Page 5 of The Demon Mark

Another flinch. This time, almost like the woman was trying to jerk her arm out of Lilith’s grip. “How do you know that?”

“You can’t let him stay. I know you think he is still with you, and that you want him to stay there, but he is suffering. You must tell him you are sorry for not going to him while he was dying. They lied to you. The miners were there with him for two whole days. They think what they did was a mercy, but you have to let him go.”

“What? I’m not letting him go. Get off of me, witch!” Now the woman was really pulling, seemingly shocked that she couldn’t yank her arm away from Lilith’s grip.

Lilith was little. Her form might appear delicate and small, but she was stronger than the average mortal. Especially when she used her magic like this. She couldn’t let go of the woman if she’d wanted to.

“People are coming to your home,” she continued, as though the woman in her grip wanted to hear more. “They will hurt his spirit. He needs to pass on quietly and with comfort, not being forced from this realm where they will rip and tear his soul into pieces. If you do not do this, you will never find him in the afterlife. There will be nothing of him left.”

“Get off of me!” This time, there was a flash in front of her. A sharp-edged glint of something made to hurt, to maim. She didn’t have time to react. Couldn’t have, even if she wanted to.

There was more the oracle wanted to say. More about how she knew the woman didn’t want her husband to leave because he crept into her bed at night. There was still pleasure. There was still a relationship, but it wasn’t real.

The bitter bite of pain cut through the prophetic words falling from her tongue. It sliced across her cheekbone and through her mouth, parting her cheek and lip. Metal flooded her mouth, startling her out of the prophecy, but not for very long.

Only long enough for the woman to wrench her arm from Lilith’s grip. The force of that jerk brought Lilith out of the water. She was dragged deeper into the room, away from safety, away from her water, where she was supposed to stay. The words repeated in her head, over and over, in the sound of her master’s voice.

“Never leave the pool, Lilith. If you do, they will descend upon you like the beasts of the forest. They will tear into your flesh and you will never recover from it. They will cut little pieces off you to keep for themselves.”

Faintly, she was aware that her priestesses had raced for the woman. The knife was wrestled out of her attacker’s hand, clattering onto the marble floor in the silence of the room.

And when she pressed her icy hands against the cold floor, she could see that water and blood pooled around her. Spreading. It spread everywhere until she could only see the slick crimson covering her hands. Was she hurt that badly?

But her thoughts were fragmented. She knew the woman was being dragged away. And some part of her mind heard the words that were spat in her direction.

“She is no oracle! That is a witch! Black magic has no place in this kingdom.”

Maybe it was black magic, but she was no witch. Her hands slipped in the blood while mist still rose off her skin because she wasn’t done yet. There were more people who needed her, who needed to hear their futures and to understand what could go wrong.

And then she looked up.

Lying on the cushions before her, not flinching away like all the other people now were, was a man. The white mist in front of her eyes obscured much of his figure, but she could see how strong he was. Those broad shoulders were only gifted to those who were powerful. Her mist rolled over him, caressing his ankles and coiling up his legs.

She wanted to touch him. She wanted to live the life of a man so powerful that surely no one ever questioned him. No one ever threatened him, and neither had he ever been attacked at his own performance.

She reached for him with blood streaked fingers and gently gripped him. But then there was... nothing.

Nothing at all. Just an empty maw that opened its mouth and tipped her down into the darkness. Lilith could hear herself screaming. The pain that bloomed through her body rivaled the ache of her wounds. Or even worse than the need to cast down prophecies like meteors from the sky. She was in pain. She was floating in nothing and was no one at the same time.

This man’s future was darkness. Not bleak, not filled with pain.

It was nothing.

He was a dead man living. The oracle in her screamed in rage, in pain, and then fear as her eyes rolled back in her head and she sank into oblivion.

3

What a show that was.

Envy wasn’t sure he’d been that entertained for a while. The woman was a true oracle, that much he knew. Even though the victim of her prophecies had screamed out that she was a witch, he knew real power when he felt it. Every hair on his body stood up the moment that mist permeated the room.

Like lightning, it zinged across his body every time it touched him. He could feel it trying to wriggle underneath his skin. To sink into his lungs and give her a hook to see beyond what he was now and into what he would be.

Oracles were uncomfortable to be around, especially ones like this. Her power was so strong, even a mortal could feel that it was real. He knew the moment her power touched him that he was going to consume it. Beautiful woman or not, he’d long ago forgotten how to feel guilty for his need.

“Take her power for your own?” Orphe asked, her wings rising and falling with excitement.

“Of course I will.”

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