staring at a PADD, Kira settled down on her couch with the book in her lap and a raktajino beside her.

Her door chimed. She jerked upright.

Who could it be at this time of night? Wearily, she set aside the book and headed for the door, tightening the sash of her robe as she walked.

It slid open. Vedek Hatha stood there, alone in the empty corridor.

“Vedek!”

“Colonel Kira.”

“I....” She stared for a long moment. “Would you like to come in? What do you need? How can I help you?”

“Come to the shrine.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. But there is something you must be do before morning.”

“What happens in the morning?”

“Ungtae and Carn will be privileged to view the Orb, if they choose,” Hatha said quietly.

“The Orb’s been in the Shrine all day for them to see—“ It sank in what he was really saying. “They’re hoping for an Orb vision? Without notice to the Assembly?” Kira couldn’t help saying, but instantly regretted it. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. It is their choice — your choice. And who better to be granted the gift of the Prophets?” After all, one of them would likely be the next kai of Bajor, and in the very near future.

“You should open yourself to them.”

Kira nearly tripped. “What?”

“I believe the Prophets have the gift of a Orb vision for you. Come.”

“I can’t! I ... I’m not worthy, it’s not—“ Panic rose in her.

“You will need their guidance. Come to the Prophets. Open yourself to their vision.” The vedek glanced away, introspective. “The Prophets choose who is worthy of their gifts. Answer them.”

“You’ve had another Orb vision?” She was babbling. Stop it!

“It is ... something I must meditate upon.” He breathed heavily. “The Prophets await you. Come, if you are open to them.”

She couldn’t say no.

“Let me get dressed—“

“Now.”

She followed.

They entered the station shrine through a rear door; most people on the station didn’t even know there was another exit or entrance. In the sanctuary, the scent of y’rtana incense was thick. Candles around the Orb pedestal and the glow from behind the relief statues were the only illumination. The faces of those kais of ancient days, lit from behind, seemed to watch Kira as she moved.

She approached the vault of the Orb timidly, swallowing hard, torn between joy and fear. Three times before she had stood before an open ark. The first time, it had been under Bareil’s guidance, without warning or time to prepare spiritually, to help save Bajor from the Circle and to reveal her future relationship with the vedek. The second time, it had been necessary to travel in time, to bring the Defiant home from a confrontation that could have shattered history as they knew it and destroyed the Federation. The third time, it had been a personal request to the Prophets, a bitter favor that still gnawed at her.

This Orb was an unknown. Each Orb carried its own gift. When a person had a question to ask of the Prophets, one petitioned to view the Orb that encompassed the question. How did one ask a question of an Orb whose purpose was yet unknown?

She glanced behind her.

Vedek Hatha vanished through the entry, leaving her alone with the gently glowing vault.

Trembling, she reached out with both hands to open the ark—

She stood alone. The desert stretched away in all directions. No green broke its desolation. No stream or pool offered relief. Even the air felt heavy. A merciless sun beat down on her, burning against her skin. The wind whispered around her, in almost-words that she couldn’t make out.

Weeping.

A woman knelt in the sand, hands before her face, sobbing. Her bare skin was torn, hideously scarred. Her hair hung over her face, an image of grief and pain.

A wave of something molten surged up from the sands behind her, swept over her.

The scent of lilacs filled the air. Overpowering. Dying.

Kira tried to escape the thick, dead scent as petals wafted around her like snowflakes in a storm. She waded through the deepening mass of desiccated flower petals that dragged at her feet, her knees.

“No, my child, you cannot escape them.”

“Opaka—“

Beseeching, she reached for the solace of the older woman’s embrace. She gasped as she realized Opaka’s hands were bloody. She looked up from the hands. The kai’s face was crisscrossed and scored, her serene beauty slashed as though with a blade, slow drips of red oozing from each fresh wound. A few lilac petals clung to drops of blood.

“Opaka!” she screamed.

“Listen, my child. Look.”

Weeping.

They raced across the sand, the other woman and she, fleeing dim specters. The other stumbled and fell to her knees, hunched low, hands clutched to her ears to shut out the howling wind that tore at her. Blood oozed between her fingers.

Hands reached up from the sand, clutching at the other, dragging her down.

“No!”

