Forged Absolution (Fates of the Bound Book 4)

by Wren Weston

  Sort of.

  Here people wore color. Lots of it. Lila had never seen such a rainbow in one place, for highborn only wore their family’s color. Lowborn tended to pick their own and wear it exclusively, trying to start a tradition amongst their own family. Workborn and slaves could only wear color if they held a contract, and only the color belonging to their employer’s family.

  The oracles had no such rules, save for the lilac robe of the oracle and the purple coats and gray uniforms of the militia. Lila saw bright pink jackets and navy hats, forest-green trousers and plaid socks, bright red boots and aqua sweaters.

  All mixed and matched and rarely monochromatic.

  “I believe we have found your people, Dixon.”

  His dimples reappeared.

  The cart stopped before the central building. The first floor had been made of the same stone as the wall around the compound, and it extended several meters before pine took over. Columns of the uncut timber burst through the front of the building, looking as though they’d been planted and coaxed into place, rather than cut and hewn. The top blended into the same darkly stained wood as the cabins throughout the compound.

  The purplecoat hopped out of her cart. Her dark hair curled around her ears, barely reaching her chin. “If you’ll follow me, please.”

  Lila followed as the young woman spun and marched away. It felt odd not to hear “madam” or “chief” after every sentence. Perhaps the purplecoat did not know she was highborn. Perhaps none of them knew her as anything more than Lila.

  The pair followed Delilah past two purplecoats at the door. They both rushed to open them for the little group, both staring as though she and Dixon had sprouted horns and a tail.

  “Everyone’s always curious about outsiders,” Delilah explained under her breath. “You’ll get that a lot today.”

  Lila couldn’t blame anyone for staring, not as her eyes drank in the lobby. The recessed ceiling spanned the heights of three grown men. Light dotted the surface, keeping the room free from shadows. A master had cut the stones in the wall. Each one lay flush against the next, with barely a hair’s breadth between them. Thick rugs lay upon the wooden floor, which gleamed with polish. Half a dozen couches sat throughout the room, clustered near a fireplace. The thick stuffing invited her in, as did the throw pillows tossed upon each one.

  Delilah led them toward a wide staircase in the back, but they did not ascend to the next floor. Instead, they darted past it, turned to the right, and slipped down a hall, past several open offices. Inside, people sat at counters, talking on palms or typing on the same brand of computer.

  More pillows dotted the offices. A rolled blanket sat on a little table by each door.

  The purplecoat took one last turn and ushered them into a small room, devoid of anything save a few padded stools and a shoebox-sized panel of buttons. A tall woman in a white robe with lilac trim stood inside. She looked very much like the oracle, but with silver hair and blue eyes.

  “Thank you, Delilah,” the woman said. “Stay close, will you?”

  The purplecoat bowed, and closed the door behind her.

  “I’m Kenna.” The robed woman extended her arm, shaking hands with Lila and Dixon. “My sister and I are very glad your troubles with Bullstow have ended, Ms. Randolph. Word is they’ve dropped all charges.”

  “Your spies are correct.” Lila’s gaze shifted toward one of the walls. It had not been cut from stone but fashioned from glass, dividing the room from the one next door. Several sofa chairs and a large bed filled it. A young girl lay amid a mountain of pillows, bundled to her neck, her eyes dark and half-lidded. A woman—probably her mother—had settled beside her, brushing the girl’s hair from her face.

  The oracle sat beside them in a sofa chair, her lilac robes pooling around her feet.

  Kenna flipped a switch on the box. A raisin-sized bulb lit up across the room, throwing the slightest blur of red against the white wall.

  The woman and the girl didn’t seem to notice, but the oracle did.

  “The dead rise and walk the halls of our mothers and fathers,” she said, folding her hands in her lap. “Just or unjust, good or bad, it makes no difference. You both will be together in the afterlife, though it may take some time for you to find one another again. Can you be brave until your mother gets there, Sarah?”

