I stared at Sherus’ flaming red hair, and all became clear to me. “You’re a fae of fire, aren’t you?”
He nodded.
“Which is why I have the power to manipulate fire?”
“Correct.”
One way or another, fire seems to run in my family…
“Please, continue,” I urged.
“My father ruled our fiery realm as emperor, but he wasn’t as qualified as my grandfather— although even in his time we’d never gotten on well with the water fae.” So Sherus is royalty. Interesting. My father, lacking tact and intelligence, ended up sparking a feud between our realm and theirs. It spiraled into an all-out war, and we desperately needed assistance in battle if we were to ever overcome them. But my father—as proud as he was foolish— refused to seek the help of others. So I did what any man of my lineage would do. For the sake of our people, I led a rebellion and overturned my father. Once he was beheaded, all eyes were on me—the late king’s only son—for a solution.” He crossed his arms over his chest, memories whirling in his eyes as he stared at his realm. “My sister and I searched far and wide for allies, but fae are not the most, shall we say, liked of creatures. Certainly none of our other elemental brothers would come to our aide. In the end, the only option we had was to accept the help of ghouls… and in the process we formed a pact with them.”
“What pact exactly?” It was Nuriya who posed this question, her voice still uneven from the trauma of last night.
“A pact that was overseen by the oracle twins. In exchange for their manpower in battle, we would agree to serve the ghouls by supplying them with ten thousand ghosts within the span of fifty Earth years.”
I grimaced. I didn’t have to wonder much why fae were so disliked.
“If we failed to meet the quota, we would become servants of the ghouls for a hundred years more. Still, our end of the deal seemed comparatively light, compared to the valuable service the ghouls were providing us,” Sherus continued. “But I should’ve given more thought to it. At the time, I was desperate. All along, the ghouls knew that they were tricking us. They knew such a number would be nigh impossible to achieve.” He glanced at me. “Procuring ghosts is harder than one would think.”
Oh, how sorry I feel for you.
“Most do pass to the other side, and those who remain behind are not so easy to catch. So we found ourselves, and still find ourselves, in a mess. I tried to keep the morale up among my council, but even I have accepted that no matter how hard we work, we will never meet the ghouls’ demands.” He ran a hand over his face. Then he set his eyes back on the jinn. “So this is where you come in… We need you to annul our pact.”
I wondered why a witch—or a group of witches—couldn’t have helped him with that. It would have saved me a hell of a lot of trouble… but then, I guessed, I ought to have saved the Nasiris from the Drizans regardless. “And you couldn’t use witches because…”
“No witch would be strong enough. The oracles, being freaks of nature, have their own brand of magic. One best suited to a jinni’s capabilities. Though even jinn can’t break the pact.”
I frowned. “What?”
“The oracles created the pact between us and the ghouls to be unbreakable… even by themselves. Otherwise what meaning would the pact have? It would be worthless, both to us and the ghouls, if it could be broken. However, since the oracles were overseers of the pact, there is another way the jinn could free us from it.”
“What?” I asked, weary of where he was going with all this.
“Kill the oracle sisters.”
The jinn surrounding me gasped. Then a deathly silence enshrouded us. It felt like Sherus had just walloped my skull with a brick.
Kill Pythia? Kill Hortencia?
I couldn’t allow that. I wouldn’t.
“They can see the future,” I said to Sherus, exasperated. “How could the jinn possibly murder them?” Assuming we were even willing to try. “They would have seen them coming already, God knows how many hundreds of years before.”
“That’s for your jinn to figure out,” Sherus said, looking mildly irritated by now. “If I knew how, I wouldn’t be placing the task in their hands, would I?”
His eyes swept over my jinn companions once more before he began to drift away from us. “I will give your jinn three days, Benjamin Novak. And I’m sure I don’t need to remind you what will happen to you again if they fail…”
Crap.
“Oh, and one more thing to keep in mind,” Sherus added. “We fae have a considerable influence over Earth’s elements—the power to effect natural disasters… Let’s just say I would suggest your jinn don’t fail in this, if you have any affection for your home realm at all.”
With that, he dashed away.
Ben
Natural disasters. What did the bastard mean by that? Was he threatening to cause catastrophes on Earth? Had he been blackmailing me? Or perhaps adding an extra incentive, as if keeping my body wasn’t already incentive enough?
I hadn’t thought it was possible for a man to be put under more stress than I was now. You’re going to get your life stripped from you, lose everyone you love and be kidnapped back to Nightmare Land, and then let’s lump in jeopardizing the entire human planet while we’re at it…
There was no curse word strong enough to use in that moment.
Drawing in a deep breath, I turned to face the others. Everyone looked at me, clueless.
But I knew what I had to do. There was only one thing I could do. I had to try to make contact with Hortencia again—augh—and beg for some scraps to help me figure out this mess.
I thought back to the last time I’d visited her cave. Had that only been yesterday? She hadn’t even been there—something that had come as a surprise to even Aisha. And when she’d revealed herself via that potion, she’d looked so… old.