Opaka stood before an open gate, waiting. Beyond it beckoned a garden, green and fresh, the scent and sound of running water filling her senses. Lilacs. Lilacs grew there.

“Do you see?”

“Come in with me, Opaka. Tell me what it means.”

“We cannot. Forgive, my child....”

Opaka’s hand grew cold. Bajoran flesh turned to stone.

“We all carry scars.”

The blood-red stone blurred and remolded, its features as malleable as a Founder’s, but unyielding.

“Winn!”

Kira gasped and struggled against it, unable to escape. She was alone and caught in the stony embrace of a statue. Twisting against the grip, she caught a glimpse of three women, standing together at the gate, clinging together as if for warmth or consolation.

She felt her limbs begin to chill. She was stiffening, she couldn’t move.

Stone....

Weeping....

Kira reeled back, flailing against the arms that enfolded her.

“Colonel Kira!”

Shivering, she clung to the warmth of those arms, her eyes tightly closed, focusing on the familiar voice.

“Vedek Hatha said you might need me. It was a strong vision?”

It took a moment to catch her breath and feel strength coming back into her muscles. Her body felt cramped and tense; she had to force herself to relax as he pulled her to her feet. She felt chilled. She shivered once, violently, and pulled her robe more tightly around herself.

“It was.... I don’t know what it means,” she confessed.

Shayl looked past her to the Orb, which seemed to have closed itself. “Visions are seldom easily understood, until we realize they have been fulfilled,” he said. Then he looked back at her. “Perhaps you need to rest and meditate on what you have seen. Maybe enlightenment will come to you.”

“Yes, maybe I should....” Fatigue swept over her and drained every bit of energy she’d managed to pull up in the last thirty seconds. It was a very different feeling from her previous Orb experiences. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to so much as walk back to her quarters.

It looked like she wasn’t going to be reading the prophecies tonight after all.

Ezri had been a little surprised when Endar suggested they go to Vic’s to talk, after dinner. But she was amenable — a night at Vic’s was always good for the soul, and for the symbiont, as she mentally put it. Dax was never above having a good time.

There was an impromptu late-night “jam session” going on. Vic invited members of the audience to come on stage and join in playing or singing with his band. Endar had brightened visibly and been quick to volunteer.

It was good to see him relax as he “belted out some oldies but goodies,” as Vic put it. Music, Ezri knew, was one way to Endar’s heart.

Too bad Kira didn’t play an instrument, she thought. Maybe she could have organized a station orchestra and insisted on the senior officers being part of it to encourage others. Jadzia had collected the music of lost composers, and she knew at least one of her other past hosts had been musically inclined—

Joran’s face formed in her thoughts, and she shuddered involuntarily. No, maybe that wouldn’t have been a good idea. She didn’t want to call up his abilities and memories.

Vic eventually called the “final set” of the evening, and the slowly-emptying bar quieted down.

“All right, Endar,” she finally asked, as a relaxed and smiling Alden rejoined her at the table, “you said you wanted to talk, but you’ve been dodging any serious conversation all evening. What did you want to talk about?”

“Actually,” he admitted, signaling a waitress to bring one more round, “I got the feeling you were the one who wanted to talk.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Who, me?”

“Or don’t you feel like talking to me?”

“Endar, we’ve been talking all night, except when you’ve been singing or playing with Vic.”

“Not about stuff that matters. And you’ve been preoccupied.” Alden glanced toward the bar, where the bartender was handing over their drinks. He waited until the young waitress brought their drinks before continuing. “You and Doc come here a lot?”

She traced a pattern on the side of her glass. “Pretty regularly, I guess. But everybody loves Vic.”

“Except Quark. He doesn’t like competition, even holographic.”

Ezri made a face. “Okay, almost everybody.”

They laughed.

“Seriously, Ezri, what’s been on your mind?”

She raised a shoulder in a half-shrug. “What do you mean?” she turned the question back on him.

He grinned. “I had my turn on the couch today. Now it’s your turn. Or do I have to practice being a senior officer and pull rank on you?”

She giggled. “That’s right, you are the first officer on this station — why is that so hard to remember?”

He leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, yeah, we’ll talk about that next time. For tonight, as Vic would say, what’s buggin’ ya, dollface?”

