Chapter 28
28
I followed the Oracle’s guard through a dark hallway, lit with an occasional blue-stained skylight above, casting the passageway in a deep sapphire color. The quiet threatened to crush me under the heaviness of it. It was so silent I almost felt as if I had lost my sense of hearing altogether like the attack in the clearing.
Then, the Oracle’s guard stopped at a large metal door.
“May Illumia light your way,” the guard said, and opened the door for me, gesturing that I enter. As I did, he closed the door behind me, shutting me into the cavernous room.
Unlike the other colorful rooms of the Temple of Orsi, this room was entirely dark, with one single flame burning atop a raised platform that was at the center of the room, surrounded on all sides by shallow stairs. The room itself was also framed by a dark reflecting pool, one that I could hear better than see in the dark. The walls and floors were painted a matte black, giving it the feel of being a silent black box.
Atop the raised platform were a pair of glowing red eyes.
“Approach, human,” a female voice purred at me, the sheer immensity of her summons nearly shaking the room with how loud it was.
It took all my concentration to steady my shaking legs as I climbed the short flight of steps and reached the top of the platform. On top of that platform and next to that flickering torch was the Oracle.
She was a creature ripped from nightmares. A beautiful, feline sphinx with the head of a woman, and a feminine body that turned into lion-like paws. But it was her wings that were truly magnificent and horrendous all at once. They rested statue-still behind her, and as I stood before her, those glowing red eyes took me in.
“You did not give into your baser instincts, I see,” she said.
I forced my voice to stay steady. “I had help.”
“Ah, yes. I smell him on you.” She prowled forward, and every cell in my body screamed at me to run . “What a special one he is. But you are special, too, are you not?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said. Did the Oracle answer directly to the King? If she knew about my powers, would she tell him that there was a chance that I could be the Siphon from the prophecy?
“Cool your raging thoughts, girl ,” she warned. “I can hear them in your heart and it is unbecoming of someone with your future to be so afraid.”
“I am not afraid,” I said.
“Little liar,” she taunted, circling me. “I can smell your fear on you, too. So wipe it from your mind and let’s begin. Solve my riddle and gain an answer to your most pressing question. Listen close, fearful one, as this is my riddle for you:
Through crystal seas and starlit skies,
I travel far yet never rise.
In stillness I show truth most clear,
Yet you’ll find me in every tear.
When truth itself begins to fade,
I remain unchanged, yet unafraid.
What am I? ”
I sucked in a breath, trying to sharpen my muddy mind. But I came up blank. The sphinx continued to circle me, and repeated the riddle again, slowly.
As panic started to rise up within me, I thought bitterly of how unfair this was. I, the only contestant without a memory, had to dredge up an answer to this creature’s ancient riddle?
I felt the asphyxiating void of my mind vibrate as if in laughter, as if it, too, was enjoying my terror.
“If you don’t answer, you become my lunch,” the sphinx purred at me, circling closer. “The others left me feeling hungry, still.”
Crystal seas… starlit skies… travel far…
I was going to die in this room.
My fists balled the fabric of my dress as my panic continued to beat my chest like a war drum. I whispered the words of the riddle to myself again and again and again?—
Suddenly, claws shot out from the dark. I cried out at the impact, my side flaring in pain as the creature sliced through skin in one swipe.
I stumbled back a few steps to the edge of the raised platform, my hand gripping my side as those red eyes drilled into my soul.
“I grow weary of those who succumb to their terror. Your time is almost up, girl,” the sphinx announced.
“I need more time,” I gasped, feeling hot blood drip down the side of the claw marks that had pierced flesh through the sparkling bodice of my gown.
“Greedy, greedy—as your kind always is. You’re not special enough to get what you did not earn. Tell me. WHAT IS YOUR ANSWER?” The booming voice shook the entirety of the temple, cracking some of the stone in the dark room.
“I don’t know!” I yelled, unable to lie. Unable to stall.
The sphinx lunged at me again, but I rolled out of the way. It missed me—barely—but I hadn’t seen the edge of the platform in the dark, and I went tumbling down the shallow stone steps and landed with a thud on the ground, a final roll putting me in the reflection pool that framed the square room. My entire body ached from the impact.
The cool water soaked my gown, and as I pushed myself up. In the flickering torchlight I could see the waters were not blue or clear…
…they were stained red with blood. And not just my blood, either.
I gasped, splashing furiously as I pushed myself to make a move out of the water, but the sphinx bounded for me, its wings outstretched like a god of death, and I was cornered in the pool of water as it slowly stilled around me, the sphinx stalking close.
“Time’s up,” she said, lifting that paw with those razor sharp claws.
I caught a glimpse of my reflection as the water in the reflecting pool stilled. The world slowed, and I saw the fear twist my face. Saw how it contorted my features. Saw how it consumed me. Saw how?—
Reflection. Wait ?—
Tristen’s words rang in my head. Keep it simple.
“REFLECTION!” I screamed, bringing my hands above my head to shield myself from the blow of the sphinx… a blow that did not come. “Reflection,” I gasped again. “That’s the answer to the riddle.”
When there was no reply—and no killing blow—I lowered my hands. The sphinx seemed to sigh, its beady red eyes flashing at me in the darkness.
“Looks like you’re getting somewhere, human. Join me on the platform to receive your answer.”
As I hauled myself out of the bloody water and followed the sphinx back to the platform, water and blood dripped from me and onto the dark floor. Everything in my mind narrowed in on the real question I knew I needed answered.
The question that would begin my path to set myself free from the void.
The sphinx curled up at the foot of the flickering flame like a housecat in front of a hearth. “You passed your third trial. What do you wish to know? Ask carefully as you only get one question. I know much, but questions of the future are not set in stone, and are still to be written by the fates.”
“I do not wish to know of my future,” I said. “I wish to know of my past.”
“Ask away, daughter of the sun and the moon.”
I sucked in my breath, holding my tongue from asking about that title—trying to stay focused. “What happened to my memories?”
The sphinx grinned. A truly feline gesture. “You ask a question with an answer that will only bring you pain.”
“Tell me,” I said, keeping my head held high. I would know. I would find out what happened so that I could reverse the damage. So I could be reunited with all that I had lost. So I could stop the void from closing in on me.
The sphinx lowered her gaze to me, reveling in the words she spoke. “Your memory was erased by one of the rare few who have the ability to take them away. But you know this man, for he is here in the trials. Here, he goes by Tristen Greywood. The Shadowfire Assassin.”