Chapter 8 Syneca
Syneca
Truth burns brighter than any flame, but lies cast the longest shadows.
The bells had started before we even reached Blackbriar’s Square, taking over for the sprites, who were finally free.
Bronze voices cut through the storm, each toll a warning.
Calder’s hand found my elbow, steering me through the narrow streets as rain turned cobblestones slick as ice.
People poured from buildings, some still clutching blankets, others half-dressed and stumbling.
The closer we got to the Square, the tighter the crowd became.
Shopfronts lined the edges, their windows dark, awnings sagging under the weight of rainwater.
Above us, a dragon circled through the storm clouds, its silhouette massive against the occasional flash of lightning.
The Square opened before us, vast and already packed.
The Grand Platform loomed at the far end, raised high enough that whoever stood on it could look down on the thousands gathered below.
Rune lamps flickered along its edges, their light struggling against the rain.
To our left, the train station sat dark and useless, its arched entrance barely visible through the night.
The station’s clocktower still stood, though its face had stopped years ago.
People kept pushing in from every side street, filling the Square until there was barely room to breathe, pushing us closer and closer to the platform.
“Emergency assembly,” someone shouted from a doorway. “All citizens to Blackbriar’s Square.”
“What kind of emergency?” a woman called back.
No one answered.
Hunters appeared at every corner, herding the flow of bodies. Their faces were stone, but I caught the tension in their shoulders, the way their hands never strayed far from their weapons. Whatever this was, even they were rattled.
“Stay close,” Calder murmured, his voice barely audible over the chaos. “Hood up, Syn.”
I nodded, one hand adjusting my dark green cloak, the other already finding the runes in my coat pocket.
Smooth stone with sharp edges cutting into my palm.
The familiar weight should have been comforting.
Instead, it felt like carrying pebbles to fight a dragon.
The witches were never safe. And if this was a culling of some sort.
.. Well, I wasn’t about to go down without a fight.
A child wailed somewhere behind us. An elderly man stumbled, nearly taking down three others before strong hands caught him. The rain kept coming, soaking through wool and leather until we all looked like drowned rats.
“This is madness,” a baker muttered, flour still dusting his apron. “What could be so urgent they’d call us out in this weather?”
“Maybe the Oracle’s finally going to tell us something useful,” his companion replied.
“The Oracle?” The baker’s voice pitched higher. “She’s here?”
Word spread like wildfire. The Oracle. Here in Grimora. Whispers multiplied, speculation building until the air hummed with nervous energy. Eda Mire was right. Her warnings now sat like an anchor in my gut. Nothing good would come of this.
A sprite zipped past my head, squeaking frantically. “Make way! Make way!”
Another followed, then another, their usual grace replaced with chaos and a hurriedness that bled into the crowd. One sprite slammed into a street lamp and bounced off, righting itself with a shake before diving back into the masses.
Even the messengers were breaking.
“Calder.” I had to raise my voice over the noise.
“I know.” His jaw was tight, eyes scanning the rooftops. Looking for escape routes that didn’t exist. “Whatever this is, we stay together. Whatever happens, you follow my lead.”
“What about Vitoria?”
He was quiet for too long. “She’ll find us if she can.”
If she can. Vitoria’s empty bed haunted me. Tonight felt different. Wrong. She’d been there with us when I fell asleep. As far as Calder and I knew, no red-haired sprite had come to summon her. And he would have woken. He was always watching. She’d just vanished.
The crowd surged forward, carrying us whether or not we wanted to go. A shifter kept sprouting ears, then losing them; his control shattered by the overwhelming scent of fear. His eyes were wild, pupils dilated. Fight or flight warred across his features, and I wondered which instinct would win.
My own blood sang with unwanted fire, my Phoenix nature burning to answer fear with flame, to light a path through the crowd and find somewhere safe to hide. I pressed the feeling down until my bones ached, until the heat was just another discomfort to ignore.
The Grand Platform rose ahead like a stone altar, warded against the rain. Hunters ringed its base in perfect formation, their weapons catching occasional flashes of the lightning.
I found the Ripper immediately. He stood at his father’s right hand, eyes moving through the crowd with mechanical precision.