I wonder…
Could that have anything to do with this? The fae’s intention to kill her and her sister? Had that been why she’d uprooted so unexpectedly?
Placing my hand on the small of River’s back and drawing her to me, I addressed everyone. “We need to head to Hortencia’s cave.” And hope she has another little bottle waiting for me there, containing some clue as to what the hell I’m supposed to do now.
* * *
Aisha and the other jinn knew where Hortencia’s cave was located—although none of them seemed to know much at all about her twin, Pythia.
Once we had arrived outside the cave, I decided that it was best for only three of us to enter, the same three as before: River, Aisha and me.
Trudging through the tunnel, we reached her front door. I didn’t bother knocking this time; the door wasn’t locked, anyway. When we strode inside, the small room was exactly how we’d left it. Certainly there were no signs of the oracle having returned. The empty bottle that I’d drunk from still sat on the table, along with the note she’d left.
I gazed around, desperately hoping there would be another bottle here. Another note. Another something.
“Oh, look!” River pointed upward and my eyes shot to the rocky ceiling.
Somebody had scrawled a note with white chalk, so bold and jagged it looked creepy.
“Everyone has something to hide.”
I stared at it, unblinking.
She already told me this last time I had a meeting with her. What does she mean by it now?
“What if she means… herself?” River suggested.
“What would Hortencia have to hide?” I muttered.
River shrugged, then cast her eyes around the room again. “Maybe… Maybe it’s an invitation to dig a little deeper. I dunno…”
“Maybe she’s hiding something in here?” Aisha said, catching on to River’s train of thought.
“Let’s search deeper then,” I said, and the three of us began searching the room—something that didn’t take long, since there wasn’t much to search. When I reached the oven, to my surprise I found a book inside.
A thick, dusty, fabric-bound book.
“Look at this,” I murmured, capturing the girls’ attention as I placed the tome on top of the table. A cloud of dust rose in the air as I opened it and turned to the first page, making River cough.
What is this? It must have been old, for the paper was yellowed, and the small black writing—Hortencia’s handwriting—was faded. Not too faded to read, however…
As I began to scan the page, River and Aisha stood on either side, reading along with me. I’d gotten halfway down the first page when I realized that this was some kind of journal that the oracle had been keeping. Much of what I read didn’t even make sense to me, and seemed more like ramblings without a thread of thought behind them. It felt creepy to be reading this, like a window into her mad mind. A dozen more pages in however, the sentences began to make more sense, until I realized that what I was reading were confessions. Retellings of some truly atrocious acts carried out by her and her sister.
Deliberately misleading a young werewolf family into being caught by a group of black witches. Destroying relationships by planting doubts in each person’s mind. Even sparking wars between opposing clans. All of this for no reason other than spite. The way she wrote was sickening. I could practically feel her glee emanating from the pages.
“How did she write all this without eyes?” River wondered softly next to me.
“No idea,” I murmured, my mind still drenched in her confessions.
I continued reading until the writing came to an abrupt stop, only one third of the way through the book. She hadn’t even finished the sentence she’d started. It just trailed off. The rest of the book was empty except for the very last page where another note was written—one that I could only assume was meant for me:
“Don’t you think we deserve to die?”
Ben
Deserve to die?
What is she trying to communicate to me?
“Truthfully,” Aisha muttered, drawing in a breath, “I never knew those two sisters were so meddling.”
Meddling, was putting it politely.
River slid onto my lap and flipped back through the pages again. She stopped at the section where the writing ended. “Why does it stop here?” She furrowed her brows, leaning closer to the pages.
“Maybe she just got bored of journaling.” Aisha shrugged.
I wasn’t sure about this. I couldn’t be sure of anything with these oracles. But after all my prior dealings with her, I couldn’t help but try to read into every single detail, and wonder if it could be some kind of cryptic message to lead me forward.
I turned back to the last page again, to the question she had proposed to me. Do they deserve to die?
By most people’s measures, I would say yes, certainly. Though I was not God. It was not for me to mete out justice for incidents I had no involvement in. Especially when they had not done anything to harm me directly… well, sort of.
Even after paging through Hortencia’s confessions, I still didn’t think I had it in me to murder them in cold blood—even if such a thing were possible.
I lingered at the back page a moment longer, then, heaving a sigh, I carried it back to the oven, intending to replace it while I thought about what we could do next. But as I opened the oven this time, I realized that there was something else in here, something that I had not seen before due to my surprise over the book. I had missed a letter, laid out on the tray. It must have been tucked right beneath the book. Replacing the book, I drew out the letter and flattened it against the table, so the three of us could read it together.
“No matter what justifications might be going through your righteous little mind, I and my sister do, indeed, deserve to die. Hence, what follows are instructions on how to find us both… and, in the process, complete your training.”
Training? Huh?
“This letter will manifest one directive at a time, and you must complete them all, exactly as described. Stray from the orders even once, and you will receive no more instructions. You will never find me or my sister. Follow blindly, pretty boy, and you shall find that which you seek.”
