When we landed in the new spot, I knew it wasn’t quite the right place, but we were close. The air was filled with something I considered familiar, but I didn’t know exactly what it was. I’d purposefully aimed for a wooded area, because I knew Malphas would be somewhere with limited foliage.
The woods were potentially a miscalculation based on Vinnie’s claim that it was a good place for an ambush, but it also gave us a little cover. I couldn’t feel anything close by, so I considered it a good starting spot.
“Did you forget how to aim?” Eva’s voice was impatient, and made me roll my eyes. “The clearing you’re looking for is about three hundred yards to the left.”
“I’m well aware of where we need to be. I thought having a second to scope out the place made a little more sense than just dropping in the middle of things. Why don’t you go stand in that clearing for a little while and wait for us.”
“If your opponent had a lick of sense, he’d have anticipated that move and had people waiting everywhere. I guess you’re lucky he seems to be preoccupied.”
I looked up to where Eva was sitting on a tree branch above our heads. I glared at her as I tried to sense people around us who didn’t belong. I knew our group was large, so big I didn’t have an accurate count of troops, but that didn’t explain why I didn’t feel warlocks, demons or Malphas.
“I have good news for you. If for some reason you aren’t able to kill Malphas, I’m going to go ahead and kill him.”
Eva seemed to be in a slightly better mood, but it didn’t explain her sudden willingness to get involved. From the very beginning she’d been nothing more than a spectator, only voicing her issues with every move I made.
“You do understand what you said isn’t great for morale, right? It makes it sound like things aren’t going to go in our favor, which is probably something we didn’t need to know.” Even if Eva was in a better mood, I wasn’t, and it could be heard in my voice. Anytime I was forced to grit out my words, people knew it was best to stay away from me.
“My comment has nothing to do with the outcome of things. There are very few things that can mess with my abilities, and I don’t appreciate not being able to monitor you anymore. I’ve been doing it for so long that to have you suddenly gone has affected me more than I thought it would.”
I found the statement funny, especially because she had lost track of me for a number of years when I was reborn. It was also a little weird that it disturbed her so much.
“You’re being moody because of a five minute outage? That’s got to be the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”
I didn’t think the conversation had anywhere else to go, so I started walking towards where Eva had indicated we were supposed to be. I wanted to know why there wasn’t a welcome party, when I knew we were in the right place.
I’d made it a few steps, with the troops following closely behind me and a normal wall of people trying to circle around me, before I felt Eva pop in right next to me. Her quick movement caused a surge of electricity, and I felt like someone had rubbed their feet on carpet a hundred times and then shocked me. I didn’t know if it was her or me who caused it, but she moved back a half an inch.
“It wasn’t a temporary outage from when you two were talking. I still can’t feel you, even right here next to you.”
For once something Eva said interested me. I’d thought I needed to torture Malphas until he shared how to close Eva out, but it appeared he’d given me a little gift. I assumed it was only because he didn’t want her to know what he’d said to me.
“He’s totally blocked you out?” Jumping up and down for joy was a little out of character for me, so I settled with just doing it in my head.
“You don’t have to be so giddy about it. I don’t see how that’s a good thing. I can’t help you if I can’t feel you.”
Dropping the conversation sounded like a good idea, because I didn’t feel I had time to explain that our definition of help differed, and I highly doubted anything she’d do would be helpful. I wasn’t sure if Malphas knew the favor he’d done for me, but it was a big one.
It made me wonder if he was somehow trying to soften me up. He didn’t know me as well as he claimed to if he thought a favor would somehow change the fact that he’d threatened my family.
“Moving on, do you have insight on why there’s no one here? I can feel this is the right place, but it’s lacking opponents.”
There were trees all around us, some full of leaves, some just starting to bud. They made it difficult to see the destination we were walking towards, but I enjoyed the smell of spring in the air. I could sense everything trying to come to life, and that made me somehow feel more alive.
“That would mean we need to discuss what you don’t know about your opponent, and when I mentioned that earlier, you turned into a pouty little girl. I’m not sure now is the best time to go over all the details.”
“I’m hoping you keep running your mouth that way just to get me charged up. Everyone here knows I don’t pout, so claiming I did just makes you look foolish.”
Eva laughed. “I’m running my mouth because I’m pissed off at Malphas, and you get the brunt of my anger because he involved you. He’s trying to get me riled up, which he should know won’t work out well in his favor.”
I thought it was interesting that Eva had turned something that had always been about me into something about her. From the very beginning, Malphas had targeted me. Eva’s name had never been brought up. She’d been alluded to slightly in the conversation we’d had, but nothing was really about her.
“Care to share why Malphas would want get you mad? I wasn’t aware you two were friends.”
The trees were getting thinner as we neared the edge of the woods. The troops were unbelievably quiet as we traipsed through the various foliage. As big as some of the men were, magic had to be in play, which I assumed came from Mak. There was no way not even a single twig snapped.
“I don’t have a clue why he’d try to get on my bad side, other than I’m on your side of the battle. Maybe I’m taking it personally that he’s specifically blocked me out, but that doesn’t matter. He’s shown he has power above and beyond what I was aware of, which means you are ill prepared for what’s to come.”
“If you think the fact that he’s stronger than me is a revelation, it’s not. I’ve known that for a while now, and I’ve prepared for dealing with that, at least as well as I could. I believe that’s why I made the knife, isn’t it? Because I knew there was no hope for me winning a battle of magic.”