Cataloging faces. Memorizing features. Probably filing away information for later use.
When his gaze swept over our section, I forced myself to look away, to hide within the walls of my hood.
But I could feel him searching. Always searching. The definition of a perfect hunter.
“Be calm,” Calder breathed.
The Magistrate stepped forward, commanding instant silence.
Rain plastered his silver hair to his skull, but his posture remained regal, untouchable.
He raised one hand, and even the storm seemed to quiet in response.
His voice carried with magic that certainly wasn’t his, but rather a witch he employed or a rune nearby.
“Citizens of Grimora, visitors from all over Fuerlis, friends, tonight, you witness something that has not occurred in over a century. Tonight, prophecy walks among us.”
Tiberius gestured off stage, and runes were activated, creating a magical barrier around the platform, shielding those on top from the rain. The murmurs started again, rippling through the crowd.
“A century?”
“What prophecy?”
“A fury-born?”
“I heard it’s the Oracle.”
“Impossible,” a scorched woman near us whispered, dragging her children closer.
The Magistrate cleared his throat and again gestured to someone beyond the platform’s edge.
Calder tensed, perfect stillness before violence, muscles coiled and ready to spring.
Or run. I had no doubt that man would grab me and toss me over his shoulder just to leave faster if needed.
I never knew why he’d attached himself to me after Eda Mire introduced us, but she claimed it was because we each needed a family. So we made our own.
Whatever the reason, he would die for me, but I knew I would die for him too. All three of our mothers had proven that’s what family did for each other. My roaming thoughts were jerked back to the rainy nightmare as the crowd died to whispers. Then to nothing. Silent. Still.
She emerged like something from a fever dream.
The Oracle. A Fury. Or fury-born. There was no way of knowing for sure. She could have been one of the original three sisters, but odds were, those very old souls would never leave their sanctuary. I’d heard only their children roamed Fuerlis now.
White robes clung to her thin frame, soaked through, but revealing nothing.
Her blindfold was simple cloth, frayed at the edges, likely old beyond measure.
As a fury-born, she had a touch of ancient magic, the kind that existed before the newest cities, before the kingdoms and countries, before the scorched learned to hide from the things that hunted in the dark.
A massive raven perched on the Oracle’s shoulder, its head swiveling in slow, deliberate arcs.
Obviously watching what she couldn’t see.
Its obsidian eyes reflected the lightning, sharp as black glass.
Though now she was free of the rain, she stood at the platform’s edge, water dripping from her robes, and waited.
The silence stretched until it became unbearable, until people started shifting their weight, clearing their throats, desperate for any sound to break the spell she’d cast.
When she finally spoke, her voice rose from everywhere and nowhere, amplified by magic until it seemed to emerge from the stones beneath our feet. “Three nights past, beneath the Blood Moon’s light, an attempt was made upon my life.”
The crowd exploded. Shouts of outrage. Gasps of disbelief.
Who would dare? Who could even get close enough to try?
She raised her hand, and silence fell again.
“A coward’s poison in my wine.” Her voice cracked—actually cracked—and the sound was worse than screaming. “And tonight, a blade in the dark. Magic twisted to murderous purpose.”
My chest tightened. This wasn’t just an announcement. This was mourning, barely contained, threatening to spill over and drown us all.
“It grieves me.” The words came softer now, almost a whisper that somehow reached every ear.
She couldn’t express the pain with her eyes, but her voice, her genuine sadness was enough to penetrate every heart that stood before her.
“It grieves me beyond measure to speak this name. To reveal this truth. But silence would be the greater evil, and I know you will all feel the same way. I have seen it. I have felt it. I have known it for a very long time.”
She reached into her robes with trembling hands.
Whatever she was about to show us, she didn’t want to.
This wasn’t justice. This was something else.
Something that sounded like regret. But in that, the crowd hung on every syllable.
A scroll appeared in her grip, rolled tight as a weapon.
“She who would silence a fury-born with blade and poison deserves this.”
The world held its breath.
She unrolled it slowly, as if revealing each inch cost her something precious.
I wanted to look away. See the eyes of the raven.
