26. ELOWAN
Holy mother of Faery.
“But I thought your kind had been wiped out?” Elowan could barely form the words.
Supposedly. Oracles had slowly disappeared over years, but the final “cleanse”, as Queen Calliea had called it, was carried out by Kaine. Elowan wasn’t part of the Elite operation, but she felt responsible all the same.
“It takes more than brute force to kill an oracle, Elowan Nahvi,” the oracle said with a smile.
“Wait, how do you know my name?”
“We know everything.” The oracle paused. “Come.” The obsidian being moved with a quickness that contrasted its overly hunched back. Sure, it hobbled, but it moved with intention and pace.
They stormed through the brush toward the village ahead. As they walked, the short brush turned into tall, lively grass reaching up to Elowan’s knees. Several small tents made of animal skin and wood surrounded a larger tent that centred the village. Families covered head to toe in warm-coloured linen, matching the orange dirt of the Western Wastes, went about their day. The smell of spice and herbs from the cauldrons that boiled before tents wafted through the camp.
Elowan couldn’t make out what the beings were. Some looked Fae and others didn’t. But what was certain was that they were all watching Elowan and Zala. Some even told their children to go inside their tents. Something like shame sat in the back of Elowan’s throat.
The oracle moved along without acknowledging the people around it. They reached the largest tent in the centre of the camp and pushed through the flaps. A wall of smoke greeted them and the smell of burning sage clung to Elowan’s nostrils. She could barely see anything.
“Sit,” the oracle ordered.
Elowan didn’t really know where, so she felt around the ground only to find cushions. She knelt upon them. Zala had done the same just beside her. Elowan could hear the rustling and bending of the fabric.
“I see the Resting Ruins have shown you mercy,” a different feminine voice pierced its way through the billowing smoke. The voice was a tad lower than the first oracle’s, but it sounded younger.
“Hardly,” Elowan responded into the smoke.
“You are alive, are you not?” the feminine voice said with a touch of annoyance.
In a blink, the smoke that encased the tent reeled back, disappearing into spindly, obsidian black hands, the room suddenly clear.
Before Elowan and Zala sat the oracle they’d met on the outskirts of the Resting Ruins. Next to it, a younger oracle. Its hair was long, black and stringy. Its eyes were the same piercing green and its black talons were long. They both wore the same dark cloak, darker than the shadows that Zala possessed. Cross-legged and arms relaxed by their side, it looked like they weren’t even breathing.
Elowan had never seen an oracle before, let alone two in one day.
“Thank you for letting us into your village. It is pleasant.” Were those the right words? Perhaps “peaceful” would have been a better choice.
The oracles did not react. They acted as if no one had said a word and continued staring into the space between them.
Elowan cleared her throat and quickly looked to Zala for some sort of support. But Zala did not look at her, she stared into the space between them all too.
This is getting weird.
Elowan cleared her throat again and loudly interrupted, “We need your—” The ground rumbled. The dirt once packed to the ground started to lift. Dirt particles suspended in the air, forming a vortex in the tent. Elowan’s vision started to double. A force so strong struck her chest, winding her. Her neck craned to the sky by the pull of invisible hands. The pressure and sound of gale-force winds rattled her ears almost bursting them.
Then her vision turned black.
Silence.
She pushed open her heavy eyes. Sore, dirt-covered and teary. Wildfire burned the busy village ahead of her. Screams and shrieks of pain filled the air. It was all she could hear above the ringing in her ears. And the smell, oh the smell was horrible. Everything was on fire. Large Fae brutes ran through the village with their short spears, grunting and shouting. Some wielded weapons. They dragged people out from their tents.
No. No. What are they doing? Why are they harming these people?Elowan’s throat was dry and aching from the tears that ceased to end. She scrambled to her knees, running to the closest Fae soldier. He wore purple breaches and golden armour just like . . . the Elite.
Elowan’s stomach lurched. He picked up a little girl by the scruff of her neck. She had been hiding behind a wagon.
“Where are they hiding, little girl?” the male demanded.
The little girl cried as she shook her head.
“Fine.” The male grunted. He shoved her down into the mud, her neck almost cracking from the force. Elowan ran for the soldier, trying to spear tackle him but she fell right through him.
What?
He stormed into the nearest tent and dragged out a young female who shared similar brunette hair as the young girl. The female came out kicking with a cloth tied around her wrist and a gag around her mouth. It was the young girl’s mother. The little girl cried louder.
“Where are they hiding?!” the Fae male shouted.
To her credit, the little girl said nothing. She just cried harder. Her mother’s eyes were wide, shaking her head, telling her daughter in any way that she could to keep her mouth shut. The little girl began to wail.