“Pretty boy?” River couldn’t help but smirk.
My mind, however, was fixed on another part of her note entirely. “… You shall find that which you seek.”
But what do I seek?
For God’s sake, I don’t want to murder anyone. I just want to live a normal, physical life with River!
The note on the paper faded and was replaced with a smaller line of text:
“Task one: Return to your body in Cruor and burn it. You may take your half-blood with you, and also your jinni—for the purpose of speed. Remember, you only have three days.”
Like I need a reminder.
“Three days to kill them,” Aisha said, more to herself than anyone else. “It looks like she wants to take you on a treasure hunt to find her and…”
“Kill her?” River asked, brows raised. “Really? Why would she invite Ben to kill her?”
None of us had any rational answers. I lowered my eyes to the parchment again, focusing on the first task still written there, stubborn, unmoving. Unmoving until we complete the task.
Cruor. That sure was one place in the universe I’d hoped to never return to. And we’d have to find my body. Would it even still be there after all this time? The oracle obviously thought so.
I stood up, folding the letter and tucking it into River’s back pocket, since I had no pockets of my own. “Keep this safe in there,” I told her.
“We’re seriously going to Cruor?”
“What else do we do?” I said. “We don’t need to think about killing them yet. We may not even get that far and maybe, just maybe, she’s got something else up her sleeve that she is not revealing yet… We’ve no choice but to do what she says.”
River swallowed hard, while Aisha shrugged, like it wasn’t such a big deal.
“So,” the jinni said, grabbing my and River’s hands and pulling us out of the cave. “Let’s go…”
* * *
I explained briefly to the others as we emerged from the cave what had to be done, and although they were horrified, as we had already concluded, there was no other way forward. I wanted to leave River behind, but since Hortencia had specified she should come too, I had no grounds upon which to argue with my fiancée. In the meantime, the jinn and our troop from The Shade insisted they’d wait here for us.
As harrowing as the thought of returning to Cruor was, the journey was relatively simple thanks to Aisha. We soon found ourselves standing on the cold shores of the dark realm of the Elders. My stomach was in knots as I looked around us. The place looked deader than I’d ever seen it. Everything was still—the mountains, even the red-tinged clouds. Almost no breeze. Memories rolled over me: the day Julie had betrayed me, coming face to face with the Elder who had imprinted on me.
“So… if you could tell us where your body is right about now, that would be good,” Aisha grumbled, holding a shawl closer around her shoulders.
If Aisha was cold, River must be freezing. I rubbed my hands down her arms as I tried to rack my brain as to the location. I had spent a long time here after leaving my body, being afraid and mulling over what to do next. I’d wandered up and down this same shoreline many times before in my attempt to detach myself.
“Uh, let’s head in that direction,” I told Aisha, pointing north.
I flew with River, while Aisha floated alongside us. Finally, I spotted the peak—I recognised it even from a distance due to the massive crater that was drilled though it. The crater the Elder had emerged from in his attempt to possess me.
To my shock, my body still lay there, exactly where I’d left it. As I descended, shivers ran through me. I’d forgotten how bizarre the feeling was, to be staring down at oneself… or at least one’s body. It was rigid, but didn’t show signs of deterioration.
“My God, this is so creepy,” River breathed. She gripped my arm hard, as if reassuring herself that I w
as still standing next to her.
We circled around the body and then I bent down. I placed my fingers against the corpse’s forehead. Stone cold. Not much different than when it had been alive.
“Well,” I said, realizing how parched my throat had gotten, “now we’ve got to burn it.”
I looked expectantly at Aisha. I might be able to conduct and spread fire, but I wasn’t able to create it—at least, it didn’t seem so. She bent down, and a blaze billowed from her fingertips. It was so unexpectedly large, it almost touched my and River’s ankles. Not wanting to turn into Burning Man again, I staggered back with River, watching as the fire engulfed my previous body. I had expected the jinni to be a little more… subtle about it. I don’t know, something a little more ceremonious. It was my funeral, after all. But this was Aisha, I reminded myself.
My eyes glazed over as I watched the fire consume my body. I experienced an odd twinge in my chest. A pain, almost. It was like something was being ripped from me, and it left me feeling unsteady. Uncertain of my very existence. That what I’d forever identified with was so… material. So destructible.
The bonfire rose higher and higher, choking the air with smoke and stinging our eyes, until all that remained was ashes. This vision I knew would haunt me for the rest of my life.
That’s it. My body’s gone.
After the fire had died down, we moved to another mountain peak further away just in case the blaze had drawn any attention. The last thing we needed was to encounter an Elder, although admittedly they should still be too weak to cause harm even to River.
Reaching into River’s back pocket, I slid out the note and unfolded it. When I spread it out, the note changed before my very eyes. I was surprised by what I read. I’d been expecting to see the next instruction she had for us, but instead, it simply said:
“So long as you burn to live, you shall, with or without breath.”