by Cate Corvin
I saw Tascius and Lucifer exchange a silent high-five from the corner of my eye.
The last thing I’d expected was for the two possessive males to find the kindred spirit of fucking with people in each other.
I followed Azazel outside, and Tascius was right behind me, winding a lock of my hair through his fingers. His lips twitched when I glared up at him, but under Seer Antava’s eyes, he was suddenly all business.
Lucifer closed the door and joined us. I bid a fond farewell to the little respite; as soon as we knew where we could find the Oracle, we’d be setting out immediately.
“She’s waiting in the Crystal Pavilion,” the seer said, beckoning us along.
Instead of turning towards the glassy stairs, we went right, the men ducking under the hanging boughs of willow trees.
“Through here,” Antava said, and my mouth fell open.
The Crystal Pavilion took its name very literally. It was a cluster of milky quartz crystals the size of a house, but the inside was lit with a soft glow, and faint shadows gave away the presence of someone inside.
I followed Antava through a doorway carved in the stone. The interior opened up, widening so we could look up into the hollow bores of each crystal point.
There wasn’t much inside but a low table set with a teapot and several cups. Round silk pillows had been piled on the floor around the table, and a demonic woman gazed at us evenly from the opposite end, her hands folded in her lap.
I slowed to a stop before I reached the pillows. Her eyes were white, just as milky as the crystal overhead, but her eyes roamed over each one of us. She wasn’t blind, but somehow I thought she must be able to see other things beyond normality with eyes like that.
“Sit, Melisande.” The Visionary pointed at one of the pillows, and I folded my legs under me as I sat across from her. She smiled as my men each chose their own, pulling close to me.
I watched warily as she poured a cup of tea, unsure of why she made me nervous.
Maybe it was because she’d already seen part of my future.
Would it be better to know the truth if everything was going to go horribly awry, or would she save me from the knowledge that all my plans were for nothing?
She passed me a cup of tea and I took a deep breath of rose-scented steam.
“We’ve known of your arrival for some time,” the Visionary said, passing more cups around. From the corner of my eye, I saw Tascius give the tea a suspicious eye. “As soon as your plans solidified, the visions became clearer.”
“So you know what we’re here for.” I blew on the tea and sipped it.
Visionary Xrita smiled, those unnerving milky eyes focusing directly on me. “You seek raw ebonite from one of our fallen sisters.”
She lowered the tea pot and extended a hand across the table. A small dark pebble rested in the center of her palm.
I picked it up when she motioned for me to take it, rolling the pebble between my fingers. It was a chunk of inky metal, rough at the edges, and cold as ice even though it should’ve been warmed by skin contact.
Something Tascius had told me came to mind. Whatever magic Wayland the Smith infused the raw ebonite with, it would always take on those properties. This tiny piece of ebonite had the potential to become anything… even a blade that could slay a dragon or an archangel.
“I’m going to be honest with you. We made an agreement with the smith,” I said quietly. “He wants her hands. Our meeting with her will likely not end well.”
I’d already accepted that acquiring both the scrying mirror and her hands would likely end in death for one of us.
Visionary Xrita shook her head and sipped her own tea. “She made her choice when she committed the sins of theft and murder, and scorned our sisterhood.”
She seemed completely at ease with the fact that the oracle was going to die at our hands.
“Where can we find her?” Tascius put his tea on the table, clearly ill at ease here.
The Visionary’s eyes moved towards him, but he didn’t avoid her gaze. He just stared back, a warning in the etched line between his brows. A slow smile spread across her face at whatever she saw there.
“She took shelter in the barrens at the edge of Elysium. You’ll find her living in a cave like the sibyls of old.” The Visionary sipped her tea, still peering at Tascius. “You have a hard path ahead of you, child of Heaven.”
My breath caught in my throat. When Seer Antava had told us what they’d seen- a falling star, a hungry shadow, a warrior victorious, a child of Heaven- I’d assumed I was the last piece in that puzzle.