Eva reached out and stopped me from walking out into the sun waiting for me beyond the trees. Her hand was cold on my skin, which was a little weird. Even on frigid days when we’d jumped in a lake together being silly, her body temperature was just as warm as mine.
She removed her hand when she realized I noticed the oddity. I didn’t know anything about Fate, but there was something wrong if she wasn’t controlling herself.
“It was one thing when he was just stronger than you. If he’s found a way to surpass my power, then we’re in trouble. Maybe you should rethink going out there to meet him. You need to train more in magic if you have any hope of defeating him. Physical fighting isn’t going to be enough, and if he’s grown in strength, I can’t promise the knife will be enough either.”
I couldn’t believe it, but Liam was right. She was worried. She obviously didn’t think I was going to win the battle, and she wanted me to just give up before I’d even tried.
“You said a few minutes ago that you’d kill him if I couldn’t. Do you think you can handle making and keeping that promise?”
I could feel everyone stiffen at my words. I didn’t particularly like that everyone’s movements were somehow tracked by my brain. I could stand with feeling those directly next to me, but dozens of people was a little overwhelming.
“I don’t think you understand. It doesn’t matter if I can kill him, which I’m sure I could. You have to live. Even if he gets destroye
d at some point, things won’t work unless you are here to run things. That’s what the prophecy says in case you missed it.”
When Eva claimed to be sure she could kill Malphas, it was the first time she’d ever set off my lie detector abilities. That didn’t help my confidence, and I wasn’t sure what her angle was. I felt like she was trying to confuse me.
“Maybe you should explain what’s so important about me. It’s not like I’m that special. It’s not like I’m the first of my species or anything. I can’t understand why you think I’m important enough that my life matters that much more than the next persons. I don’t care what the prophecy says about me, if it’s actually about me, the only reason I’m here is because he threatened my kids.”
“We don’t have time to go through the history of the world or why you were chosen to lead the world into peace. You’ve seen the prophecy. You know it describes you.”
“I can’t know that for sure. You gave me a piece of paper that said things that could describe me. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re about me. There’s billions of people on this planet, and I’m sure I’m not the only bird capable of bringing those people together.”
I highly doubted the piece of paper she’d given me was an original copy. It was more than likely in her handwriting, and written five seconds before it landed in my hand. I had no faith in it being true.
“This isn’t the time or place for that discussion. Get through the battle and I’ll be more than happy to explain everything to you. I’ll even introduce you to the oracle who predicted your actions.”
I’d been under the assumption that person wasn’t alive, but I didn’t feel like questioning it. Eva had switched to a terse intonation, meaning she didn’t want me to push my questions any further. I didn’t think Malphas was going to jump right in with an attack, so I did what I did best and ignored her wishes.
“I think now is the only time we’ll have to talk about this. What if the oracle was wrong? What if it’s not me who is supposed to kill Malphas? I think we should probably hash this all out now, since it’s been brought up. Maybe it’d work better if I gave someone else the knife.”
“Baby girl, as much as I hate to disagree with you, I’m pretty sure there’ll be time to figure that out later, and after everything we’ve been through, it’s hard to believe you aren’t the one the prophecy mentioned.”
Rick didn’t really disagree with me, he even whispered that fact to me privately. The direction the conversation was heading didn’t bode well for the morale of the troops, and he was hoping that I didn’t put too many holes in the prophecy.
“I’ll move on, but I want Eva to look me in the eye and tell me the prophecy is about me.”
I thought the request was easy enough, and since I’d been able to pick up a lie from her, I was sure I could do it again. Whether she believed the prophecy was about me didn’t really matter. We were going to battle Malphas’ forces and I’d find a way to win. I just felt I deserved to know whether anyone could do the same thing or if there was something special about me.
Eva wasted no time turning so she was in front to me, and our eyes were locked on each other. I stared into her blue orbs looking for any hints deceit. If there was any, I was sure Eva was a master at masking it, so I couldn’t pick it up.
“I have absolutely no doubt that the prophecy is about you. You were born to lead the world. I know you hate that fact, but from the very beginning your life was meant for greatness.”
Either she’d discovered my recent pick up of her lie and adjusted her tactics to deceive me, or she was telling the truth. There was no hint of deception.
“I’ve never asked before, but when was that prophecy given?” It really didn’t make a difference, but I should’ve asked more questions about the prophecy before I’d followed along with where it had taken me.
All of a sudden it felt like there was something wrong with the prophecy. It wasn’t the right time to have second thoughts, but it was better than having them in the middle of a fight.
“I don’t know the exact date, but it’s been thousands of years. It isn’t something someone threw out there last week.”
Since I’d known about it for over a week, I knew that was true. I still didn’t like the feeling I got when the prophecy was brought up. It probably had something to do with the fact that Eva had decided I wasn’t really ready to fight Malphas.
Hearing that things were not exactly what we’d planned for made me worry about what I was getting the troops into. If Malphas was stronger than we’d thought, then there was a good chance the demons we’d eventually face were too. It made it hard for me to decide what actions to take.
I turned and looked at the anticipation on the faces close to me. Hearing things could be tough didn’t bother them one bit. They were warriors and they deserved the chance to prove themselves.
I looked back at Eva and smiled. “I can’t tell them we’re going home to train some more. We came here for a fight, and as soon as we figure out where our opponents are, we’re going to fight.”