Chapter Seven
I slunk into bed in the early morning hours. Shewa, thankfully, was not around. Despite how weary I was, I felt as if my body was on fire. Every place Johai had touched me, my lips, my hips and even my fingertips were ablaze. This is dangerous, more dangerous than I could have imagined. I thought he would try to kill me outright, not try to seduce me. When I closed my eyes, his face swam in my thoughts. His dark eyes, so unlike Johai’s, were burning into me, and the way we had moved together, it promised more. I took a shuddered breath and pulled my blanket closer. I have to fight this. He must have put me under some kind of spell. I rolled over and kicked off the blankets. I felt hot. The night air was cold, and it brushed against my flushed skin. I had been feeling the pull to Johai since the transformation, but being so close to him, it was almost intoxicating. What changed? I loved Johai, but since his transformation my feelings had gone from love to something terrifying—something I could not quite control.
I had to go for a walk, burn off some of this energy. I walked out of the tent, and the camp was empty. The fire pit burned low, and only a single curl of smoke wafted up from the glowing coals. The snoring of the clan and surrounding clans joined the sound of distant laughter and music coming from the continued dance. I walked away from the camp, without a purpose or direction. I headed for the water’s edge. I stopped to stare into the reflection of the moon on the water’s surface. The wind continued to blow, and the bells and charms in my hair clinked together softly.
I touched one of the cold bells. They marked me as a virgin giving herself in service of the Mother. I let my hand fall to my side. I had felt for a long time that I was working in the service of the prophecy. Do I need to give my maidenhead to seal my service to the Goddess? I glanced up and across the lake. I saw a large encampment. I felt that urgent pull and saw, on the far side, Johai. He was watching me, his white hair like a beacon in the night. He was too far for me to see his expression, but I could sense him nonetheless. We were linked. An irrational part of me wanted to go to him, to give him what my body was yearning for. That part of me wanted to believe there was still some of Johai locked inside of that monster, but I knew that wasn’t him. My Johai wouldn’t be playing this dangerous traitorous game. He would not try to coerce me. He always gave me the choice. He lifted up a hand, beckoning me to him. I took a step in that direction when something flittered in the corner of my eye.
I looked down to the water’s surface. My reflection stared back at me. Then it changed subtly. In the place of my reflection came an image of my mother. She smiled up at me.
“Maea, you cannot go to him, not yet,” she said.
My flesh prickled with anticipation. “What should I do?”
He was coming around in my direction. I saw him from the corner of my eye making a leisurely trek around the edge of the lake.
“Run!” my mother said, and so I did.
I ran in the opposite direction, past the camps and over the hills through the sea of grass. I ran until the sounds of camp faded and were replaced by the soft chiming of bells. The wind smelled musky here, like herbs. I slowed my pace and looked around me. I could feel Johai in the distance; he did not pursue me. That was not the game he wanted to play—he would not chase me. I cannot run forever. A time will come when we must meet, when I will have to go to him.
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
I was startled by an old woman in a white robe standing in the middle of the grass plain.
“Who are you?” I asked.
I looked the woman up and down. Her hair was snowy white, long enough to brush against the ground. Her feet were bare, hard and black. She met my eyes, and she stared back at me with large violet eyes.
“You know who I am,” she said and turned to hobble down the hill. She leaned on a twisted cane.
I followed her down a small incline to a valley between hills. Nestled against a hillside was a tent. It had the same embroidery that most Biski tents favored, but it was different; instead of animals it was covered in a myriad of symbols. The poles were hung with bits of fabric, which twitched in the breeze, and bundles of herbs hung from the supporting beam of the tent. I walked down towards it at a more sedate pace. Outside the tent, a white cat sat at the entrance, tail wrapped around its lower half.
It stared up at me with wide green eyes. There was something soulful about those eyes, as if it had knowledge beyond understanding—perhaps it had picked up some of its master’s mysticism.
The old woman went into the tent, and I slipped in after her. Inside, the tent was bare of comforts but for a sleeping roll and a pile of blankets. There were plenty of baskets and jars, and in the center of the tent, a stone basin had been placed on the floor. The woman sat down in front of the basin, her legs folded in front of her, and her bony knees stretched the edges of her gown. She folded her skeletal hands in front of her as she regarded me with clear violet eyes untouched by age and time. I should have known the oracle was a diviner like me.
“You are the oracle?” I said.
She nodded her head and motioned for me to sit with a wave of her hand. I took a seat cross-legged in front of her. I had so many questions. I wasn’t sure where to begin. “I’ve come such a long way in search of your guidance, and now that I am here, I do not know what to say,” I admitted.
“Your questions will be answered in good time. First of all we must cleanse you.” She reached her hands into the basin and gathered up the water there. She splashed the water onto me, and I gasped as the cold water hit me.
I blinked at her, water running down my face. “Why did you do that?”
“He has ensnared you. You should not let the tainted one get so close to you. You are stronger than him, remember that.”