The Magistrate. Anyone. But the Oracle held me pinned to the cobblestone road.
The parchment caught the light, glowing white against the dark sky, and an image began to form above the platform, visible from every angle, painted in light and magic and terrible clarity.
Green eyes appeared first. Familiar eyes that sparkled with mischief and defiance. Then the curve of a cheek I’d know from any perspective. A mouth that had whispered secrets in the dark, that had laughed at my jokes. That had kept me grounded.
Vitoria’s face stared back at us, perfect in every detail.
The world tilted sideways, and I might have fallen if Calder hadn’t shifted, his body shielding mine, steadying me without seeming to move. But the image remained, burning into my mind as if no other memory of her existed beyond this one, impossible to unsee.
That was Vitoria. My Vitoria. The woman who sang off-key in the bath, who stole honey cakes from the kitchen just to piss Calder off, who could make flower crowns from weeds and light from shadows.
Who’d cried at the end of my bed when she couldn’t save a cinderpup she’d found in an alley, abandoned by its mother.
This wasn’t someone who would plot the death of the Oracle.
Even with direct orders from Eda Mire, it simply wouldn’t have happened.
Vitoria faked her own death after her parents were killed.
She wasn’t perfect, but she never pulled a job without Calder.
Especially one that would prove she was alive after all these years of hiding, had anything gone wrong.
“Behold the Phoenix.” The Oracle’s words fell like stones into still water, sending ripples of shock through the crowd. “Vitoria Nindle.”
Her full name echoed off the buildings, each syllable a funeral bell. The crowd shifted from confusion to murmuring recognition. The Phoenix. Here. Among them. Hidden in plain sight.
No.
Fuck no.
The word screamed through my mind, but I couldn’t voice it. Couldn’t draw attention. Couldn’t reveal what only I knew, what Gran had carved from my flesh with blade and determination and desperate love.
I was the Phoenix. I had always been the Phoenix. Vitoria was fire, yes, but not the fire. Never that.
Someone had framed her.
I couldn’t breathe beyond that one cold truth. Someone knew about her magic, knew about her unregistered status. Someone saw an opportunity to pin the world’s greatest fear on a convenient target while the real Phoenix remained hidden, unsuspected. My poor sister.
The word ‘Phoenix’ appeared across her face in the image above the platform, and the crowd’s reaction was visceral. Calling for blood, screaming for the hunter’s justice. Someone even threw a rock at the image, though it didn’t make it past the wards.
Something warm pressed against my ankle through the crowd. Silas, in his smallest form, trembling with rage. Not fear. I was sure he didn’t know fear. But I could feel the way his anger wrapped around mine. His instincts screamed to shift, to grow, to tear apart the threats surrounding us.
Hold Silas. Wait.
Tiberius stepped forward. But satisfaction flickered beneath the surface of his gruesome smile, anticipation for what came next. He dipped his chin to the Oracle, respectful but not subservient.
“Given the severity of these crimes, and in accordance with our most ancient laws,” he paused, letting the tension build until it was almost unbearable. For me, mostly. Because what the fuck were we going to do to save her? “There will be a Mortalis.”
Shit.
Calder’s hand twitched toward his blade before stopping. Around us, those who understood the old word began backing away. Pushing. Shoving. Fighting to escape what they knew was coming.
But there was nowhere to go. The hunters had closed the Square. We were trapped, all of us, witnessing something that would change everything. The raven’s head turned. Slowly, deliberately, until its obsidian gaze found me in the crowd. It tilted its head with interest. Then moved on.
But it was the Ripper’s stare that burned deepest. He’d found me again, locked onto me with an intensity that made my hidden fire stir.
Not the casual cataloging from before. This was focused.
Intentional. Like he’d finally found the missing piece of a puzzle he’d been working at for years.
But he couldn’t have known. When he saw me and Vitoria together, she looked like a nymph, purple eyes, higher cheekbones, elongated canines.
Fierce features. Nothing soft. Nothing of her.
The net was closing around us all. Every searching gaze, every tightening trap, every second of injustice pressing down on an innocent woman. And I could feel every instinct Gran had beaten into me starting to crack as something reckless took root in my mind.