“Suit yourself,” the soldier grunted. The male wound his arm back, lifting his short spear and aimed for the mother’s heart.
Elowan quickly turned and ran. She already knew how that was going to end. The little girl’s cry of despair chased her heels as she ran.
From a large tent ahead, a haunting hum beckoned Elowan. Closer and closer to the large tent she ran. It was like the one in the Untold Valley but it was older, different.
She tumbled in through the flaps to find the tent shrouded in dark smoke. Elowan couldn’t see a thing. She fell to the ground in a panic, feeling for something, anything. A cold hand snatched her wrist from the ground and pushed her back onto her knees.
A click sounded in the room. The black smoke flew back into the centre of the tent to reveal three oracles sitting side by side. Their legs crossed and their eyes closed in meditation.
Elowan’s heart pounded. Her breath heavy.
She waited.
And waited.
But nothing.
Now you see, three voices melded into each other.
Like before, an invisible force struck Elowan’s chest. The air from her lungs lifted. Her neck craned and her vision blurred. Then it flashed and sparked, and with a dramatic breath she was pulled back into the present, her ears rattling from a forceful wind.
Elowan fell forward with her hands braced on the floor. Her vision cleared and beside her, Zala had done the same. Her ice-blue eyes pierced Elowan’s, wide in surprise. She must have seen the same thing.
“Now you see,” the voices of the two oracles before them said. Their eyes still shut in a meditative state.
“I-I am sorry,” Elowan said between heavy breaths. She was. Even though she wasn’t there for any of the Elite missions, she was still a part of the machine that sought to kill them and the innocent villagers of the Untold Valley.
“The sins of your forebearers will not wash away, but wade in the waters is where you will stay, unless fates of future are to wash upon the shores, the fall to death will be through blood-red claws . . .” The younger oracle trailed off. Its eyes remained closed, though they flitted around underneath its thin, papery eyelids.
They were speaking in riddles and Elowan was losing her patience. She’d just been sucked into the past and catapulted into the future and they were busy spouting riddles?
Sins of your forebearers. . . the Elite. What they did not long ago in the Western Wastes. That had to be it. Maybe there was a way to make amends? “How can we erase the sins of our forebearers?” Elowan asked with growing urgency.
“You cannot.” It was the older oracle who answered.
“Then what can we do? Faery is dying. Its people are without a home. The horrors of Queen Calliea and Terr will know no bounds. We need your help,” Elowan moved from the cushion she knelt upon. “Please,” she begged.
Zala put a hand on Elowan’s shoulder in warning.
Together, the oracles spun another riddle.
“Two soot spires above so high, in its centre has red in the sky. The past in chains to be set free. Now just two, where there used to be three.”
Now just two, where there used to be three . . . The voices. There were three in the vision Elowan just had. There were three oracles. And before her now, there were only two. That was it. They needed to find the third oracle.
Two soot spires above so high, in its centre has red in the sky . . . Two soot spires with a red sky in its centre, just like . . .
The answer burned in her chest.
“You want us to find the third oracle?” Elowan hoped to the gods she was right.
“Once two become three, the future of Faery will see. Closer to the end perhaps for some, but close to the sun a war will be won . . .” The oracles hissed, their necks twisted in strange angles for several minutes until, at last, the obsidian creatures opened their eyes.
Smoke began to fill the room again.
“Our Praeteritus has been lost for some time. Bring them back to us and we will be indebted to you. You already know where,” the older oracle croaked.
“Praeteritus? Your past?” Zala chimed in.
“Time is of the essence.” The younger oracle smiled.
In a plume of black glittering smoke, both oracles disappeared.
Elowan turned to Zala. Zala looked as pale as a ghost, her eyes wide.
“That was Praesens and Relicuus.” Zala pointed to the where the oracles had sat. “We just met the very first oracles; Present and Future.”
“Mother of Faery . . .”
The vision. The quest. The words all jumbled together but finally, it all made sense. Before them was the present and the future. And they were missing their past.
It was now Elowan and Zala’s mission to rescue the past – Praeteritus. If they achieved that, then they’d win the rebellion more allies. Powerful ones. The very first oracles themselves.
Holy shit.
They now had a fighting chance.
Elowan shot up from the ground, snapping her fingers to test if her mana would work. Sparks started to unfurl from her hands.
Yes.
Elowan manifested a portal with a quick flick of her mana.
“Do you know where we’re going?” Zala asked as she too shot up from the ground.
“Of course. Two soot spires above so high, in its centre has red in the sky.” Elowan paused and smirked. “We’re headed back to Castle Terrin, baby.”