35. Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Three
The gown slid from my shoulders in a sigh of silk, pooling at my feet. My chambers waited, decadent and strange. Steam curled from a marble tub, water laced with oils. Lavender and something darker clung to the air.
I stepped in slowly, heat lapping at my skin, sinking into sore muscles. My eyes fell closed. For the first time here, I let the weight slide from me—armor, expectation, the stares of gods and half-born alike.
But the thoughts pressed in: Scáthae’s piercing gaze, the vision of blood and war. Mairenn’s laughter, her casual talk of consort duty.
Tairngire…goddess save me, Tairngire. Backing me against the gazebo rail, his lips a breath from mine—as if rules, Fate, eternity itself could be undone in one unguarded breath.
I sank lower until the water kissed my chin, trying to drown the heat on my skin. Desire was forbidden. Duty, all I was allowed. And yet my duties had changed. No more temple, no more rites…at least not for now. I should have been grateful, truly.
But the bond pulled me closer to Tairngire every day, every word, every look, and I didn’t know if I could keep pretending it was only fire, only anger, that kept me burning.
The truth was that I felt an inextricable pull toward him, a familiarity that shouldn’t have existed.
Especially considering the conversation we had prior to coming here—when he so graciously told me he doesn’t bed mortals.
So why was he playing this dangerous game with me?
By the time I dragged myself from the bath, exhaustion clung to me. I dried, slipped into linen, and slid beneath covers too vast, too opulent.
But when I turned, I wasn’t alone.
A soft glow spilled across the chamber, pale as moonlight but steadier, as if the air itself had caught fire without heat. At its center rose a dais—stone veined with gold, floating a hand’s breadth above the ground.
And on it, seated in her stillness, was the Oracle.
I nearly gasped. I had never seen her outside the temple in Caer Anam. I thought she never left it.
“You…” The word snagged on my tongue.
Her hooded head tilted, and a sound like laughter smothered in smoke slipped from her lips.
“Child, I go where the Fates send me. Always. I am not chained to the Seventh Realm, nor to the temple that cradles me. You are here. You have touched a divine, ill-advised, and the Sight struck. You cannot hide them from me, now. The mistake has been made. The vision?” she paused.
“Final. So, sacred one, tell me what you saw.”
I had no choice, my body had never been mine. So I did what I did best. I obeyed. Scáthae’s hand, the battlefield of iron and blood, the way her presence tore through me like a storm.
Then, before I could stop myself, the question came. “Tell me—are they past or future? These divine visions. They aren’t like the interim bonds, so…what is it that I see?”
The Oracle snapped her blind gaze to me. “Past, future—those are lines mortals draw. To the Weave, there is no difference. What has been and what will be are ends of the same strand. Your visions do not promise truth.”
Her words curled in my chest, giving me no clarity at all, as usual.
“They will come more often now,” she said, her voice carrying inevitability.
“The Fates do not waste their threads once they begin to weave. Each vision will press harder than the last. You will not be able to outrun them much longer. And you, Seer, you will bring them to me when they come. Always. No matter when. No matter where.”
Her veiled eyes glimmered with ancient wisdom, something I had never been blessed with. She spoke with the Old Gods, where I merely exercised their Sight. “For if you do not, the visions will tighten their noose, and even gods cannot cut what the Fates have knotted.”
The glow snapped shut like a door slamming in the dark. The dais was gone. The chamber was empty. But her words clung like smoke I couldn't breathe in.
It appeared my duties had followed me after all. I sighed.
Even after all this time, I was still a vessel to be used, just like the Oracle.
The difference was that the Old One’s spoke with her plainly while they left me barren.
I had no choice but to be the shadow of their unknown intent.
She could see into their minds, their deepest desires.
I would always just be a mouthpiece, the one cruelly tasked with recording terrible outcomes.
I was nothing.
Replaceable.
I closed my eyes, refusing to linger on the inevitable. Sleep came quickly when I pushed those thoughts away. But it didn't come gently. It rarely did.
I dreamed of running with roots and moss beneath my feet and the wild forest endless around me. Branches clawed at my hair. My lungs filled with fresh air. Somewhere behind me, laughter followed—low, dark, familiar, not chasing, not threatening, but calling. Pulling me deeper.