If I was the warrior victorious… I could dare to hope that we’d succeed.
But Tascius’s expression grew even blacker, the lines of his body tight.
I couldn’t help but ask. “Why are you so eager to help us?” I extended my hand across the table, meaning to drop the chunk of ebonite back in her palm. The Visionary waved me away.
“That piece is yours,” she said. “When the Dragon dies, Hell will be free to become what it was meant to be. After much deliberation, the other Visionaries and I have deemed this the wisest course of all the possible futures we have foreseen.”
I tucked the ebonite away in a pocket. It felt like ice against my skin, even with fabric between me and it.
“The death of a lost sister is a small enough price to pay, and there are sibyls here who would be glad to see her dead, regardless. She only ever used her Sight for selfish causes and to bring pain to others.” Visionary Xrita sighed. “Fly to the west. You’ll find the cavern easily. And whatever she offers you, don’t take it. Her only joy is to sow discord and uncertainty.”
Azazel and Lucifer were the first to rise, clearly ready to find this cavern now. Tascius rose, and I heard Seer Antava softly speaking to them.
But the Visionary leaned forward when they were gone, pinning me with her gaze from across the table.
“When the time comes, the path will fork before you. One path is a straight road, but there is a charnel house at the end of it. The other path is a cliff, and your eyes cannot see beyond, but there is happiness to be found there. A sword is only a sword. A feather is more than a feather.”
Goosebumps rose on my skin. Her voice sounded layered, like several people speaking at once, and her eyes were wide and unblinking.
“Trust in your heart. Make the right choice.”
She sighed and closed her eyes, and I whispered a thank you as I got to my feet, eager to be free of her and carrying an unknown future choice on my shoulders like a weight.
23
Melisande
We touched down on a bluff overlooking the edge of the forest. A ridge of higher cliffs rose in front of us, extending over the horizon, and dark crevices and caverns peppered the sandy stone.
The City of Sight was hours behind us, and I wrapped my hand around the hilt of the sword, scanning for any signs of life.
Elysium was beautiful, but I didn’t need anyone to tell me that this was the edge where all beauty came to a halt. The bluffs looked utterly inhospitable, and a faint whistle of wind reached my ears as the breeze kicked sand over the hills.
Lucifer folded his wings, eyes narrowed as he scanned the bluffs. His shoulders relaxed a moment later, and he nodded at the distant hills to our left. “There. Smoke.”
I peered into the distance, and just caught a wisp of gray smoke before the wind swept it away.
“Let’s go get our ebonite.” I jumped down from the sandstone outcropping, landing next to Azazel. He’d released Tascius, and now the Watcher was absent-mindedly smoothing the feather on his chest. I stroked his arm as I passed and was rewarded with a faint smile.
Of all of them, only Tascius seemed reticent about finding the outcast oracle. He eyed the bluffs, his broad shoulders tight.
I gestured for Lucifer to lead the way and fell in next to my Nephilim as we followed them into the maze of stone.
Tascius looked down at me when I took his hand.
Tascius’s lips were pulled tight. “Or it means everything.”
“No matter where you come from, you’re still Tascius. That’s not going to change just because of something some old witch says.”
He had to duck under a low stone arch to avoid cracking his head. I caught sight of Azazel dissipating into mist just ahead of us.
“You know where I come from, and so do the seers.” Tascius shook his head. “Whatever she says, there will be a grain of truth in it.”
I bit my lip, trying and failing to think of something to say that would comfort him.
He’d had snowy white wings. I could picture them, the soft little pinfeathers of a child… and I could also picture them stained red as his mother sawed them from his back.
“Whether there’s truth or not, nothing would change the way I feel for you, or that you belong with us.” I pulled him after me, not wanting to lose sight of Azazel and Lucifer. “Nor are we sure that it would be the truth. Just because she was a sibyl doesn’t make her honest.”
