“Give it back!” the Oracle exclaimed.
The boy dove under the sheets of the bed, hiding beneath them as he giggled. The Oracle leapt on the bed, throwing back the sheets. She grabbed the boy, tickling his stomach and making mock-growling noises as he laughed helplessly and called out for someone to save him.
“Elissa’s a monster!” he crowed. “Help me!”
“Better a monster than a thief, little man!” She laughed, blowing raspberries into the back of his neck. I smiled despite myself, glad that the Oracle was laughing, and clearly very much in love with the little boy. Somehow her circumstances must have changed—whether it was because she’d regained her sight, or something else, I couldn’t tell.
“A thief?” A man’s voice sounded from the doorway. I spun around to see a figure who looked remarkably like the Druid, leaning against the doorframe, his expression amused as he watched the play-fighting continue. “Say it isn’t true, Draven—have you been taking things from Elissa again?”
The boy looked up, smiling broadly at the man. “Only because she wouldn’t play with me!” the young boy retorted, as if his argument was perfectly fair.
The Oracle and the man looked at one another knowingly.
“I think you should apologize, and return what you’ve taken,” the man replied, coming over to sit on the bed. The boy heaved himself against the man’s back, still clutching the notebook.
“But Father, then she’ll keep writing, and she won’t come outside!” he complained dramatically.
“Have you even asked me yet?” teased the Oracle.
The boy stopped his theatrics and turned to the Oracle, as if the thought hadn’t even occurred to him.
“Will you come outside?” he asked.
“If you give me back my diary, yes.” She smiled.
The boy hastily shoved the book back into her waiting hands, and jumped down from the bed.
“The apology?” his father prompted, holding him back from running out of the room.
“Sorry, Elissa,” the boy called out, already halfway through the door. The Oracle got up to follow him, doing her best to neaten the rumpled sheets. The man clasped her hand as she went to follow the boy.
“Are you happy here, Elissa?” the man asked, the amusement gone from his face as he looked up at her from the bed with a searching gaze.
“You know I am,” the Oracle replied softly. “Happier than I can ever remember being.”
The man nodded, satisfied.
“Good. Let me know if there’s anything you need,” he replied.
The Oracle shook her head.
“There’s nothing that I want for, Almus.”
Almus. The Druid’s father. I recalled the name from the diary Serena was reading. I stared at the now empty doorway in astonishment. Was that small boy really the Druid—and his name was Draven? I looked around, and at the dress of the Oracle and Almus, both looking like they were in an eighteenth-century costume drama…. the Druid must be centuries old. What had happened to the Oracle, Elissa? Why was she no longer in the house? Had she met the same fate as the Druid’s father, or perhaps worse, been captured by Azazel?
The Oracle left the room, blushing slightly as she left. I could tell there was something between the two of them—not a fully developed romantic relationship, not yet, but there was certainly one developing.
Before I could give it more thought, my headache returned, and I knew it was time for me to move on.
The next vision took me outdoors, standing alone in the middle of a large garden. I turned around to see the façade of the plantation house. I must have been at the front entrance, where none of us had explored yet. I could see the grandeur of the building in its fullness here—the classic columns that ran the height of the building, and the porch that ran its length, shaded by large magnolia trees. There was also a second-floor balcony I hadn’t realized existed, backing onto the front rooms of the house. Once again, due to the pristine condition of the plaster and stone, I figured I must be in the past—no doubt most of the porch would be rotten and crumbling now like the rest of the interior.
I looked around, trying to work out what I was supposed to be seeing. I was starting to understand that each vision held a clue of some kind—leading to what, I wasn’t quite sure, but there was a definite message and order to the visions I’d been receiving.
No one was around, and I started to walk up to the porch, wondering if I was meant to go inside the house. As soon as my foot touched the first step up to the main door, I turned back around. There was still nothing to see, but my eyes were drawn back to the tree I’d first been standing by.
There wasn’t anything to distinguish it from the others that surrounded the house, except that its boughs seemed to reach a little wider than most. It was in full bloom, its pale pink flower petals covering the grass where it grew as well as its branches. I started to make my way back, noticing for the first time there was a faint breeze in the air, sending some of the petals scattering and dancing toward me.
When I reached its trunk, I placed my hand on the bark of one of the branches. The tree was warm, probably from the sun. I removed my hand, picking up one of the petals that had flown onto my chest. I studied it, but it seemed ordinary. I dropped the petal, wondering why on earth I was being shown a tree. I was absolutely certain this was what I was meant to be seeing…but I just didn’t understand why.
“Give me a break,” I mumbled to the sky. “What am I supposed to be doing?”
Only the breeze answered, sending another scatter of petals my way. My headache returned, and I sighed—partly in frustration, partly in relief. The boringness of the vision, and the absolute silence from the house, had started to unnerve me.
Serena
[Hazel and Tejus’s daughter]
Vita sat up in the tub and screamed. Her eyes were wide with fear, her entire body shaking, whether from the freezing-cold temperatures of the tub or from what she’d seen in her vision, I didn’t know.