  “She’s dying, isn’t she?” Lila whispered.

  “It’s leukemia. The doctors say she only has a few weeks left,” Kenna explained. “You may speak normally here, Lila. The room next door is soundproof, and the mic only works the one way.”

  Lila faltered at her first name again, used by someone she had only met a few moments before. Then again, she supposed anonymity dictated such informality.

  “So they’ve come to see the oracle.”

  “Yes. They’re a one.”

  “A one?”

  “Lots of people conference with the oracles, but they usually come for the same few reasons. The parents of dying children want to know if they’ll see their babies again one day or if their children will die gasping and in pain. Sometimes they want to know both. This woman and her child are both ones. Neither one wants to be alone.”

  Lila’s eyes drifted down to the box and the buttons. She wondered if Chef had ever visited the same room. “And you help the oracle?”

  “Mòr rarely needs my help. She’s been at this for a very long time, but occasionally she gets stumped. Of course, sometimes I think she only pretends to make me feel useful.”

  “You wrote the list.”

  Kenna nodded.

  “How often does the oracle meet with visitors?”

  “She goes out once a week to see the ones who can’t make it to the temple. We have a complicated process for weeding out the ones who need such visits, rather than summoning her due to laziness.”

  “I thought she only made house calls to the rich.”

  “Of course you would, you cynical little atheist.”

  Lila looked away, not because she was offended, but because she wasn’t sure if she was an atheist anymore. She had no idea what to believe about the oracles and the gods.

  Perhaps she had become an agnostic who didn’t want to think about the question.

  “Now that’s very interesting,” Kenna mused, studying Lila’s face.

  Lila’s eyes flitted back to the other room. “I didn’t know the oracle met with anyone inside her compound.”

  “It’s rare, but this is a favor for a very dear friend. The little girl desperately wished to see the oracle’s house before she died. She’s going on a tour of the compound today, for as long as she can manage it. We don’t want to tire her out too much.”

  “I didn’t know the oracles granted wishes.”

  “Everyone grants wishes. Few of us are lucky enough to know the wishes we grant.”

  “Fortune cookie?”

  “A proverb from the oracles’ archives. Some tended to be overly impressed with themselves. Luckily, Mòr has never been like that. I suppose that I gave her too many wet willies as a child.”

  “Wet willies?”

  “I guess the highborn really are different. Look it up. You can practice on him.”

  Dixon licked his finger and stuck it in Lila’s ear, rubbing a trail of cold spit on her skin.

  “Ugh!” Lila wiped at her ear and smacked him in the arm.

  “Friends, then, not lovers.” Kenna grinned. “I’m glad to see it. I imagine you need a good friend now.”

  “You got all that from a wet willie?”

  “No, I got all that from the fact that you slapped him like a little brother. Your pupils didn’t dilate, either. Neither did his. Who is he?”

  Dixon flipped his notepad over. Dixon Leclair had been written in large block letters on the back.

  “I thought so. The oracle speaks well o
f you and your brother. Connell, too.”

  In the other room, the oracle drew their attention. She helped the mother pick up her child in a bundle of blankets and thin limbs. “Delilah will take you back to the cart and drive you around the compound. You’ll have to wear your coat, though, Sarah. She might even let you steer the cart if you are very good and eat your lunch.”

  The little girl gave a weak but happy squeal as Delilah whisked them both away.

  Kenna led Lila and Dixon into the other room.

  “You did well, Mòr,” she said.

  “Not well enough. I nearly had Sarah pegged as a two. Rambling on about how it wouldn’t hurt would have only frightened the girl.”

  “It’s difficult with children that age. You were right to wait it out. Their parents often influence their thoughts.”

  Mòr smiled at Lila and Dixon. “My sister has always been better at this than me. We nearly had an agreement when we were younger. Kenna would play oracle, and I would have the visions. I never wanted to be famous, and she never minded so much.”