Tascius’s midnight eyes were sad again as he scanned my face. “There’s one thing I can agree to. No matter what she says, I would never leave your side.”
He brushed a kiss over my lips, and when I started walking again, I almost ran right into Lucifer’s wings.
Both of them had stopped in the middle of the narrow trail, and I rose on my tiptoes to peer around him.
The trail opened on a clear floor of stone, in which a tiny campfire sent up green sparks and the column of smoke that was torn away by the wind overhead. Behind it, the dark mouth of a cave was nestled at the foot of a tall bluff.
Sigils had been painted in dripping red around the mouth, and figures made out of bundles of twigs hung from nails jammed into the stone.
“We get in, we take what we need, we get out,” Lucifer said quietly, just as a voice called from the cave.
“I see you, fallen star.” A loud cackle echoed eerily off the bluffs. “I see angelspawn and dealers of death. Come in and have your future told.”
We glanced warily at each other.
This was my mission, my idea, my plan. I released Tascius’s hand and pushed past Lucifer, scraping my elbows on the stone behind me. “I’ll go first.”
“You will not,” Azazel said, but I ducked away from his grasp and skirted the fire. The cavern loomed before me, seeming more like the mouth of a large creature that wanted to swallow me whole.
Gripping my sword, I climbed up the slight incline and climbed inside.
“There you are,” a raspy voice whispered. “Come in, come in. I can give you all the knowledge you seek… for a price.”
I blinked, letting my eyes adjust to the abrupt darkness.
The outcast oracle was a crone, her back humped in several ridges. Rotting black fabric covered her in layers, hiding much of the shape of her body, but a leathery face seamed with deep grooves turned up to me.
She was crouched on the ground inside a cave that was far more spacious inside than it looked from the outside. Chests and boxes were piled on the floors in the back, scattered haphazardly over each other, but my breath caught when I saw the mirror.
It had to be the mirror Wayland spoke of; it was no wider than a foot across and a foot high, and gilt nymphs were frozen forever in a dance on the frame. The mirror itself wasn’t reflective, but pure black, seeming to absorb all the light around it.
The oracle extended a wizened hand from her robes and tossed a handful of objects on the floor. I watched as bones, twigs, and stones clattered in a circle inscribed on the stone.
“Oh, the things I see,” she rasped. “A history of pain, a future of… turmoil.”
The oracle looked up at me and smiled. “Bloodshed. Despair and agony. Do you keep a close eye on the friends of your heart?”
“That’s none of your business,” I breathed. The light was temporarily cut off as the others ducked inside the cave after me; Tascius was taut, his hands clenched.
The oracle’s gaze searched us and landed on Lucifer. Her wizened face split into a grin.
“Morningstar. You honor me. Was it worth giving up the light to serve in the dark?”
Lucifer said nothing, his silver eyes cold. He shifted closer to me and raised his chin. The oracle’s gaze roamed along us, catching Azazel next.
“I smell the ancient ones on you. Do you know what you traffic with, Grigori?”
Azazel inclined his head, a small, secretive smile on his lips. “I’m perfectly aware. There is nothing you can frighten me with, oracle.”
She licked her own lips with a pale tongue. “You have no fear of opening forbidden doors and looking into the abyss, but do you not wonder- did the abyss look back into you?”
He lifted a shoulder, still smiling. “I was a monster long before I opened that door.”
The oracle grimaced, twitching in irritation that her barbs had failed to strike Azazel. I suppressed the urge to smile at him; if he could come back from the insanity of looking on cosmic horror and trading his wings, there was nothing this bitch could say that would bother him.
My stomach sank as her gaze roamed again and landed on a likely target.
“Angelspawn.” Her voice was a menacing hiss. “Such anger. Do you see him when you look in the mirror?”
She pointed to the gilt-framed mirror.
“I see nothing,” Tascius said tonelessly.
The oracle laughed, and ended in a cough. “I think you lie. I know what I see. The cruelty of Heaven, the sorrow of an abandoned woman.”
