“I believe it has something to do with Azazel’s snake medallion. Vita saw Draven wearing it, turned into a Destroyer. Draven will destroy Azazel, but victory will come at the price of his own soul, and the medallion is key. I think it holds whatever it is that makes that monster so powerful. But Draven won’t be able to resist that darkness, and he will turn. He will kill us all when we try to stop him. Eritopia will burn, but it will be at Draven’s hand. Those who do survive will be exiled to Marton, doomed to die in the desert. That’s all I could get from Vita in the short time we had together. I’ll reach out to her later for the details, but… it’s not looking good.”
A few minutes went by, my stomach churning in the meantime.
Draven’s gaze was fixed on the floor, as was Phoenix’s. Jovi, Field, Hansa, Anjani, and I looked at each other, while Serena stared at the Druid, pain flickering in her eyes. I couldn’t stand the silence anymore.
“It’s only a possible future,” I added weakly. “We’ve changed it before, haven’t we?”
But no one answered. I saw other creatures in the archive hall with us, three of which I’d not met before. They all watched quietly, occasionally glancing at each other before shifting their focus back to the Druid.
“It can’t be,” Draven finally spoke.
His eyes were dark, flickering black. His jaw twitched, his mouth turned into a thin, straight line.
“The snake pendant,” Serena whispered. “You’ll take Asherak’s curse into your…”
“Ashe-what?” I replied, my confusion evident. I’d clearly missed out on some information.
“Azazel’s pendant,” she explained. “It’s a curse. It holds Asherak’s soul. He was the first evil Druid. Think Azazel in his beta version. He created dark and powerful magic, forbidden spells that he used to torture and kill those who opposed him, thousands of years ago.”
“I’ve heard that name before,” Anjani muttered. “In old Eritopian legends. I never thought he was real…”
“He was.” Serena nodded, while Draven boiled by her side. “He went crazy, like Azazel, but the Grand Temple Druids got together and defeated his invading armies. By the time they got to him, though, all they found was his lifeless body. He’d stashed his soul with all its poison inside that snake pendant with ruby eyes. The Druids tried to destroy it, but they couldn’t. So they never spoke of him again and passed the pendant over to the Grand Druids. Only they knew about it, and they kept it safe and hidden from the rest of the world…”
“Until Azazel took over the Third Kingdom and became a Grand Druid himself,” I concluded, putting the pieces together. “It’s why he’s so powerful. He draws energy from the volcanoes, the little Daughter, and the pendant…”
“This cannot be,” Draven said, his voice trembling.
“Draven.” Serena moved to take his hand in hers, but he pulled away, taking a few steps back. I could see him unraveling.
“No. No, it cannot be. I would never.” He looked up at Phoenix. “I wouldn’t… No… I am a Druid; I’m sworn to protect you all. No, I… This can’t be.”
“It can, if it’s a sacrifice,” Jax mused from the edge of our group.
Draven stared at the Lord of Maras with genuine disbelief.
“What kind of sacrifice would it be, if I ended up finishing Azazel’s job for him?” he snapped.
“A sacrifice gone wrong.” Jax held his chin up, his jawline firm, but a sympathetic glimmer in his jade-colored eyes. “Good intentions succumbing to Asherak’s darkness.”
“No.” Draven shook his head, stepping farther away from our group.
My heart tied itself in knots at the sight of his misery, and judging by Serena’s pained expression and fast breathing, she couldn’t stand to see him like this either. She moved toward Draven, but he raised his hands in a blocking gesture, stopping her in her tracks.
“Just no. I would never take a life like that. I would never betray those who have helped me. Who have helped Eritopia,” he said. “I can’t… I would rather die. I would rather end myself if I have to.”
“Draven, don’t say that,” Serena’s sharp voice cut through.
She was angry, her hands balled into fists at her sides, tears welling up in her eyes. Draven looked at her, his eyebrows raised, as he clearly hadn’t expected her to take such a slicing tone.