  “I couldn’t sing, so it was either that or voice lessons,” Kenna said. “Of course, it obviously didn’t work out in the end. Mother was against it. She said we shouldn’t thwart the gods’ decisions. She said that if I was supposed to play oracle, I would have gotten the visions instead.”

  “Of course, now that we’re older, we play with the gods’ decisions all the time.” The oracle sat back down in her sofa chair and gestured for the others to join her. Chair legs scraped against the wooden floor as they dragged their seats closer.

  “You lie to people,” Lila said.

  “I’ve already admitted as much. Life is frightening enough. When the world is dark and paints you in shadows, you need a light. We try to provide that.”

  “No one comes here for a theological argument,” Kenna said. “They come for assurances. My sister gives them that.”

  “We give them that,” the oracle corrected. “I don’t work alone. Kenna has been my greatest teacher. I’ve learned a lot from her. I hope you’ll do the same. Did you get her list?”

  “Yes, though I’ve been doing some investigating on my own first,” Lila said. “I have some photos I’d like you to look through.”

  She briefly told the women what she’d found so far.

  While she talked, Dixon withdrew a few star drives from his pocket. All of her star drives, in fact. He’d likely planned to bring her to the oracle’s compound no matter what.

  Lila fished out the correct one and handed it to Mòr. The rest she put in her pocket.

  “I’m sure most of your hits are genuine,” Mòr admitted. “The oracle children have a long history of sheltering runaways. Some come from tragedy. Some come from abuse and neglect. Some join us because they believe. Just because someone left home, doesn’t mean they’re missing. It doesn’t make them agents of the empire, either.”

  “So noted,” Lila said. “What have you told your family about me? The purplecoats at the gate had a sketch with my name on it.”

  “They know you are a friend of the oracles and that they should let you inside unimpeded. Those I tasked with rescuing you from Bullstow don’t live on the compound, so no one here knows who you are except for a trusted few.”

  “Who?”

  “Kenna and Connell. Even if the others heard your proper given name, it’s unlikely that they’d mark you as an heir or the prime minister’s daughter. We don’t care much about outsider politics and business here.”

  Is your offer still good? Dixon wrote.

  “What offer?”

  Kenna studied Dixon’s face. “Methinks there are domestic troubles afoot.”

  “Ah, that offer.” Mòr rose to her feet. “I find myself glad for those troubles, although that probably makes me an awful person. When you mentioned you were both coming by, I’d hoped you would stay, at least for a little while. We prepared one of the guest cabins for your use.”

  The oracle threaded through the furniture, leading the group toward the door.

  Mòr took Lila’s arm. “I must say that I’m excited to host you. I’ve been wanting to get to know you better. Sometimes bad things lead to good things, don’t they? Do try to—”

  All at once, the oracle stumbled.

  Lila grabbed her out of instinct, realizing quickly that she had not tripped. Lila tried to slide the oracle to the ground gently, just like a tranqed a suspect.

  But Mòr didn’t behave like someone who’d been tranqed.

  She fought against Lila, thrashing as she fell to the floor.

  Kenna knelt at her side and fiddled with a little bracelet on her sister’s wrist before turning her on her side. “Lila, fetch padding for her head. Dixon, push back the furniture.”

  Lila snatched a pillow from the bed and worked it under Mòr’s head. Chairs scraped against the floor as Dixon shoved them away. Mòr’s eyes flickered underneath her eyelids, darting back and forth, as if she feared for her life. She muttered gibberish, her body twitched, and her head smacked against the pillow.

  Lila understood now why thick rugs covered every floor, why blankets and pillows had littered every room.

  “What if we hadn’t been with her?”

  “Someone is always with her,” Kenna said, her eyes glued to her wristwatch.

  Mòr muttered words as she thrashed, phrases barely intelligible, interrupted by a stray turn of her head. “In the valley near the fallen… The bishop hides from the Army of the Dead…”

  Kenna stroked her sister’s forehead as Mòr twitched and bucked.

