Page 31 of The Shadowed Oracle
“And Wranes, they have abilities?” Ingrid asked. “It knew things about me. Things it shouldn’t have known.”
Casual, almost bored, Dean asked, “You mean the things you see?”
Ingrid tensed, silent.
“We call them Shades,” Dean said. “They’re like spirits. Ghosts of Viator trying to come back to the world by inhabiting one of the living. They’re mostly harmless if you know how to fight them. It’s the mental damage they can cause, the never-ending pursuit, trying to break you down until you… well, you know.”
Dean leaned back in the vintage chair, letting things sink in for her. Letting her breathe, process, and prepare. In a heartbeat, he’d solved the most torturous mystery of her life, explained what her father never even attempted to. She needed time to think. Needed to sit with this barrage of newness. Knowing what to call herself, knowing what to call her nightmares, it didn’t even begin to scratch the surface.
Different Worlds. New races of humanoids, spirits and creatures. Hearing it was one thing, digesting and understanding the information was another.
“Wrane—bad. Shade—bad. Viator—not all bad. Got it,” Ingrid forced a smile. “Now, why are we called that?”
Like ripping a band-aid off, Dean replied, “It’s taken from an old Latin variant. In modern English, it just means: Immortals.”
“Wait…immortalimmortal?”
“As in, we live forever.” He noticed Ingrid’s complex expression, which was horrified and exalted all at once. “Butit sounds a lot cooler than it is. We aren’t invincible, not in the slightest. We’re stronger, bigger, faster, have better genes. But we’re hardly indestructible.” He scanned Ingrid’s face again. “Do you need another break?”
“No, let’s keep going.” She was too full of questions, too terrified of the deadly things trying to capture or kill or possess her, and too overwhelmed to consider the desirous nature of what she’d just been told she was.
Immortal.
“Just keep talking,” she said. “Tell me about the Wranes.”
“Understood.” Dean rolled himself closer to Ingrid, speaking in a lower, velvety way not at all matching the grim details. “Viators have hunted and enslaved Wranes for millennia. We are natural enemies because Viator are endless wells of energy, of life, while Wranes are parasitic, wretched creatures feeding off whatever they can. Meaning Viator are by far their favorite meal.”
Ingrid grimaced at that, unable to stop the memory of that long, bony finger scratching at the back of her neck.
“The Wrane we ran into today, though,” Dean said. “I don’t think it was hungry. It wouldn’t make sense to trap you like that, only to take you somewhere else. My guess is he’s bound to someone far more powerful.”
Something in his tone made Ingrid think he was holding back again. “You guess? Or, you know?”
“I’m guessing about that particular Wrane’s motives. But I don’t need to guess who sent him here looking for world-walking Viator like us. It’s the same man who sent whoever’s been stalking you. His name is Makkar. King of Hydor. He is at war, and has been for years. And now he’s scouring Earth for something, any power to help him finally win it.”
You might be useful.Ingrid recalled the Wrane’s words like it was in the room with her. Her heartbeat quickened, palms sweating.
“Useful,” she whispered after a moment, as if she’d just come up for air. “The Wrane. It said I might be useful.”
“When?” All at once, Dean sounded alarmed. “What were you talking about?”
“It was after I said I could see the nightmares—or, I mean the Shades that followed me. It asked if I’d always been able to see them.”
Dean cleared his throat nervously. “And what did you say?”
“I said yes. I didn’t, uhh—should I not have?”
“It’s fine.” His face turned to stone. “What else did it say?”
Peering at the plain concrete ground, then urgently snapping her head back to Dean when she remembered the scene in its entirety, she said, “It seemed more interested in me. That’s all. After that, it took me. Or, tried taking me. And that’s when you…” A realization clicked into place. “Are you saying because of that, because I’d always been able to see the nightmares, that’s why he was taking me to Makor?”
“Makkar.” Dean corrected her instinctively.
Ingrid tightened her glare, over-annunciating the name in mockery. “May-Kaaar. You’re saying that Wrane was taking me to him because I could see the Shades?”
At that, Dean hung his head. “Yes,” he said somberly. “Otherwise, he would’ve killed you then and there.”
The games—they made sense now. It had wanted so badly to kill her. Wanted to destroy her. But it couldn’t. It wasn’t there freely. It was under someone else’s control.