“Vita!” I cried, hauling her up and out of the ice water. Jovi, Field and Bijarki were by my side in a second—Bijarki with a towel that he instantly wrapped around her shaking body, moving us aside. She leaned on him, but her stare was fixed on Jovi, darting over his body until she started to calm down. Her breathing was labored, and Bijarki held her more tightly. I would have objected to him touching her that way had I not been absolutely sure that she needed body heat. Still, I would have preferred it to have been Jovi or Field.
“Vita, what happened?” I asked, cupping her face in my hands as I forced her to focus on me.
“The vision,” she replied, trembling. “It was horrible…I’m still, eugh—It was just…bad.” She started to realize who was holding her so intimately, and extracted herself from Bijarki’s grip. The incubus watched her with a frown, but let her move away from him and took a step back.
“She needs a hot shower,” Jovi announced, looking around for some more towels.
“No,” the Druid replied. “It will cause chilblains, she needs to warm up slowly. We’ll go upstairs when the others wake up, it shouldn’t be long now.”
Jovi looked like he wanted to object, but stayed silent—I agreed with the Druid, a sudden blast of heat would be painful for her. I stepped in, warning the others to give her some space, and held her tightly in the towel. It was the best we could do for now.
I anxiously waited for the others to wake up. Would they be as traumatized as Vita when they did? I watched their unnaturally still bodies, silently praying that they would open their eyes.
Aida was next.
She burst up and out of the water so suddenly, I almost jumped out of my skin.
“What the hell!” she cried out, looking wildly around her as Vita had, but her features were set in fury, not fear. Her muscles were taut, her body crouched into a predatory pose.
“Aida, it’s just us.” Jovi held out his hand to help her out of the tub. Her golden eyes widened, and after a few seconds
she clutched on to him, allowing her brother to maneuver her onto the ground. He silently handed her a towel, and she took it gratefully.
My eyes met Jovi’s. I hadn’t expected this—the visions had affected our friends far more than either of us had anticipated. He held his sister tightly to him, and muttered something under his breath.
Field remained looking over Phoenix’s tub, but repeatedly glanced at Aida and Vita, clearly eager for my brother to wake up so we could all get out of here. Vita’s shakes seemed to be intensifying, and now I was sure it was down to a dangerously low body temperature.
“I need to get out of here,” Aida pleaded. “Please, Jovi.”
“Wait,” the Druid replied, moving over to Phoenix’s tub. “Field, help me drag him up. He’s stayed under too long.”
Field instantly yanked Phoenix up, lifting him clear of the tub. My brother coughed a few times, his body spasming as he tried to fight off Field. The Hawk wouldn’t let him, holding on tightly as my brother twisted in his grip.
“Wake up!” Field yelled at him, shaking him by the shoulders. Phoenix took a large, shuddering breath and stopped struggling. He looked around at us all, and I could see his muscles start to relax as he recognized where he was.
“Sorry.” He turned to Field, who handed him a towel and shook his head.
“Don’t be. Are you all right?”
“Been better,” my brother replied, looking back at the tub in confusion. He then turned to Vita and Aida, his eyes widening as he took in their shaking bodies and their still-wild eyes.
“Upstairs,” the Druid commanded. I didn’t hesitate to follow him out of the room, still clutching Vita to me as we ascended the staircase. The Druid came to a stop in the living room, where the fire was blazing. I walked Vita over to the chair in front of the fire—there was easily enough space for both her and Aida. Jovi joined me, helping his sister sit down.
“Phoenix, stand by the fire,” I urged my brother. He was standing in the doorway from the basement, looking around the living room in a gaze close to fascination.
“Phoenix?” I prompted him.
“Yeah, sorry,” he replied, moving to the fireplace and standing by the chair. I looked at the Druid. I was desperate to know what they’d seen—but I didn’t want to pressure them either, it had obviously been an ordeal. Bijarki stood in the corner of the room, looking over at the two girls on the armchair. He looked pale and worried. I wasn’t sure how I felt about his concern—was it directed at Vita? Or all three of them? If the latter, I would consider his concern more genuine…I caught the incubus’s eye, and he frowned, irritation flickering across his expression, and then moved across the room to stand by the Druid.
“Can you tell us about the visions?” the Druid asked. “It’s important we know what you saw.”
Vita nodded, standing up from the chair and moving closer to the fire.
“There’s a lot I don’t understand,” she whispered.
“I know,” the Druid replied. “That’s fine. Hopefully, we can piece together anything you don’t understand.”
“Okay,” Vita replied, taking a deep breath. “I had three visions—one was in an empty valley, it was huge and I was walking through it…” She paused, looking down at the floor. “And then I saw a figure up ahead, but I didn’t recognize who it was.”
Her glance swept the room, and then returned to the floor. I had known Vita since I was little, and I knew something wasn’t quite right…she was leaving something out, but I didn’t know why. I swiftly looked over at the Druid, to see if he’d noticed anything was amiss, but he was just looking at Vita with an inquisitive expression.
“Then the vision changed, and I was in a room with three Destroyers—one of them Azazel.”
I gasped at this—no wonder she’d woken up screaming.