And I ran toward it, heart in my throat.
The morning came too quickly.
I woke in linens soft as breath. Sunlight threaded through glass panes that felt too delicate for a sky-fortress. The chamber was already moving—soft slippers, hushed voices—as the ladies-in-waiting slipped in without ceremony.
They dressed me in leather light as air. Buckles snug, straps precise. Not armor for battle, armor for movement.
No visions struck because I cut them off the way I had yesterday. The Oracle’s warning echoed loudly in my head. You will not be able to avoid them as you have been.
I smirked at the thought of having defied her again.
The visions had always unsettled me, from the first time my Sight slipped under someone’s skin.
I learned wonder wasn’t what waited there—devastation was.
And when I couldn’t avoid them, I forced the feelings they gave me down until my lungs burned.
I mistook that refusal for strength. Now the Fates had made a game of me—visions of gods and iron and blood, and Tairngire in the middle of all of it. Something coiled in my chest.
Spite.
If they thought I would bow to every thread they dangled, they were wrong. If they thought I would open myself to each vision and surrender piece by piece, they were mad. I choked them back yesterday. I could do it again. I would bury the visions, smother them until they ceased to exist.
Fates be damned.
The ladies’ fingers wove through my hair next, quick and deft, braiding it back so no lock could fall across my face. One of them hummed easily, as if braiding hair brought her some sort of serenity.
I said little. Only when the last braid was tied and they stepped back did I meet my reflection.
And I looked nothing like the girl who had left Anamcroí, nor the soft one from last night.
I looked like someone ready to face her demons head-on, and I wanted live up to that image. I would live up to that image.
The corridor stretched before me. My boots echoed faintly on polished stone.
Each step felt heavier with the eyes that would soon be on me.
The doors opened, and the sounds hit first—steel on steel, grunts of effort, the crack of sparring staffs.
The half-born moved gracefully under their instructor’s gaze.
One by one, they noticed me make an entrance. Strikes slowed, voices faltered until the courtyard fell silent. Dozens of stares pinned me in place—the sacred Seer in leather, hair braided for battle they damn well knew I wasn’t ready for.
I let out a deep breath and forced my steps steady.
Don't trip Aurenya, don't trip, don't…
Mairenn waited at the center of it all, tossing a wooden sword between her hands.
Her grin was easy as she flipped the sword with one hand, and waved at me with the other.
I crossed the yard toward her, every stare still clinging to me like flies on shit.
Her grin only widened the closer I got. At last, she turned her gaze to the others.
She lifted her fake sword and pointed lazily toward the half-born gawking mid-training.
“Have you all gone soft?” she called, voice slicing through the silence.
“Staring is fucking rude. And that particular weakness reeks worse than your sweat.” She scrunched her nose as if seriously offended.
I couldn’t help the smile that played across my lips at her unabashed defense of me, a girl she’d met merely a day ago.
A few muttered under their breath, but none dared answer her directly. One by one, they went back to sparring under her scrutiny, steel singing in rhythm.
I blinked.
Mairenn didn’t just stand in the courtyard—she ruled it.
I’d thought her grin was mischief, but here, before the half-born, before warriors bred for battle?
Her words carried weight. The king’s consort.
Scáthae’s daughter. She wasn’t just his, or a bride in her mother's shadow.
She was a force of her own. And I, the Seer of the Seven Realms, was about to stand in her shadow.
She tossed another wooden sword to me and I barely caught it. The thing was far heavier than I expected it to be.
“The Forest God has informed me that you lack experience with a sword. That you’ve only ever trained alone—with a dagger.” She lifted a subtle brow, as if waiting for me to elaborate.
Of course, he’d informed others of my lack in experience without further context.
I glared in her direction, but my ire wasn’t directed at her.
“I suppose the Forest God also conveniently left out that I’ve killed two beasts with that same dagger.
With zero formal training, mind you.” I held my chin up with pride, I wanted her to know that while I might have looked weak and untrained, I was capable of more.
She cocked her head to the side, totally unimpressed. “And what? Do you expect me to fall and prostrate myself before you now? Anyone would have done the same in your position if they were worth a damn.”