  “What is she saying?” Lila asked.

  “I’ve stopped caring. You should, too. Don’t let yourself get drawn in by it. You’ll only be disappointed.”

  “The bishop moves diagonally… Lost in a nest of gold…”

  “It’s okay, Mòr. It’ll be over soon,” Kenna murmured.

  A fine sweat broke out over the oracle’s forehead.

  “Will she be okay?” Lila asked.

  “Yes. It’s going to be a bad one, though.”

  Lila startled as her own name passed the oracle’s lips.

  Chapter 10

  Lila and Dixon lingered awkwardly in the oracle’s parlor, both pacing atop a thick blue rug, both cutting glances at one another whenever they came to the frayed ends. They’d followed Kenna and Connell into the oracle’s house and stopped in the parlor, not wanting to intrude, but no one had emerged from the bowels of the house to fetch them.

  Perhaps they’d been forgotten.

  Perhaps they should wait outside.

  Both turned their gazes away and started pacing anew.

  Back in the admin building, Mòr had thrashed and murmured for what felt like hours. But Dr. McCrae, the compound’s daytime physician, had arrived as the seizures ended—not that she could have done a thing to stop them. Connell had burst through the door immediately after, lingering in the background while the doctor completed her examination, her thin purple scrubs flitting over the oracle, the fabric baggy over her small form. Mòr made Dr. McCrae’s work all the more difficult by shoving away anyone who hovered near her.

  “She’s not herself right now,” her sister had explained before being pushed off balance for the third time.

  It took Mòr another five minutes to become aware of the world once more. She finally moaned in her own voice and peered around the room, trying to sit up.

  “Oh no, you don’t.” Connell had nearly knocked Kenna over again in his haste to nudge Mòr back down to the floor. “We’ve talked about this. Lie down. You promised.”

  Dr. McCrae cleared her throat. “She needs to—”

  “She can hear you,” Mòr reminded them. “She’s right here.”

  “We might talk to her if she ever listened,” Connell said.

  The doctor sat back on
her heels. “You need to rest, Mòr. I’ll swing by your cabin in a few hours to check up on you. Call me—”

  “If anything changes. We know.” Connell had scooped up the oracle in one motion, as though lifting a child made of glass and china, and navigated her carefully into the hall. Reactions from onlookers in the admin building ran from concerned to curious, but no one approached. In fact, they seemed very keen on their paperwork, their phone calls, the rugs at their feet, or even the outsiders.

  Connell carried Mòr to the nearest cabin, surrounded with an abundance of violet pansies. Kenna followed along, worried hands waving as though she’d catch her sister if Connell’s grip slipped.

  Lila doubted that would ever happen. Perhaps he lifted weights for precisely this reason, so he could fulfill his duty as chief and carry home the oracle whenever she grew ill.

  Lila came to the end of the rug, but kept walking this time, her curiosity finally outweighing her worry. Mòr had arranged a collection of family pictures on a set of shelves, interspersed with hundreds of travel books. Each cover promised glossy pictures of places Lila had never seen. The oracle had a book for every country, even Germany and Italy.

  Lila’s eyes cut away to the rest of the room. A dark brown couch and a few sofa chairs had been positioned near a roaring stone fireplace. The leather’s hue matched the colors in the rock, and contrasted prettily with the deep blue rug they’d been marching back and forth across.

  Little else had been put into the parlor except for two display cases. One contained family heirlooms spanning the millennia, the shelves filled to bursting. Brass placards gave a date and a description for each object: a chipped china plate, a silver hand mirror, a frayed and folded quilt, several illuminated manuscripts with ornate calligraphy, sketchbooks, rings, pendants, and watches. A worn obsidian slab sat in the middle, as thick as two knuckles. It ran the length of Lila’s arm and the width of her chest, and had been carved with letters she’d never seen before.