“He was threatening me—with the life of someone else, but I didn’t know who. Then the vision changed again, and I saw the Nevertide Oracle. We were all trying to save her…but then the Destroyers came.” She shook her head, as if trying to shake away the vision. All of us fell silent, except the Druid, who continued to question her on the specifics. The conversation didn’t return to the valley though, and the figure she’d seen. When Vita had finished being interrogated, it was Aida’s turn. She told us, in a quavering voice I hardly recognized as belonging to my friend, what she’d seen.
“So there might be someone hunting us down, along with the Destroyers?” I asked when she’d finished.
Aida nodded. “I didn’t hear what the Destroyer’s decision was—the man he was torturing might be dead,” she replied.
“Can you describe the man?” the Druid asked.
Aida nodded, recalling the vision as best she could. When she had finished, the Druid ran a hand through his hair, his face twisted in an expression of disgust.
“Do you know who it might be?” I asked.
“Another Druid, who must have survived,” he replied shortly. “But I’m not entirely sure who. There are a few families…a few Druid families, that managed to escape the first sweep of Azazel’s annihilation of our kind, but that was a long time ago now. I’m not sure who’s left.”
“And the incubi?” I asked Bijarki. “Who are they?”
“An army. The last that we have. And by the sounds of it, they are not going to be around for much longer.” The incubus turned his attention to the Druid. “It sounds like Kristos’s father and brother. Without Kristos’s support, they won’t wait for us—they will attack Azazel’s Destroyers and be wiped out like all before them.”
I recalled that Kristos had been the incubus who had died in the jungle the day we came across Bijarki while attempting to flee the house. Bijarki had also mentioned that his own father had betrayed the incubi, siding with the Destroyers. If that was the case, then I doubted Bijarki could do much to persuade them not to fight. I suddenly felt a wave of pity for the incubi. It sounded like things were desperate for all the species of Eritopia.
“But these things are happening in the future, right?” I clarified. Maybe there was time to stop the incubus armies.
The Druid shook his head. “I’m not entirely sure of that. Phoenix, can you tell us what you saw?”
“This house,” my brother replied evenly. “I had three visions as well, but they were all here. I saw an Oracle named Elissa, first as a servant girl, surrounded by other servants, and then later, when she was sharing this house with someone called Almus and a young boy.”
I glanced quickly at my brother. He gave me a small, barely perceptible nod. He wouldn’t tell the Druid about the diary. I turned my attention back to the Druid, interested to see how he would react to this vision—I was convinced that Almus was his father.
“Elissa,” he replied softly, his gaze miles away. His features softened for a moment, and then he cleared his throat. “Yes. She was the Oracle who lived here with my father and me, long before the Nevertide Oracle ventured into the In-Between. Interesting that you should see her…”
“Your name is Draven, isn’t it?” Phoenix prompted.
The Druid’s face went still, holding Phoenix’s gaze, then he nodded. “That is my name, but that’s beside the point... Did you see anything else?”
“A tree,” Phoenix replied, frowning. “But nothing happened—it was just a magnolia tree, outside the house.”
Draven – thank God we finally had a name for him—nodded slowly.
“I think what’s happening here is that your visions have somehow divided,” Draven replied, completely ignoring the matter of the tree. “Vita’s visions took place in the future, Phoenix’s in the past—which makes me assume that Aida’s visions, especially as she saw Vita emerging from the bath, are of the present.”
“Has that ever happened before?” I asked, stunned.
“Not that I know of,” Draven replied. “But then no other Oracle has passed her gift on to another—nor has there ever been an Oracle who was descended from an Ancient.”
“
But the future can change, can’t it?” Vita burst out, pallor returning to her features.
“Yes, it can change,” Draven reassured her. “Depending on decisions and actions changing in the present. It is perhaps fortunate that the visions have been divided between you this way—it means we will be better able to isolate what is happening now, what happened in the past, and what may be to come. In most Oracles, it is very difficult to separate the three.”
Vita sank back down into the armchair, gathering up her knees and clutching them to her chest. She had definitely omitted something from her visions—her panic was obvious, and I wondered if she had also left out details of the Destroyer attack she saw. She had claimed she only saw them appear, but now I wasn’t so sure.
“I think that’s enough for today.” I turned to Draven, who looked like he was about to disagree with me, until he saw the warning flash in my eyes. My friends had been through enough. Anything else could wait until tonight or tomorrow. All three of them looked completely exhausted.
“Fine,” Draven replied. “Get some rest. We will resume training tomorrow.” He walked toward the door and then waited, turning to Bijarki with an arched brow when the incubus failed to follow him.
“Right,” Bijarki muttered, taking one last look in Vita’s direction before following Draven from the room.
Vita
[Grace and Lawrence’s daughter]
I should have said something.
Should I?
I just didn’t know. I hoped I’d given the Druid enough information to know what lay ahead, without having to go into the specifics. And if my visions were open to change, then wouldn’t telling everyone about Jovi just worry them needlessly? On the other hand, maybe it was important to be fully aware of the dangers…what might potentially lie ahead. But perhaps now wasn’t the right time—maybe I could tell them later. The visions didn’t take place here, so there was no need to say anything until we left the house…maybe that was the best solution.