I wasn’t sure if I should be more amazed that she knew or ashamed for letting Johai ensnare me as he had. I touched my skin; it no longer felt feverish. The water had taken away the burning itch of desire I had been feeling.
“How did you do that?” I said instead.
“This is blessed water from the Mother. This place is sacred; the two combined can fight off his power. He cannot reach you while you are here.”
“Then we are safe here?” I was relieved and a bit disappointed as well.
“Not indefinitely, but for now, while the majority of his power is dormant, yes.”
“What do you mean? His power should be realized; he has control of Johai’s body.” I leaned forward; was there really hope yet? It seemed after so many disappointments it was too much to hope for more.
“He has control of the host, but he must wait until the gateway opens to gain full power.”
“The gateway, do you mean the eclipse?”
She nodded as she pursed her wrinkled lips. “Then you know that much at least. Good, it will make our task easier.”
“What else must I do? I want to learn. I have to save Johai from this.” Hope had been rekindled in me. I can save him. I will make good on my promise.
She regarded me for a moment without speaking. “You cannot save the host. The specter will use up his life force to reach the full potential of his power. He is lost.”
“No!” I shouted. My voice echoed back at me, and the bells in my hair tinkled as I shook my head in denial. In a few words she had burst all my rekindled hope. I had been trying to resign myself to that truth, but hearing it opened the wound afresh. You knew when you set out that it was hopeless, as did Johai. He warned you back in Sanore that there was no hope. I let him go knowing that there might not be a way to save him. “I promised him I would save him, and I will,” I told the oracle. If I would not admit the truth out loud, then perhaps it would not come true.
She clucked her tongue. “You love him, do you not?”
“I do.” What does this have to do with anything?
She touched the edge of the basin. Her old crabbed fingers traced the markings along the lip. They were painted in silver upon black stone. I looked past the stone to the w
ater within. It called to me, as the water often did. It had been a long time since I felt the call this strong. I was beginning to worry that I was losing my gift. Now I felt it drumming in my ears, beckoning to look within and part the waters to peer into the future. I would not let the vision take me, but I did absorb the scattered images that floated to the surface. I saw a glimpse of white, a shadow, a room lit by torches, and a newborn baby with black hair.
“Then you are the prophecy’s fulfillment, the unbroken circle,” the oracle said at last.
I looked away from the basin and focused upon the old woman. She had to be well into her seventieth year. Unlike the other Biski, she was pale as new milk, her face lined heavily by time. Her gown was worn, and the hem was tattered.
“I’ve been told that before. What does it mean?” I asked.
“Before you can understand your future, you must understand your past.” She swiped her fingers across the water’s surface, sending ripples across it. The images disappeared, and all that remained was the black water.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Do you know who I am?” She pointed a bony finger at her chest.
I shrugged. It was childish, but I needed some way to vent my frustration. Why must all these mystics speak in riddles? “You are the oracle.”
“That is true, but I am also the keeper of the prophecy, as was my daughter.” She pointed her boney finger at me. “As are you, daughter of my blood, as our line has been for hundreds of years.”
I paused, studying the old woman’s face. Before her skin had begun to sag, she’d had a round face, and her eyes were large like mine. “Are you saying you are my grandmother?”
She smiled. She was missing three teeth, and her lips were thin as paper. “Yes, you are my granddaughter by my oldest daughter.”
“There are more of us?” I was stunned to think that all my life I’d thought I was the last, only to find I had more family than I could have imagined.
Her smile faltered. “We are the last diviners, you and I. My other daughter did not have the gift, though she became a powerful du-toath before her passing. So would her daughter be if she’d chosen that path. The gifts of the Mother are strong in our blood.” She finished with a bit of puffed-up pride.
I stared at her, wide-eyed. She was my grandmother, and I had a cousin? This morning I had felt as if I were alone in the world only to find my family was here in the south.
“I am Biski?” I said. I looked at my skin; it was pale as ever. These are my people, and I never knew.
My grandmother crossed her arms over her chest. Her elbows were bony and jutted out from beneath her sleeves. “Yes, by half at least. Your mother left before she carried you. I suspect she went to birth the prophecy.”
“How could she birth the prophecy?”
“She thought the time had come. She misread the signs in the water, we argued, and she left. I never saw her again.” My grandmother looked past me and into the distance. I could nearly see the argument unfolding here in this small tent: my mother a young woman arguing with her mother of prophecy. I saw her storming out of the tent and the tears my grandmother shed when she had gone.
I lowered my eyes. She met her death in the north. She gave birth to me and then shortly after took her own life. I still remember the vision of her standing upon the shore, her dark hair blowing back like a banner on the breeze. What were you thinking? You had family here. Why did you leave me alone to fend for myself on the street?
“My mother died long before the prophecy began to move,” I said.
“I know. I saw her passing in the waters.” She gestured to the stone basin between us. The images flickered across the surface once more. Sabine’s face flashed across the surface for a moment before disappearing. I pulled my eyes away.
“The call is strong in you; I can see my blood has passed on well.” She smiled, this time without showing her missing teeth.
