Page 99 of Oracle of Ruin

The Oracle walks with sure feet while I stumble in the darkness after them. I do not feel the same swell of power I felt when they assessed me earlier, now that they are not relying on that sense to guide them. They shuffle their feet by muscle memory and stroll through the dark cave halls.

I hold my shoulder in place, gritting my teeth against the pain as I trip over a loose stone. My stitches must have torn, judging by the wet warmth dribbling down my leg and the biting pain shooting up from my calf past my knee. The air hangs heavy, unnervingly thick with moisture, like the Hills of Siva are right before torrential rain. No gray clouds dot the mold-speckled cave ceiling. No winds rip through my haggard body. The storm is the tattered form leading me through the dark, those violet eyes unseeing.

I almost make a joke about the blind leading the blind, but they pause, the lack of footsteps rattling in the caverns.

“You’re fairly quiet for someone who came all this way for a few paltry answers,” they note offhandedly, now walking again. They take a sharp right and I follow, my clavicle hitting the stone wall and barking with pain.

“I wouldn’t call ending a war and needless slaughterpaltry,” I grit underneath my breath, “but you’re awfully quiet for someone who is supposed to have all these answers.”

The Oracle ducks and I am not left wondering why for long when a wet root smacks across my face. Spongey moss splatters, leaving a sticky residue. For my own sanity, I do not wipe it away or even pause to consider what it might be.

“Such a sharp tongue. Use that to stop your war.”

“Trust me, the war would be over by now if it worked that way.”

“It hasn’t been much of a war, only a slaughter.”

I exhale through my nose, stopping hotly. “Are you going to tell me what I need to do to prove myself or are you just going to take jabs at my pride?”

I can hear Amír’s sharp voice in the back of my head. It melds with the tenebrous growl of Blaine’s, creating a wicked subconscious. They snap at me that perhaps insulting the one being that holds a tie to the gods and answers of the future is not my wisest move. They caution me against anger in more cruel terms. How curious that now, the reprimanding voices in my head are theirs and not my own.

The Oracle laughs, a dry, heaving sound of sand on stone. Not quite rough enough to be gravelly, but not soft enough to be anything other than rock. They offer no other response, but knock twice on the wall that is apparently before them.

The stone peels back, now grinding stone on stone, a far worse sound than their laugh. Light blossoms as the gap between the wall and the cavern widens until it envelops us both. A secondary room sits nestled in the corner of the earthly hall, already lit by flaming torches that I know must have been lit for my benefit.

“I am used to the unseeing,” the Oracle says with no hint of empathy or explanation in their voice. They take to crouching on their knobby knees and feeling around in the dirt. I extend my hand and they swat at it. “Don’t pity me, girl. School that from your heart.”

“Fine, I’ll just be a bitch and leave you in the dirt.”

“Good. You’re learning.” Something like a smile lifts the corners of their dry lips. The skin stretches in a sickening manner and just when I believe it may crack and bleed, it stretches further.

A sour feeling settles in the pit of my stomach and I cover my mouth with the back of my hand. While the Oracle may resemble a human of sorts, they in no way are human. Perhaps the purple-tinged skin and violet eyes should have clued me in, but somewhere along the way, familiarity crept in and stole reason.

The Oracle shuffles in the dirt, resting their weight entirely on their heels. They swirl across the floor like some spider-ape mix and drag their heels through the dirt. Where the skin should tear, it doesn’t. The dirt smears and creates some rune not too different from the one Derrín drew on the wall outside. They jut their chin towards their creation.

I take a step forward but pause, my foot hovering just above the center. “Someone is coming for me in twenty-four hours,” I say, suddenly feeling quite small, like a child warning a long-known friend how long until their mother collects them.

The Oracle snorts and I take that as my sign to put my damn foot on the runes.

Smoke covers my eyes and lingers behind my eyelids even as I blink. The startled scream that should’ve erupted from my throat hitches and my hands fly to the column of my neck. My heartbeat thrums through my bones and I sink to my knees.

This is how I die. This must be.

And just as it becomes unbearable, the smoke clears. The burning subsides. My heart resettles in my chest.

The land around us is green and the Oracle sits cross-legged under a large oak tree. They stroke a panther that has its head resting in their lap. Vestíg yawns and stretches out lazily, resembling more of a house cat than the large form the little god chose to take.

“I apologize for the dramatics,” they say, not sounding sorry at all.

“Where are we?”

“Outside the palace, of course.”

A young girl’s laugh rings through the clearing, and I whirl towards the sound.

The Oracle shrugs. “Ten years ago.”

A girl maybe half my age crashes through the brush. Her tanned skin glows in the midday sunlight, warm and golden like honey. Lively chestnut curls bounce free around her face, her hazel eyes pure sunlight. She smiles just as brightly, the sound of her laughter constricting my heart within my chest until I fall to my knees.

---