Helios Oracles

Chapter 10: Oracle

I slick my hands down the sides of my robe as I take my place in the center of the circle. I don't have to look up to know who watches me with waiting gazes. I know them all: aunts and cousins of varying degrees and removes. Only twelve of our number stand ready, though that large of a group makes me nervous. Most seekings require maybe five or nine. Thirteen Oracles coming together creates its own foretelling.

Liander and my grandmother are looking for something specific.

I just hope I can deliver. I've been feeling oddly since I fled Sibyl's chambers, the tingle I experienced after Piers left me stronger than ever. I rub my fingertips together to try to calm the pins and needles sensation and force slow, steady breaths. I've done this many times before, have been part of seeking circles my entire life. This I can handle. As long as the flames behave themselves.

I look up as stillness falls over the room, the doors closed on the chamber, magic sealing us inside. The first thing I see is Liander with his arms crossed, back against the wall, glaring at me. Impulse drives a frown to my forehead, but I erase it quickly, hopefully before he registers it. He's not supposed to be here. This ceremony is sacred to Oracles, the seeking of visions ours and ours alone. But he has control over all of our ways now, it appears, because my grandmother seems unperturbed at his presence.

When I turn my gaze from the leading pair, I realize Ash stands directly in front of me, hands folded in front of her. Seeing her there is almost as startling as Liander. She's kept herself apart from us for so long I barely remember hearing of her having visions anymore. And didn't she just tell me she doesn't participate on purpose, that she's pulled away from Sibyl? Ash winks slowly at me, and I smile in return. I don't know why, but I feel ten times better knowing she's here for this.

"Oracles." Liander's voice is harsh when he speaks. This time I see irritation pass across my grandmother's face, but she doesn't argue when he chooses to take her position and lead the ceremony. "Begin the seeking."

I embrace the flames inside me, their eagerness controllable, at least. Knowing so calms me further, allows me to extend my power through the sorcery tied to my fire, to link with each of the twelve Oracles around me. I've long been told seeing the future is a tricky prospect, clear visions hard to manifest. Many of the women in my family experience only brief and murky moments they need assistance deciphering. Those standing around me now are the strongest of us in reach and clarity, though I know why I stand in the center as thirteenth. I've always had a knack for finding visions, for calling up sounds and scents and crispness, even more than my grandmother. Pride feeds my power, for no matter what deceptions I endure now, the visions themselves never lie to me.

I feel Ash's firm grip, the stammering and uncontrolled touch of Rena, ten others. My magic loops around them and pulls them close, their minds my mind, their magic my magic until a great and powerful calm takes me into a river of flame and I am as close to my Goddess as I have ever come.

"Name the target." Our power turns on the puny sorcerer who dares to order us. But we are the fire and the future, questions asked and answered and we will obey the calling of our nature.

"You know the target." He practically spits the words at us. "Show her to me."

He's obsessed with her, the one he calls Dark. We turn inward, feeding the flames with our souls, and call on the future to show us what is to come.

Something is wrong, altered, out of touch. I break free of the others a moment as they fight against me. It's not until I seize them and pull them back I understand why. I no longer think of the woman Syd as the Dark One. To me, she has become the Light.

They sigh and relent, but I know I've revealed too much as I return to the center of the seeking and we are one again.

The vision surges toward us, and we welcome it, funneling it outward and above. Twelve sets of eyes look upward, twelve souls focused as I find myself again outside them, with full control. I struggle to return to the bond, but it's gone and all I can do is allow the vision to unfold and try not to panic.

Completely different, this experience. Usually I feel an immediacy with visions. This time I'm so far out of it, I can see the power holding it together, making it manifest. And feel the subtle touch of my grandmother's power around it. I almost break focus and stare at her in shock. She isn't one of the thirteen-so why then is her magic involved? I must understand this. But, for now, the vision demands my attention, no matter my distance from it.

The woman Syd appears. She seems angry, standing in a dark room that looks like a basement. The werewolf Charlotte is at her side, holding a white Persian.

"...don't care what it takes," Syd says. "We know he's out there. We find him and see the end of this once and for all." A giant with diamond eyes bows to her. The dragon, I'm certain of it. I've seen him in full winged form, her on his back. But though he wears a more human form, I would know his energy anywhere.

Liander snarls, startling me, though I'm deep enough in the fire the vision doesn't waver.

"Will that b***h never relent?" He spins on his heel, eyes meeting mine. Does he see I'm working alone, outside the group? Does my grandmother? Neither seem to find it odd. In fact, Sibyl is frowning, eyes locked on the vision, too wrapped up in whatever her own power is doing to notice me at all. I long to check, to test her involvement, but doing so will alert her something has changed in me and I'm not sure I want her to know.

"I need to know if it's time." Liander breaks my questions into fragments, renewing my focus. I turn my face from him and focus on the vision.

It shifts to a blonde woman at a desk, a single light at her side casting shadows over her face. She rubs at the hollow of her throat where a pentagram pendant rests. She appears uneasy, unhappy, though her power surrounds her, palpable and waiting. It glows blue, witch magic, the room where she sits dark paneled and still, steeped in decades of elemental energy. A door opens and she looks up. I can't see who enters, but her face goes blank and she nods, looks down. Her fingers shake as they grip a pen, blue fire flaring over her signature. She stands, abruptly hands over a piece of paper she's signed, looking away as though unwilling to admit what she's done. I can't see who owns the waiting hand that takes the paper so eagerly. When the visitor's fingers touch it, the page flares with blue fire and black flames.

Liander is smiling now, more arrogant than ever. "How soon?"

I assess the feeling of the vision. "Within days," I say. "If not before." It's difficult at times to pinpoint exact moments, so I seek the vision for some evidence of date while he glares at me, impatient. I twist the vision sideways, look down at the desk and spot a calendar under the woman's coffee cup. She's marked off each day with a red pen, leaving her current date empty.

A swift calculation and I nod to him. "Tomorrow," I say.

He rubs his hands together, smirk ugly. "Perfect," he says. "She might be prepared, but she has no idea the pawns I have in place. Let her hunt in the dark. I'll have the law on my side."

I have no idea what he's talking about, but if he's happy about it, I should worry.

The vision begins to fade, but I'm still in control and curious. As it flickers, I tilt upward and see the recipient of the page smiling at the woman behind the desk. I know that smile, Liander's nasty expression familiar to me. But before I can wonder what need he would have for a witch, the vision flares and turns to fire, crackling and insistent.

I stare into it, forgetting Liander and my grandmother, the twelve Oracles around me. The flames beckon, pull me closer, beg for me to join them once and for all. And I lean into them, welcoming their embrace, even as fear of what is to come speeds my pounding heart.

Not now. I'm pulled back, Bellanca's magic powerful around me, though she is alone. There's time yet.

And she is gone, the others shaking their heads and smiling at each other as the bond dissolves in sparks, not one of them aware things nearly went terribly wrong. Or that I, somehow, remained outside them. It shouldn't have been possible. Sibyl seems to sag, massaging her temples a moment before offering her usual enigmatic smile.

Only Ash stares at me with a frank expression as the others bow to me in ceremonial thanks and leave in small, chattering groups.

***