36. The Prophecy
36
THE PROPHECY
A s Luella carefully opened the book, she couldn’t help but feel like her whole life had been leading to this very moment.
She held her breath.
The front cover fell open, revealing?—
Nothing?
"What?" Luella mumbled.
Nyx’s tiny fingers dug into her shoulders as the sprite leaned down, peering at the opened book along with Luella.
Nyx made a sound of confusion. "It’s blank…"
It was, indeed, blank.
Luella flipped to the next page, only to see nothing at all. The next, then the next. With each page Luella turned, she saw the same thing. Nothing .
She shook her head, refusing to believe the strange call, that peculiar thrum she felt inside her, had all been for naught.
"It can’t be." Luella ran a hand over the blank pages. "This can’t be it."
As she flipped through the book, she was careful to keep the cut on her hand covered by her sleeve lest she get a drop of blood on it.
Not that it mattered now, apparently. This book was a farce.
Luella remembered the call inside her, a song playing from her soul that only she could hear. It had disappeared sometime between the space of one tremulous breath and the next, but she could still recall the all-consuming drive, the pull that tugged her right to that stone.
She eyed the empty pages.
But were they really empty?
"What if it’s enchanted?" The question fell from Luella’s lips like she was possessed.
It made sense. Didn’t it?
Nyx cocked her head, a leaf falling from her hair and sinking into a small puddle of water. "That could be possible." Her voice grew tinny with hesitancy, like she was afraid to feed into Luella’s sudden manic intensity.
"Think about it," Luella urged. "Why in the Above would an empty journal be tucked away so far into the library? And not only that but also hidden so that no one may ever be able to find it."
She flipped through the book, the individual white of the pages blurring together into one seamless ocean of untapped secrets.
It made a fresh wave of dust tickle against her senses, and Luella scrunched her nose. Distracted, she reached up with her injured hand and pressed her palm against her nose and mouth to allow herself a cover from the offending dust motes.
Her sleeve fell to her elbow, leaving the cut on her palm uncovered. She glanced down at it; blood still trailed over the lines of her palm. It hadn’t yet clotted. Maybe it was deeper than she had expected. Luella would have to bandage it when she returned to her room.
Speaking of…
She glanced back at the small entrance to the alcove. She would have to be getting back soon if she didn’t want to be discovered.
With a hand pressed against her lower face, she settled her attention back to the book resting on her lap. The front cover was innocuous and bare, and a title would have been there if it weren’t blank. She studied the white of the page like she was waiting for words to appear from thin air and jump out at her.
But with a soft slowness, her prayers were somehow answered.
A tiny drop of blood dripped from the cut on her palm, snaking down to her wrist before it left her skin entirely, falling in mid-air. It happened so fast, yet so slow. Luella saw everything in vivid detail, even if it couldn’t have been a few heartbeats of time.
The drop of her blood plinked against the page, crimson bleeding into the pristine, white page. It bloomed over the very center, tiny veins of red, webbed cracks radiating out from the droplet.
And then, words appeared.
Growing from the most faint of pearlescent whirls to a thick and dark scrawl. As if they had been there the entire time, just waiting for her.
Her heart froze in her chest before restarting with a languorous thud.
"Unbelievable." Luella’s hands fluttered over the book as if she were too afraid to touch it and disrupt the magic.
"Not quite," Nyx replied.
Luella agreed. Nothing was ever truly unfathomable.
The very first page of the book read a title, the word making something ancient settle in the air.
" Compendium of Fates ," Luella read.
"The Fates?" Nyx covered her mouth with two small hands, wings fluttering behind her in shock. "I thought they disappeared."
To even hear the word Fates …
A word that had haunted her childhood in little warnings and sayings uttered to a young, tucked-away heirus in hopes she would be a dutiful, obedient pet. Don’t tempt the Fates; don’t go against the will of the Fates , her parents and tutors would warn.
Though, they all knew the Fates were long gone. Only leaving them with strange tales of beings who would freely give futures away like mere words of greeting.
"What do the Fates have to do with this?" Luella skimmed a finger over the book.
Over time, the Fates had become something of an old legend. A myth to those who did not truly believe—but like all things, even myths had truth to them. They had to have originated from somewhere, of course.
And the legend of the Fates was as old as any.
They were said to have walked among all creatures once, imparting freely those with their futures and fates woven from webs of immutable destiny.
"What does the rest say?" Nyx implored.
Luella silently turned the page, a slight shake to her hands. She tried to quell the nerves welling within her, but it was no use. It was all too overwhelming and unexpected.
The next page had neither a title nor an author. Only a few lines, written in stanzas of poetry, simple and perplexing, complex and strange—it was everything and nothing, mysterious and beautiful.