I wanted to look into the water and see what it would reveal. There would be time enough for that soon. I had questions only this woman could answer.
“Did you know of me as well? Have you watched me grow up? Why did you never come for me and teach me?” The questions tumbled out, each eager to be voiced. I had wondered most of my life about other diviners, and I had long ago resigned myself to being the last. Now that I had found my heritage, all the questions I had silenced demanded answers.
“You were not revealed to me until only recently. The Mother moves in ways that are often unseen by her children. She revealed you to me when it was time for me to aid you in the prophecy.”
I contemplated her words for a moment. All paths have led me here. The river, Johai and even the war. Be it the prophecy, the Mother or the Goddess, I was brought here for a purpose, it must be.
“I had thought I foretold the prophecy about the destruction of the kingdoms,” I said.
“The prophecy is even older than me, child.” She traced her finger across the surface of the water.
A desolate landscape revealed itself. The ground was scorched black and lined with corpses. Crows picked at carcasses. A man crawled across the ground, his nails digging into the blood-soaked and burnt soil. He was emaciated and bleeding from a wound to his abdomen. He seemed to turn to look at me from within the basin. He held his hand up in a pleading gesture. I looked away, terrified by the images.
“One will come who is crowned in starlight,
He wears the night as his cloak,
And the wind is his steed,
He shall rise among the children of the first Mother,
When the daughter of sunlight is slain by love,
When east and west become one,
He shall hold the world in his palm.
“He shall appear fair, but his kiss is poisonous,
He is the host of death and destruction,
He shall call himself the one true king,
The daughter will love him and yet fear him,
The daughter’s innocence shall be stolen to cloak her,
The daughter’s devotion will break the bonds that hold him,
“On the day the moon swallows the sun,
The child of two crowns shall be unleashed,
To the destruction of man,
Enemies, wedded and intent on a common foe,
Will stand no chance against his might.
All shall fall; all shall perish,
If the daughter of the blood does not smite the moon’s child.”
As she recited the prophecy, her voice took on a melodic quality. The final lines of the prophecy hung in the air; they were the ones I knew very well. All shall fall; all shall perish, if the daughter of the blood does not smite the moon’s child.
“You were chosen for an important task,” she continued. “Every few generations, the evil rises, and only one of our own can stop it. Now is the final time; you will end the cycle. You are the circle unbroken.”
My fate was decided before I ever took my first breath. I was meant to fall in love with Johai only to be doomed to kill him. The prophecy says as much. The realization sank like a stone in my gut.
“How can I kill the man I love?” I whispered. Tears threatened my eyelids, but I would not let them fall. I am done crying. I have cried enough for a lifetime. Johai is dead. The specter has stolen him from me. I continued, my voice stronger, “I tried before the transformation was complete, and I could not… How can I possibly stop him now that he is much more powerful?”
“It is your destiny. It cannot be avoided.”
I stared at my hands balled into fists in my lap. I will kill him, but how? He knows my every move. As I sense him, he senses me. She reached across to me and patted me with a bony hand. “Do you know the story of the fall of the House of Diranel?”
“I know that they were betrayed from within after the death of the head diviner. That the king wished for them to divine a path to prevent a war, and they failed and were disbanded and exiled.”
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��That is partially true. The real truth is we were ruined by the sorcerer. It was the same specter, the one who has taken over this man you love. A hundred years ago, in my mother’s time, we were beloved of the courts. We attended upon kings and lords. It was a golden age. We had long forgotten the ancient curse that we were burdened with. We forgot the spirit that our powers had bound. The last of the great house died unexpectedly. Her two daughters, both able diviners, fought bitterly for the title of head diviner. Then one daughter came out victorious. She was backed by a mysterious man, her lover, a sorcerer. We were so blind”—she shook her head—“that we did not see the signs right there in front of us. The sorcerer had ensorcelled the poor woman, and she could not break free. He manipulated her powers, letting her see only what he wanted. He destroyed our reputation in hopes of ending our line, but when my mother realized what he was, she slew him before we were exterminated. It was too late for our once great house, and my mother fled south here to live a simpler life beyond the courts.”
The specter tricked my ancestors just as he tried to deceive me. Elenna thought there was a way to save him, but I do not think she survived the flood. I have no choice. The oracle was my last hope. “How did your mother kill him?” I asked.
She closed her eyes and tilted her head back. She inhaled and exhaled. I wondered what she was doing when she opened her eyes again, and they seemed to glow. “The specter meets his end at the beginning; his life fire must be quenched by the sacred water of the Mother’s tears and the blood of the first. In the sacred Sea Chamber the specter will meet his end.” She closed her eyes again and slumped over onto the ground, hitting her head.
I jumped up to help her. I held her head in my lap. She was light as if she were made of feathers and twine. Was that a vision? I need to bring Johai to this Sea Chamber. Where is this place, and how do I get him there?
My grandmother gasped, and her eyes opened once more. She stared up at me. Her eyes were clouded for a moment as she adjusted to her surroundings.
[fan] diviners trilogy - complete series Page 66