“Well....” Ezri studied her drink for a few seconds, thinking. Maybe admitting she had her own issues would make it easier for Endar to open up more to her. “I’ve been having these weird dreams. I keep seeing my former hosts — Dax’s former hosts. I know I had this problem back when I was first joined, and when I came to the station, but I thought I’d worked through it. It’s just been the last few months again, every now and then.”

“Since Doc left?”

“Now that you mention it, yes.”

“Maybe you miss him.”

“I do. But why would missing somebody I care about give me strange dreams about my former hosts? And sometimes I dream that—“ She paused abruptly, then shook her head. “I remember dreams about their lives, maybe their dreams. And sometimes it’s as though I’m in a walking dream, I have moments in my day when I find myself thinking from their perspectives. As though their times and places are more real than the one I’m in now, or something that just happened yesterday, instead of hundreds of years ago.”

“What kind of dreams and moments? I mean, that’s something I can understand.”

She squirmed a little. “It’s as though ... I were being lectured by my past hosts, sometimes. That they’re disappointed I don’t have ... the same interests or skills that some of them did. For example, waking up with a craving for gagh, and then remembering I hate gagh, all fifty-one wriggling, squirming, squishy, jumping, slimy, targ-blood-packed varieties of it, and feeling like Jadzia’s upset with me because I won’t have some for her.”

“Gagh? Those Klingon worms?”

“Yeah.”

“Yuck. Remind me never to have dinner with her.”

Ezri burst out laughing. “I’ll be sure and do that!”

“What else?” he asked, grinning.

“Well, I tried playing springball with Nerys — and I was just falling all over myself. And all that happens when I stand on my head is that the blood rushes to my brain and I feel sick. And when I was first joined, I got queasy at warp speed, and while I’m over that now, the thought of riding full-tilt in a Rujian steeplechase still makes me nauseous. And Galeo-Manada style wrestling is brutal, not fun, no matter what some people would try to tell you. And those were all things that some of my previous hosts enjoyed and were good at. It’s as though they feel restless that I’m ... not active enough.”

“Not enough bruising, eh?”

“Exactly! Almost like they want to hurt me! Or they want me to hurt myself. And that’s ridiculous, I know. And then there’s....” Her voice trailed off.

He narrowed his gaze, studying her. “You’re not telling me everything. What else?”

Ezri shrugged again. “Some things I guess I’d rather not tell. But I’ll work through it.” She smiled and took a drink. “I did before.”

“You wouldn’t let me get away with saying that.”

That was true, but she wasn’t going to give him the opening. “But I’m the counselor. What kind of faith would you have in me if you thought I was crazy?”

“What’s that line about the doctor who treats himself having a fool for a patient?”

She tilted her head to the side. “Maybe I’ll talk to one of the counselors on the Potemkin. It’s due here in a few days.”

They were silent for a moment, sipping at their drinks, thinking.

“Maybe helping that kid will help you,” Endar suggested.

“Maybe.” A beat. “I bet you’re right. Since the end of the war, I’ve been counseling a lot more ... traumatic problems that I did before. Of all ages. Feels like my days are twice as long as they used to be, and more of my patients have twice as many problems as before, and they’re more serious problems. Maybe that’s wearing me down.”

“It’d wear me down,” Endar acknowledged. “And I’m one of the people you’re helping.”

Her grateful smile was pure sunshine. “I hope so. It helps to know that.”

“My couch is available any time.” He flushed a little. “I mean ... not what that sounded like. I mean like your couch. Like counseling.”

Ezri couldn’t stop laughing at his obvious embarrassment. “I understand, Endar. And thank you.” The laugh turned into a yawn. She tried unsuccessfully to stifle it.

“Maybe it’s time to call it a night,” Endar quickly suggested, changing the subject.

“I think so.”

The Promenade was empty and dark, late in its arbitrary night. Occasionally disembodied voices echoed from distant conversations. A pair of deputies made their way past the locked shops and shuttered kiosks, checking doors. One of the team yawned, mostly listening as the other chattered.

They moved along. For a minute or two, echoes came back of one voice.

A few moments later, a dark-clad, close-hooded figure stepped away from the wall, and moved noiselessly toward the assay office.

Seconds ticked by.

The door slid open.