Luella read strange words of lush forests and swirling winds, roaring fires and depthless oceans. She swore she could feel the brush of green grass under her fingertips, the breeze of a summer’s evening playing in the tendrils of her hair, a fire warming her fingers after a day in the cold, waves lapping against her feet with ocean foam curling along the hem of her gown.
All the while, the sun and moon stood in the sky above, watching.
It was extraordinary.
When she finished the first page, the silence hung between her and the sprite.
Nyx swallowed harshly, a look of pure yearning on her face. "That was—" She shook her head, stolen of words.
"It was." Luella’s voice was soft and awestruck.
Nyx’s wing rustled as she left her perch atop Luella’s shoulder. She hovered in midair, fingers curling against her empty palm as if she, too, sought to feel vines tangling in her grip or reach for the warmth of a crackling flame.
The sprite bit her lip. "Read the next one."
Luella was already turning the page, smoothing a palm over the soft paper as she flipped it, but the rising hope and curiosity inside of her was crushed when she saw another blank page.
"Again?" Nyx huffed, crossing her arms over her chest.
Luella echoed the disgruntled noise. "Why? Why could we see the first page but not this one?"
Did she have to drop more of her blood?
She turned to the next page, but still, nothing.
She knew her time here was running out. She was already pushing her luck.
Glancing over her shoulder, her eyes peered into the darkness of the shelves, searching for any hint of dawn light that would break apart her hushed discoveries. It was still dark, thankfully. But Luella knew it wouldn’t be for long. Not nearly long enough for her to uncover the secrets hidden before her.
In a last bid for some answers, she flipped through the pages hurriedly, seeing nothing but pure, untouched white. The edges blurred together. But a spark of black ink caught her eye. With a gasp, Luella halted, the corners of the crisp paper cutting into her thumb as she stopped at the last few pages.
"Please, please," she mumbled, trying not to feed into the hope swelling in her chest.
"What?" Nyx practically threw herself back onto Luella’s shoulder and leaned forward as if to say, on with it!
"There’s more."
Luella brought the book closer to her face, and she and Nyx leaned in together.
The words were small, barely a few lines, but it felt as powerful as a tome of spells.
" To expel the dark, the shadow’s spark, and defeat the stolen, she must bond with the chosen ." The words rang as they filled the quiet spaces of the alcove, sinking deep into the entryway of the tunnel, forever lost, never to be found.
Except by her—and Nyx.
"Read more," the sprite urged.
And Luella did.
" A child born in the dark, with hair white stark. Eyes of moonlit blue, an enchanting hue. Bound to thee of might, who wickedly plight. Fated to be ?—"
The words cut off there. The end of the page was torn roughly, as if the one who did it, however long ago, was in a hurry.
Luella traced the jagged edges of the page and mused, "Who is this child?"
"I don’t know," Nyx breathed. "But whoever she is, she sounds important…"
She met Nyx’s verdant eyes, the green reminiscent of the grass she saw in her mind when she read the first poem.
They stared at each other, robbed of thought, as the words lingered in the air like a promise. Or a threat.
Just when Luella’s mouth opened to speak—and say what, she would never know—the sound of voices broke up their haze of reverie.
Her eyes widened.
King Vale was here.
Voices echoed in the darkness of the library, bouncing off the high walls and ringing throughout, reaching all the way to where Nyx and Luella were huddling in the deep of the alcove.
Footsteps thumped on the floors, and even as far back as she and Nyx were tucked away, Luella felt her heart as it froze into a solid chunk of ice. Her body grew utterly still as she waited.
"What the fuck are you playing at?" Hissed between what she imagined were the King’s clenched teeth.
The words were clear, even as they were said from the front of the library, passing through all the hidden towers and alcoves and filtering in through the tiny spaces of stacked books and shelves.
Quick as lightning, Luella blew the flame of the candle out, leaving her and the sprite in a blanket of darkness. Stolen of sight, she squinted as she tried to adjust to the dark. Her hearing grew sharper in the absence of one of her senses, but it still wasn’t enough.
She cursed her fae hearing. If only she were a shifter, she would have heard the words and footsteps before they ever even came to the library. Would have been alerted and able to flee in time. But now she was stuck here. Until King Vale left.
She didn’t want to know what he would do to her if he found out she wasn’t in her room.
A shiver wracked her frame as she remembered the congealed pools of blood on the gallows. The thwack of a sharp blade against a neck. The thump of a head as it hit the ground and rolled away, the lifeless, headless bodies slumping to the side.
Her palms grew clammy, and she wiped them on her thighs, a slight tremble to her shoulders.