“You listen to me carefully, Druid,” she added. “What Vita saw is a probable future.”
“The most probable,” Jax added.
“You’re not helping!” she barked at the Mara, whose mouth flattened as he looked down, like a kid being reprimanded by his mother. She then glared at Draven. “You! You won’t go dark, you hear me? I won’t let you! We know what’s going to happen, so we can prevent it. We’ve talked about this before. Every time the future shows us something horrible, we all gasp and cry and feel bad and suffer. But we change it. It’s the same now. We’re going to change it!”
She then turned to face us, her nostrils flaring.
“We need to focus on the big picture here,” she continued. “The single and most immediate threat is Azazel. We don’t know enough about Vita’s vision right now to take any action against it. But what we can do is move forward with our alliance against that snaky bastard. We need to get Vita out of there. We need a concealment spell for the Oracles. We have work to do!”
Her resolve was truly impressive, and rather infectious. Hansa and Jax nodded. I felt Field’s hand as it tightened its grip on mine. I looked at him and nearly lost myself in his turquoise gaze. He was so calm and quiet. I took a page out of his book and willed myself into a balanced state while Serena’s words buzzed around in my head.
She was right. We had a lot of work to do.
“We need to hold out until the alliance meeting,” Serena added, looking at Draven and Phoenix. “Put all those dark thoughts aside for now. We will talk all this through once we get Vita back here safely. We will find a way to change the outcome, like we always do.”
Phoenix didn’t reply, looking away and barely moving his head in a faint nod. Draven took a deep breath, holding it in for a few seconds, then exhaled sharply. He was nowhere near done with the subject, but he seemed to agree with Serena—we had more urgent issues to deal with.
“I think it would be best if we kept this among ourselves for now,” Draven said slowly, looking at the whole group. “It might cause reluctance among our allies if they knew about my potential downfall.”
“Thorn and I won’t say a word,” said the female of the two Bajangs in the archive hall with us. Her companion raised an eyebrow and nodded.
“We can’t afford doubt in our ranks at this point,” he said. “Rest assured, Druid, we will keep quiet about this.”
“I won’t tell my mother either,” Eva chimed in, her amber-yellow gaze fixed on Draven. “Unless it is absolutely necessary. Otherwise there is no point to adding concern to an already difficult situation.”
“Thank you, Eva,” Serena replied with forced politeness.
“I’m looking after the future father of my child, that’s all.” She winked back.
That remark earned her an icy glare from Serena, but the young Lamia didn’t seem to care. I would’ve expressed my own displeasure with her deliberately stinging words, but I took comfort in the fact that she was going to get the short end of the stick in the end, as Draven was never going to go through with Tamara’s condition. If anything, I tried not to smirk at the thought of seeing her face when they eventually told her she wasn’t going to have a little Draven.
The Druid ignored her completely, choosing to resume his seat at the large round table in the middle, where a mountain of books and scrolls waited.
Serena watched him for a moment before she went to Phoenix and cupped his cheek.
“Phoenix, it’ll be okay,” she said. “We won’t let this happen. We’re Shadians, you know. We don’t bend so easily, do we?”
He didn’t reply, but his gaze was locked on hers. Their eyes f
lickered gold, and I figured they were reading each other’s emotions. Phoenix scoffed, then walked over to one of the windows, choosing to stand there and look outside.
Serena moved to try to talk to him again, but I reached out and caught her wrist.
“Don’t,” I told her. “Give him some time. He needs to process all this. It’s coming down on him too fast and too hard.”
“I can’t stand to see him like this,” she muttered.
“Me neither,” Field interjected. “But you’re right. Bigger fish to fry here.”
My Hawk was right. We had a lot to deal with already. Another deadly future wasn’t exactly a surprise. The circumstances had changed, of course, but the outcome was the same. Our main priority was to get Vita out of Luceria and strengthen the alliance against Azazel.
We had a deadly enemy to bring down, without losing our souls and the people we loved in the process. We had a future to change.