He pulled out a dagger, so fast my eyes hadn’t been able to track the movement, but held himself still. I felt the tension emanating from his massive form and didn’t have to look to know the darkness was rising inside him.
“He turns to the blade first,” the oracle said with another cackle. “Hide the truth with violence. Like father, like son.”
“Stop talking,” I said quietly, and her gimlet eyes returned to me. “We’re here for the mirror you stole.”
She gathered her bones and twigs and threw them again. “Doesn’t he seem familiar, little angel?”
She was about to get very familiar with my knife.
“Morningstar, I offer a trade.” The oracle scooped her bones up and tucked them in a pouch somewhere under all those rotting layers. “You’ve always been hungry for knowledge. I hear things, I see things-” She tapped her ears and eyes. “You want to kill the Dragon and wear his hide. A commendable aspiration. I divined my future from the entrails of my own tutor. It takes a strong student to surpass the mentor.”
She showed blackened teeth in a wide smile. No wonder Visionary Xrita was so complacent about us killing her.
“Give me your little angel. Let me slice her open and divine your path from the inner workings of her heart. I would consider this a fair trade to upend Hell.” She cast a mournful gaze my way. “It’s been so long since I had anything to eat besides rat. She looks delicious. I would even share.”
Tascius was on her before I even realized he’d moved. The crone shrieked and he pinned a bundle of fabric to the wall with his knife, driving it straight into the stone.
She slithered beneath him, shedding most of her robes like a second skin and revealing a skeleton-thin body under the bulk of the cloth, and shot towards the door.
Tascius turned, ripping his blunted dagger from the wall, and his eyes were completely black, lips drawn back over his teeth in a feral snarl. He tore after the fleeing oracle, disappearing through the mouth of the cave.
“Fuck,” Lucifer muttered. “Azazel, Melisande, take the mirror and find the ebonite. I need to stop him before he shreds her hands.”
I was frozen in place, astonished by how quickly the change had overcome him. Lucifer squeezed my hand and vanished, blazing with light as he launched into the air outside.
Tascius hadn’t even tried to
hold it back. One moment he’d been himself, then he’d been a snarling animal, hellbent on blood.
I managed to unglue my feet from the floor and stepped to the back of the cave, planting my boots in piles of dusty coins, in dried bundles of that crackled underfoot, and almost tripped over a chipped marble bust.
Several of my nails broke painfully in my haste to tear through the chests and boxes, tossing them aside as each one revealed treasures that couldn’t have mattered less to me: one held a pile of emeralds the size of birds’ eggs, nestled in ancient silk like a nest; another was full of golden needles.
I found several jars of eyeballs, a rusted sword, and dried things that I was sure were more body parts.
I finally hit paydirt when I dragged a small but heavy chest from a dark corner. Both the pale polished wood and the metal handles were ice cold; I lifted the lid with shaking hands, my heart in my throat, and saw twisted lumps of darkness.
I picked up a chunk of ebonite the size of a human heart, cradling it in my palm and letting the cold numb the pain in my bleeding fingertips. It was rough and pitted, in its raw state, so dark the color looked almost velvety.
“You found it,” Azazel said, kicking aside another chest of gemstones.
“It’s raw,” I said, kneeling over the chest and dropping the chunk of ebonite back in. For all its weight, it made a hollow sound when it hit the rest. “It’s just enough.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d been terrified the oracle might’ve traded it away and the smith’s information was outdated; luckily, she seemed like the kind of packrat who would never trade away something so valuable.
“How are we going to get this back?” I asked, and Azazel leaned over me, stroking my shoulders.
“Let me handle the logistics.” He closed the lid of the chest and locked it, and then made several hand gestures that I was sure most human hands wouldn’t be able to make without breaking bones.
The chest started shaking, rattling its contents, and I had the impression of violet trails of light before it vanished from sight.
“You’re going to teach me how to do that, right?”