Luella could almost feel the heat of his tempestuous dragon flame rising to the surface of his skin, a scorching aura. Invisible smoke searched for her in the darkness and tickled against her fingertips.
She didn’t envy whoever was on the receiving end of such scathing words.
"Don’t start with that self-righteous drivel, Vale." The voice that replied was none other than Bastian’s sensual, silken tone.
The faint shuffle of feet made her picture the vampire pacing back and forth, a hand braced against his chin as he thought. Luella could almost see the red flash in his eyes.
A scoff. "Please, the only self-righteous one here isn’t even in this room."
What did the King mean by that?
"No," Bastian replied. "He’s currently rotting in the dungeons. All because your ego is too inflated to see your wrongs. When a challenge against your word actually had merit, you decided the best course of action was to throw him into the dungeons."
A loud clatter made her jolt. Nyx’s hands dug into Luella’s shoulders so hard she winced.
For such a tiny thing, the sprite was awfully strong.
"Don’t ever question me or my word again, Advisor. Or this night will be your last above ground."
Bastian laughed, but it sounded strained. Forced. "Like you would? Try it. Go ahead, Vale. Kill me."
"Don’t think I don’t dream about it. If anyone would know that, it would be you ." King Vale hissed the last word.
The vampire was a thief of the mind. And if anyone knew of the mind’s innermost musings or desires, it would be one with Mind magic.
She knew of Bastian’s icy touch, his way of stealing into her dreams and making himself home there—as if he always belonged.
"As much as I enjoy this heartwarming display of bonding." She heard Tharen’s icy tone as he interjected, "We all know killing won’t happen."
"Can’t, you mean," Graves grumbled.
Luella was surprised to hear the shadowed raven shifter speak. Her lips tingled in memory of his pressing against hers in this very library.
But her brows rose. Were all four of the males here?
"Hey, I’m the first to say killing is the answer, but it’s not like we’re able to fucking harm each other. Not for lack of trying." Tharen’s voice grew bitter at the end, and she was overwhelmed by how much information one could glean by merely sitting in the shadows and observing.
She realized why Graves enjoyed it so much.
Was the mage insinuating that they couldn’t hurt each other?
Why? How ?
Luella recalled all the times she had seen the males interact. The would-be acts of violence, curbed by what she thought was a level mind, but now realized it was anything but. They were physically unable to harm each other.
Was Az included?
No, he couldn’t be , she thought. He didn’t seem to be a part of the close-knit inner circle that surrounded the King. Her demon was in the dungeons, chained and bordering on underfed. Even as a passive way of harm, it was still harm.
Right?
She tucked the information away. What she would do with it, Luella was unsure, but it must be useful for something.
Luella heard a loud bang as if clenched fists were thrown atop a table. "You seem to be forgetting something. It’s not just our destiny, but hers ." The sudden shift in topic from the King made her mind swim as she tried to catch up.
Luella knew, even without hearing her name, that they were talking about her.
"Every day, what the Fates foretold is growing closer. And every day, I fear we won’t survive it. That maybe they were wrong. Maybe we can’t"—King Vale cleared his throat—"do this."
In the darkness, Luella and Nyx shared a look, the whites of the sprite’s eyes gleaming. She imagined the same expression she wore of confusion and fear was playing on Nyx’s features.
How uncanny for her to overhear the King speak of the Fates right after she had stumbled upon a supposed compendium written by them.
Maybe the creatures weren’t gone after all , she inwardly mused. Her fingers traced over the cracks in the stone, imagining the little lines to be like webs of fate, splintering in a million different directions, all stemming from tiny, singular acts.
"We will. We have to," Graves swore.
She heard quiet mumblings uttered between the males, and she imagined the raven shifter bending his head to the King’s ear.
"He cannot win," Bastian harshly uttered. "The Umbra threatens to overtake us, but we have the Fates on our side."
"Just as you forget your place, you forget that we are not the only ones with the Fates on our side. The Tenebrae received a prophecy, just as we did."
Tenebrae …
That name… The cadence sounded the same as Umbra . A soft lilt in the last syllable. A rolling ending note.
Similar but different. Different but similar.
Where had she heard it before?
As if Bastian could hear her thoughts— could he? —he spoke. "Tenebrae is darkness. But the Umbra are only partly so. Shadows. Created with light… At least we can fight them easier than we can the Tenebrae. You forget he is not invincible. No one truly is."
Darkness and shadows.
The line from Compendium of Fates was staring up at her from the opened book on her lap. Her eyes stared to make out the inked scrawl.
Expel the dark, the shadow’s spark.