Most importantly, we had to find a way to destroy that damn snake pendant. I had a feeling it would all boil down to that one, cursed object in the end.
Vita
Azazel left me alone for the rest of the day. On one hand, I was relieved to not have to see him again. My skin crawled whenever he was near. But on the other hand, I feared he was already devising new ways to disrupt the alliance that was rising against him. And as long as he could feel Aida and Phoenix out there, he could track them.
I sat by the window as the sun set outside, glazing the hills surrounding Luceria in a warm, reddish light. My mind went to Bijarki. I worried about him out there, on his own, but I knew he was strong and fast, and intelligent enough to keep out of trouble. On top of that, he had the invisibility spell. It was only a matter of time before I’d see him again, and my heart jumped at the thought.
The memory of our night together was permanently seared into my soul, sparking fires in my ribcage. The taste of his lips, the weight of his body over mine, his fingers drawing invisible lines on my skin—all moments in which I found refuge while captive in Azazel’s castle.
My heart throbbed at the thought of Bijarki and Anjani agreeing to a marriage for the sake of their people. My Oracle gift had been so cruel to show me such visions, but I could only react by finding a way to stop them from coming true. It tore me apart to think about what Serena would go through with Draven—I’d seen the look in his eyes as he struggled with his Destroyer form, the anguish and the desperate need to have her with him.
It hit me then that there may be a way out of it. I thought of Patrik and Kyana, and his love for her fueling him as he gradually worked to break Azazel’s spell. I figured Draven could do the same through Serena. The love he’d shown for her in my vision was so powerful, so intense, that, if nurtured properly, it could help him push the darkness away. It could stop him from turning.
I heard a key twist in the door, and I turned my head to see Patrik come in with a food tray. He gave me a polite nod as he locked the door and put my dinner on a nearby side table. His side was still covered in thick palm leaves, but he seemed to have regained some color in his cheeks.
“Where’s Damion?” I asked.
“He’s been demoted to kitchen ranks for now,” Patrik replied, the corner of his mouth twitching. “His aggressions toward you cost him his position up here, and since I’m still healing, I offered to bring your food instead.”
I was tense around him, but I wasn’t scared. I knew he was trying to break free, and it somehow made him seem like less of a threat than Damion, whose downright maniacal behavior had nearly killed me. I gave him a curt nod, then gazed out the window.
A minute passed in absolute silence. I waited for him to speak up because I knew he’d bring up Kyana.
“Vita,” he said slowly, prompting me to look at him. He was a couple of feet away from me, his yellow eyes fixed on my face, hands behind his back while the tip of his lower snake body jerked nervously. “I want to thank you for setting Kyana free. I appreciate the risk you subjected yourself to in order to do so. You have no idea how much good you’ve done me with this.”
“I know exactly what I did, and why I did it. I even know what you do when none of Azazel’s green fires are watching,” I replied bluntly.
“Shut up,” he hissed, his expression darkening.
I stilled, fearing I’d brought out the beast in him. He raised his index finger to his lips, then slithered around the room, checking behind every curtain, in every box and drawer, every nook and cranny. I watched quietly as he got down on the floor, then hissed again.
He emerged with a green firefly stuck between two fingers, looking at it with an eyebrow raised before squishing it. I shuddered at the thought of having Azazel’s version of a spy cam in my bedroom. Then I froze, wondering how long that little bug had been there. Had it heard my conversations with Aida?
Fear trickled through my veins. Patrik noticed my reaction and gave me a reassuring half-smile.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Unless Azazel is actually watching in his pool of green fire, he probably didn’t hear or see everything you’ve been up to since you’ve been here. If he had, you never would have made it downstairs into the dungeons to release Kyana.”
He had a point. So, the green fires only worked in real time. I clung to that thought for the time being, as there were already so many horrible things wrong in my life at that point that I simply didn’t want to deal with more.
“How much do you know about what I’m doing?” he asked, watching me curiously.
