Page 118 of Lady of Shadows

“And now?” Scarlett asked, swallowing thickly.

“You were made for such a time as this, sister,” Juliette said, reaching out and grasping Scarlett’s hands with her own, repeating words she’d said with her dying breaths.

“No,” Scarlett whispered, shaking her head in denial. “No. I am not a queen. I was not made for a throne.”

“Then what are you?”

“What?”

“Then what are you?” Juliette repeated, her amber eyes fixed on Scarlett’s orbs of icy blue.

“What kind of question is that?” Scarlett demanded.

“If you are not a queen, if you are not to care for those who cannot care for themselves, what are you to the realms?”

“I don’t know,” Scarlett snapped, jerking her hands from the Oracle’s. “I stopped knowing who I was the minute I drove that dagger into your heart.”

“You did not cease to exist when my heart stopped beating,” Juliette chided gently.

“But I did,” Scarlett whispered. She sank to her knees, and Juliette dropped with her, reaching for her hands once more. “I shattered the moment I drove that dagger into your heart. He destroyed me.”

There it was. She had said it. The thing she had never allowed herself to admit to anyone. Not Sorin. Not even herself. Mikale had wanted a broken pet, and he had accomplished that task the second he’d made her kill Juliette. She had been shoved into a pit. She had been forced to walk through a hell, and she didn’t recognize the person that was emerging on this side of that journey.

“Yes, but he has come for you,” Juliette answered with a soft smile.

“Mikale has come for me. Over and over. Last time, I nearly went with him. Sorin and Briar think he was entrancing me, but he wasn’t, Juliette. I was not under some Night Child spell. A part of me thought it would be easier—” Scarlet swallowed against the lump in her throat. “That maybe it would be easier just to go with him, let him finish breaking me. If it would keep those I love safe. If it would keep the orphans safe.”

Juliette reached up and brushed tears from her face. “Mikale is not of whom I speak, my friend. I speak of the one who comes for you. I speak of the one who came for you before he even knew who you were. I speak of the one who has searched for you since the dawn of time.”

“You speak as if I have a twin flame,” Scarlett scoffed.

Juliette barked a laugh. “We grew up and trained together, Scarlett. Iknowyou are not this dense.”

“No,” Scarlett whispered. “He is not mine.”

“You know that isn’t true,” Juliette retorted. “You have screamed it at him in your most desperate moments.”

“How could you possibly know that?” Scarlett asked with a sidelong look at Juliette. She still could not believe she was sitting here, speaking with her. Maybe that potion she’d drank did more than nullify her magic…

“All powerful Seer. Remember?” Juliette said with her wicked grin as she gestured to herself.

Scarlett snorted. “Careful, sister. Your vanity is showing.”

“I’m still me,” Juliette scoffed. “Just different, I suppose. Just as you are still you, only…different.”

Scarlett didn’t say anything to that as she looked around the dark cave cavern. “You will reside here now? Forever? What of the previous Oracle?”

“Those are secrets I am not allowed to reveal, even to a queen of the realm,” Juliette replied quietly.

“I am not a queen,” Scarlett repeated, but Juliette said nothing in response. Just waited for her, as she always had. As Sorin did. Waited for her to collect her thoughts.

“I have been terrified. To let myself love him,” she whispered into the darkness of the cave. “I have been terrified that someday his twin flame would come for him, and I would lose him forever. As I have lost you.”

“He has proven himself to you. Over and over again. He will always come for you. He will always catch you.”

Scarlett swallowed, looking down at the dirt covered floor. “Does he know?”

“He has told you. In so many ways,” Juliette confirmed, her voice solemn.

---