Page 97 of The Scent of Vengeance

Cordelia

Ishookmyhead,opening my eyes with a frustrated sigh.

“I can’t sense anything through the darkness in here, and I’m too low on power to push through it.”

Zeke nodded as if he’d expected that, reaching for one of our bags and rummaging through it until he produced a small cloth bundle. He looked up at me as it began to unravel.

“Don’t look too closely, but I figure they might show us where it is.”

I snapped my gaze up to the ceiling before the glow of the other two crystal stones could lure me in, but the glow of them was so bright that it outshone the power orb I’d created earlier.

“Woah,” Noah muttered. “Well I’d say it’s definitely close.”

“There!” Liam snapped, pointing over to another set of shelves and the pearlescent glow that was now shining from them.

I ran to it, feeling a tug in my gut now that the third stone had revealed itself. A pile of scrolls tumbled to the ground in a muffled clatter of parchment as I brushed them aside. Heat jolted through my fingers and up my arm as my hand found a small, wrapped package that was pulsing with a muted glow, but rather than pain, I felt a sense of rightness. Picking up the small bundle, I realised that it’s wrappings were stiff and heavy – too thick to just be a convenient home for the crystal.

A hand cupped my waist as I began to unwrap it, another on my shoulder as Liam and Noah lent me their silent support, ready to leap in if the stone tried to steal me away.

“It should be fine, the other two are over there,” I murmured, partly to reassure myself as my pulse picked up.

The moment the stone’s light was revealed, I felt the pull. Refusing to tumble into the haze that immediately tugged on my awareness, I thrust the crystal into Liam’s waiting hand, breathing a sigh of both relief and regret when it disappeared inside his clenched fist.

“Good girl,” he rumbled, pressing a kiss to my temple.

I rolled my eyes at him, not able to resist pushing back even now, before looking back to the paper in my hands. Rather than a single sheet, at least twenty leaves of parchment sat in my hands. As I flicked through them, it became evident that, while the style of writing and amount of detail on each sheet varied, every one focused on the same information.

“Is that our prophecy?” Noah asked, gently taking some of the pages from me and flicking through them.

I frowned. “Yes, and no. It’s not exactly the same as the one I read at South stones.”

Liam’s eyes flicked over the parchment I was reading. “It looks the same to me.”

Noah shook his head. “This line is different, listen.”

“The Wolf seeks his due

The vengeance for his creation

Under the moon a child will be born with His mark

Unseen by all but her destined three

Her three pillars are the fated sacrifice

The lone path to pierce the darkness.”

A cold feeling was settling in my chest, ice slithering down my spine as I listened to him read this version of the prophecy that had started all of this. The guys were still talking in urgent tones around me, with Zeke calling over from where he still stood near the bags, but the details were lost as I fell into a tumbling whirl of thought.

Pillars. Not stones.

Sacrifice.

I blinked back into awareness suddenly, turning to walk back over to Zeke as I shook the papers lightly at them.

“This is the original prophecy,” I stated, instinctively knowing I was right. “She knew it could hurt her and gathered up every copy to hide them here. The one at South Stones was passed down through word of mouth and the words were mistakenly changed in the process.”

Zeke grimaced, clearly agreeing with me as he held out his hand to see. “You’re probably right. But does it make any difference? It still means the same.”

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