“As you probably know by now, there are three of us Oracles,” I explained briefly. “But we don’t all see the same. One sees the past, one sees the present, and I see the future. One of us saw you a few days ago, a couple of times, as you attempted to break from Azazel’s control. I know he infected you with his darkness the moment you joined his ranks, and I know you and Kyana are in love. I assumed he was holding her down there as leverage. How am I doing so far?”
Patrik pursed his lips and raised an eyebrow, nodding slowly.
“Surprisingly accurate,” he replied, his shoulders slumping. “I was a good Druid, and a faithful one, too. After I earned my fiftieth circle, Almus offered me a position in his kingdom. I was one of his top lieutenants, and was in charge of diplomatic missions across Eritopia. I believed in him, and I held the Grand Temple Druids in high regard. When Azazel first started acting—”
“Crazy? Maniacal? Genocidal?” I interjected sarcastically.
“All of the above,” he huffed. “I was one of the first to warn Almus of the potential dangers we faced with him on the loose. But even I saw the signs too late. By the time we realized what was going on, the Grand Temple had been destroyed, Genevieve had died in childbirth, along with the child, and Almus had vanished.”
I wanted to tell him about Draven, but kept my cards close to my chest, aware that he was still subject to Azazel’s control spell and couldn’t do anything against his master. Besides, I wasn’t sure how much they actually knew about him, and what they’d uncovered in the mansion after the shield came down.
“I fought for as long as I could before I was captured and brought to Azazel,” he added. “He showed me Kyana in chains, trapped in a cage, and offered me a deal. Her life spared in captivity if I accepted his dominion. I love her. I’ve loved her from the moment I caught her sneaking around the Grand Temple, eavesdropping on Druid lessons of the tenth circle. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t…”
His voice broke, and he took a deep breath.
“I couldn’t let her die. So I told him yes,” he continued. “I was forced to become what you see today, Vita. I had no other choice.”
“I understand,” I replied slowly, then laughed humorlessly. “Love, right?”
“Indeed. But it was the same love that kept me going through all these years without losing my mind. It’s been my love for her that has fueled me into fighting the control spell Azazel cast on me. I’ve been working on it from the day I was turned. Building up resi
stance to the pain it causes me if I do something to the detriment of my master. I’m close to breaking out, and I have to say, knowing Kyana is free is one incredible incentive.”
“Then keep fighting. Don’t stop until you break free,” I encouraged him. “Is there any way I can help you?”
“Haven’t you done enough, little Oracle?” He smiled gently. “I’ll get through it, worry not. You’ve done your part. It’s time for me to do mine…”
“I don’t get why you people keep calling me that,” I muttered, slightly irritated.
“Because you are a little Oracle.”
I scoffed, crossing my arms over my chest.
“But that’s not a bad thing at all,” he continued. “You have so much courage and fire inside you that your stature is meaningless.”
I nearly smiled.
“You have no idea how much fire,” I replied. “Can you tell me about Azazel’s pendant?”
He frowned, taking a deep breath and slowly letting it out.
“I don’t know much about it, to tell you the truth,” he said. “But I suspect it’s old, forbidden Druid magic, and definitely a primary source of power for him.”
“You mean, besides the volcanoes and the little Daughter he keeps hidden somewhere in this castle?”
Patrik gaped at me for a good minute.
“You know about them, too?”
“I’m an Oracle, remember?” I winked in response.
“Fair enough,” he said. “Azazel is very attached to that pendant. He killed Lorenz, Master Druid of the Tenth Kingdom, for it. He won’t let anyone get near it. One might lose a hand if they tried to touch it.”
He then sat on the bed, a defeated look on his face as his broad shoulders dropped further.
“I haven’t been able to do much in my Destroyer form,” he sighed. “I haven’t been able to look into anything related to Azazel’s potential weaknesses. There is enormous pain that comes with each endeavor. You see, the control spell that he uses on us cuts off our Druid magic abilities; it’s like blood poison. It causes pain whenever I try to do something against him, or try to escape, or even try to take my own life. I’ve tried it all.”