"We do not have a chance. Not if..." The King’s words grew mumbled; she couldn’t hear the rest of what he said. The not knowing would haunt her.
Tharen interjected, "We do have a chance. A slim one. But a chance, all the same."
"We can only survive on hopes and dreams of prophecies for so long." Grave’s tone was solemn. "One day, we might find out it was all for nothing. Broken friendships, stolen futures. Deaths. Countless lives lost. All on our shoulders. The promise of her—" His words cut off in a choked stagger. As if he couldn’t bear to continue.
The room grew silent, and Luella shifted, legs growing tingly with numbness from her seated position.
Nyx pointed to the tiny space leading to the main portion of the library, then back to Luella, before making a crossing gesture with her forearms, warning her not to leave yet.
The sprite tugged on the ends of Luella’s curls before silently hopping from her shoulder. She hovered in midair, and the faintest hint of light illuminated the iridescence of her wings, giving her a halo of green shimmers. With a tiny finger wave, the sprite left, disappearing without a trace between the cracks of two leaning books.
Luella was left alone in the musty alcove. Even with the silence, she knew they hadn’t left yet.
She would wait. For as long as it took.
Shifting to sit with her knees bent before her, arms hugging them to her chest, Luella’s head thumped back on the stone wall. She was careful to keep the book close to her, even though she silently resented what it meant.
Change.
She never had done too well with change.
"I need her." Hushed words uttered with reverence, breaking up the silence as they fell from the lips of one she had never expected to say such a thing. Tharen sighed after speaking as if the weight of all the kingdoms were resting upon him. And maybe they were.
"She’s… more," Bastian revealed. "The pull is so much more than I had been anticipating."
"I didn’t realize how much I would be drawn to her. I thought it would be easy, being in her presence. But it’s been so hard." A faint tapping noise; she imagined the King’s long fingers drumming on an oak tabletop as he spoke.
Tharen barked a laugh, but with the lingering remnants of his soft admission weighing on her heart, it sounded like a way to protect himself instead of the cruel, unfeeling sound she had once thought it. "Is the stubborn dragon admitting to having a crush on his captive?"
They were talking about her ?
"Save it, Prima. We both know you would have had her in your bed by now if I hadn’t forbade it," King Vale asserted.
Her cheeks warmed. She was suddenly glad Nyx had left. Luella didn’t want the sprite to ask why she was blushing over words that shouldn’t have meant anything to her.
"Lust and love are two different things. I don’t do crushes ," the mage sneered. "I can ignore that godsdamned pull leading me to protect her—and more—while still feeling lust toward her. Don’t deny it. You do, too." A heavy pause. "All of you do."
The air grew terse. Luella could feel it even as far away from them as she was.
Graves was the one to break the silence. "Not quite."
He did not elaborate. And she was left to wonder what he meant. Did he not quite feel something for her, or was he not quite able to deny this so-called pull?
She wrapped her arms around her thighs tighter, chin resting on her knees as she tried to stop the pounding of her heart. She could feel the phantom tingle of Graves’s bare hand against her cheek, his lips caressing her heated skin, her neck. His glove was tucked under her mattress, and her face burned at the thought of him ever discovering she had kept it.
"When I do have her in my bed, I doubt she’d even know what to do," Tharen taunted. The way he said when and not if made her lower belly feel strange. "The little lamb may very well die of a heart attack before her clothes even come off."
Another clatter. This one, louder. Her hands shot to cover her mouth and stifle a gasp as she heard the unmistakable thump of a fist against a face.
She had heard that sound countless times before—her father striking her mother or a servant. Or sometimes, even Luella herself.
That’s why, when Tharen laughed— actually laughed —she gave pause.
The mage was truly insane, and she shuddered to think of the look on his face. Those cold blue eyes, narrowing in ire, teeming with violence.
"Don’t fucking disrespect her, you bastard," she heard Graves threaten. His gruff voice was like the sharpened steel of a dagger, cutting and lethal.
Her mouth dropped open, and she pressed her hands harder over her lower face to stifle the pleased sound that threatened to bubble up.
Graves was defending her. The same one who disregarded her privacy and watched her undress… She should feel anything but affection for the male but couldn’t help the swell of fondness that rose in her chest.
The silence was anything but quiet. It was loud. Heavy.
And broken by the mage’s hushed reply, "The only bastard here is you."
"You fucking?—"
" Enough !" King Vale boomed.
Luella was taken back to when she first met him. The way he ordered her to kneel. The way he quelled the anger of the courtiers.
The command and tone of the King he was.
"Don’t act so scandalized," Tharen muttered. He paused, and she imagined the utter look of arrogance that must be playing on his face. "You’re not fooling anyone with your quiet act. You’re as sick as the rest of us."
