Page 32 of The Shadowed Oracle
Eyes widening, Dean said, “This was the reason Karis came to me before he died. He told me Makkar was sending his minions here in hordes, to hunt world-walkers like us.” He fumbled the next words, and Ingrid took the opportunity to cut in.
“World-walkers?”
“Viator that have lived on Earth. There are many of us here, and most of them don’t even know what they are, which makes them easy targets for Makkar and his minions. Those of us who canseeShades, instead of just feel them or make out their shadowy residue, it means that we have more power than the average Viator.”
“You keep saying power,” Ingrid said sharply. “Power. Power. Like I’m supposed to know what it means.”
Dean rubbed at his temples, again struggling with how to fully explain. He took a deep breath as he looked at the controlpanel in front of him. Next to one of the keyboards was a small, cloudy viseer stone, weathered by years and years of use. He grabbed it, shuffling it between his fingers.
“There’s a wide range of powers,” he said finally. “But you… you happen to be a very, very rare breed of Viator.” He brought the stone close to his face, peering into it as if it might do the talking for him. “I’ll put it like this. Karis would’ve loved to meet you before he died, because he’d thought for a long, longtime that he was the last of his kind.”
The words didn’t make sense. “But you’re his son,” Ingrid said. “What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t always work like that. In fact, I’m in the majority. It’s a special gift, what you have in you. A gift that isn’t passed down. A gift that most Viator would kill for.”
“Are you saying other Viator are jealous?” Ingrid said, surprised.Immortalsparked many images in her head, but the very human, very immature picture of envy wasn’t one of them.
“Yes,” Dean admitted coolly. “To be honest, even I’m jealous. But that’s not why I’m babbling like an idiot.”
“Hey, you said it, not me,” Ingrid smirked.
“And I’d say it again. I’m an idiot. I’m jealous of your gift. And I wouldn’t be far off to say every other Viator would be jealous, too. That’s one of the reasons there are so few gifted ones left. Jealous people lash out, they fear what they can’t have or understand, and then they become violent, just like humans.” Quick to add an addendum to his admission, he said, “Really, a gift like yours is so rare I’m more in awe of you than I am jealous.”
They were flattering words, but the only effect they had was to leave the tangy taste of pessimism on Ingrid’s tongue. “If I’m so rare, then why didn’t that Wrane take me right away? Why did he toy with me? That’s what he was doing in that hallway—he was playing with me.”
“It was cloaked,” Dean said. “Hiding. That takes a lot of energy, a lot of power. It was probably too weak to see what you were. See what was in your eyes. Or, just too young or ignorant to have ever encountered someone like you. It could only feel the traces of Viator in you. That’s what it and the other Wranes have been trained to do.”
Ingrid still wasn’t convinced. “It feels like a dream,” she said. “Like I’m still inside my nightmare.”
“I know.” Dean looked deep into her cynical, fiery red eyes. “Think about it like this. Why would it ask if you’dalwaysseen them? The Shades? It could barely register you beyond your Viator blood, so it was gauging how powerful you were the old-fashioned way, by simply asking. To see if you were born that way, or if you’d ever lived in Ealis. Either one would mean you might be valuable to Makkar.”
“What does living in Ealis have to do with it?” She growled, not in annoyance but exhaustion. It was beginning to feel like homework. The questions. The memory searching. Though, instead of simply failing a class, the penalty was death, or worse, become a slave to some tyrannical immortal king.
“All Viator are born with unnaturally long lives. But any special abilities are gifted to them by Ealis, the true source. If world-walkers have never been exposed to the source, they might never tap into their power. Might never discover their abilities.”
Ingrid sighed. “I can see why my father never told me any of this. I can’t imagine what a six-year-old would be like with this swimming in her head.”
Dean smiled austerely, nodding.
“But, one thing is still bothering me,” Ingrid went on. With thoughts of her own father came more thoughts on what Dean had told her in the car about his. About Karis. It had been with her since Dean had told her, nagging like a pulled muscle. “Yousaid Viator like me are sought after because of how rare they are, right? Meaning, they could be in danger just for being what they are?”
Dean nodded, “Yes.”
“Okay, so, if you didn’t inherit whatever it is Karis and I have, and inheriting it is rare, too, then why did Karis keep you in the dark? If he was already hunted, then why not tell you what he was? That he was your Dad?”
Her words touched a sore spot, causing his eyes to narrow. “The best answer I can give is: I don’t know. The less I knew, the less danger I’d be in, that must have been their thinking. Or maybe they didn’t want me getting too attached to Karis. Never mind what growing up thinking my dad abandoned me would do to me.”
Ingrid hesitated at this. She could feel Dean’s pain, understood all too well how complicated old wounds like these could be.
But she couldn’t let him know that—not yet.
“Did you forget who you were talking to?” she asked with a scoff.
Dean’s mouth slightly parted, shocked into silence.
“By my math,” Ingrid went on. “You had both parents around for your childhood. And I hadnone. So don’t go crying to me.”
Dean smiled awkwardly, but it then turned into a genuine chuckle that lingered for a moment.