Bastian coughed, then mumbled, "It’s always the quiet ones."
She barely caught it with how low the vampire had said it. She didn’t know what that meant… Always the quiet ones?
Graves’s reply was hushed and angered. "I may be sick, but at least I have the decency to hide it."
"No, not the decency," Tharen said. Even without seeing his face, Luella knew his lips would be turned up at the corners in a vicious, mocking grin. "The shame. When you get your hands on her, you’ll ruin her. Just like the rest of us. Don’t think you’re impervious to temptation."
The last sentence was uttered with a resigned tone, as if the mage was robbed of choice. Unable to stop what was coming, just as Luella was.
"I said, enough of this! Back to the topic at hand." The King’s order was as subdued as the mage’s lingering promise. "Advisor, what’s the status in Medius?"
With the use of Bastian’s formal title, all taunting was gone, the energy between them growing heavy with formalities.
"The Umbra is still a heavy presence in the outermost villages. We’ve lost many, and they’re spreading. I’ve received reports that a small, unnamed village fell after a babe grew ill. But not an illness of the body, one of the mind. A villager who escaped spoke of possession." Bastian scoffed. "The babe scratched his mother, and it was over before it even began. The whole town was taken within hours."
What in the Above were they speaking about? Luella struggled to follow the conversation.
A mere babe, blamed for the destruction of an entire village? It couldn’t be possible. They must be mistaken.
King Vale let out a growl of discontent. "And they’re still moving inward to the major cities?"
Bastian hummed an affirmative. It was so low Luella had to strain to hear it.
"They’re being herded," Tharen said.
"And will soon overtake all of Medius and turn the bulk of their attentions here," said Graves. "We must act."
"We are," King Vale seethed.
Just as Bastian hissed, "In time."
It seemed like they liked that expression. In time. She had heard both Graves and Bastian tell her the very same thing to placate her and her questions.
Could it be possible? Could King Vale have something to do with the prophecy and this darkness and shadow?
If so, Luella had to escape. And soon.
She couldn’t risk being here any longer. Alone, she worried she would never be able to flee Serpentis, but with Az’s help, they could do it. They could get out of here.
From where she was sitting, angled near the shelf, she eyed the tiny tunnel that led gods knew where. The hole was larger than she was but still small. Would Az even be able to fit? His shoulders were broad, and he dwarfed her frame; the demon was large.
But it was their only option, not if they wanted to risk alerting the King or being spotted by his guards. She doubted they could escape even under the cover of night. Inside the castle, the patrols were practically nonexistent during nightfall, but she had peered out her window. She knew that guards were stationed all around the castle grounds, no matter the time of day.
The tunnels were their best bet. But perhaps not the safest.
She skimmed her fingertips over a standing pool of water. It had to have come from somewhere—just as the faint scent of salt misted the air before her, the tunnel must have an opening.
Their talking turned to more war strategies and accounts of dwindling resources accrued from Medius—leathers from the cows, bountiful minerals from ore mining in the mountains, and food from crops. It sounded as though Serpentis was taking a hit from the unrest in Medius.
It was all over her head, even with the years of political tutoring she had received. It made Luella wonder if her tutors didn’t sabotage her with unnecessary teachings.
Or purposefully feed you lies , a small part of her mind hissed.
King Vale inquired about some of the human towns in Medius. Bastian spoke of docile villagers turning weapons against friends and family.
And Tharen occasionally butted in with a strange emphasis on the villagers showing behaviors of biting and scratching.
As they conversed, Luella kept circling back to why.
Why would anyone dare a mutiny against the King?
Why was there so much dissension in the villages?
Why did they speak of Luella as if they had been waiting for her their whole lives? As if they already knew her long before they laid eyes on her, as if she were someone important.
Her thoughts swirled.
All while an even tinier corner of her soul echoed: why did she find an odd sense of peace in that?
And the worst thought of all, an almost irrefutable truth resounding within her mind—was the King and his court in league with these so-called shadowed creatures, the Umbra?
It didn’t sound like it.
Her heart sped up. Bastian had said the Umbra was only part darkness. Able to be fought. But if it was responsible for these deaths, the blight of darkness and destruction taking over the outer villages of Medius, then what was the Tenebrae?
Luella’s eyes grew heavier the longer she sat there stewing in fearful suspicions. Their voices washed over her, turning into one long, rumbling drone of strategy and trade talks.
She just wanted to sleep and deal with everything she had learned in the morning when she had a clear head.
No matter what she had discovered here, the only thing that hadn’t changed was her resolve.
She would escape.
And Az was coming with her.