Amma laughed then, high and sharp. “You don’t think I’ve come up with a better question after all this time?”
“Have you?”
She shook out the map, focusing on the blue dot and their destination. “Well, it’s not important because I’ll be asking about The Dreadcouncil’s Fashionable Pendant of Accosted Bridges and Nonferrous Combat.”
“That isnotwhat it’s called.”
“You said what it’s called doesn’t matter.” She squinted and oriented them, pointing. “Come on, now, the oracle’s that way.”
CHAPTER 9
NECESSARY LIES AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES
Amma was too damn cheery about everything. The way she smiled, how she laughed—actually laughed—at the idea of throwing away her opportunity to ask the Denonfy Oracle what her own destiny held in favor of a question thathehad, made Damien…not at all furious. In fact, it made him inconceivably happy, and that, in turn, was sort of infuriating. If only she could just stop being so wonderful for a moment, he could figure out exactly what to do with all of his feelings for her.
Amma’s choices shouldn’t have surprised Damien; she was self-sacrificial, exactly what Xander had said of her, and Damien indeed intended to use that to his benefit. But he knew deep in his gut that when they got their answers, she wouldn’t be smiling and laughing anymore.
The problem with prophecies was that they were true, and there wasn’t much one could do about them. Damien claimed to put little stock in divinatory arcana, but he understood how well the Denonfy Oracle was regarded by those on both sides of the moral divide, and that often accounted for quite a lot. When the oracle said something was going to happen, itwas going to happen. And that was rather final.
Finding one’s place organically in the world allowed for possibility, and as much as Damien didn’t like the not knowing—the apprehension that had been creeping up his spine since he’d set off to free his father—there was something appealing about not entirely understanding the prophecy.
That appealing thing was hope, of course, but feelings were to Damien as object permanence was to an infant—confusing, slightly frightening, and likely to inspire tantrums. But Amma wanted him to understand the prophecy, and Damien wanted to give her exactly what she wanted—a desire that had long surpassed dangerous and toppled right over into completely reckless.
Reckless too was her burglary of that star chart he professed to glean very little off of. He hadn’t entirely lied about being unfamiliar with astronomy, but he could read Chthonic just fine. Eclipses were always arcanely charged, but this one would involve more than just the two moons. A more powerful event than those past, as Lo and Ero crossed they would simultaneously obscure the sun, and the predictions scribbled in the margins of the chart suggested the veils between the planes would be at their thinnest. He claimed someone more knowledgeable should read it, but he hoped they never found that person, preferring to shield Amma from that grimness for as long as possible. At least he knew the eclipse itself was officially a fortnight away.
The hike along Ashrein Ridge was a more difficult trek than what they had become used to, the incline in places steep, footing often unstable, but at his side, Amma managed to forgo frustration to instead marvel at how moss grew atop the rock formations and the way the sunshine stippled the earth as they climbed it. Plucking an acorn from the nearest tree, she handed it off to the vaxin riding on her shoulder. “That’s from an iron oak,” she told Vanders. “The squirrels in the north seem to prefer them to the white oak acorns, so I assume they taste better. If you like it, we’ll collect some more since they’re pretty rare.”
What might she do if the oracle told them the pendant would bring E’nloc into their world, and it was Damien’s destiny to bethe harbinger of that kind of chaos and destruction—that he was born for this and nothing else? Would she run from him? Insist it weren’t true? Try to stop him? He knew E’nloc couldn’t be allowed freedom, but he was beholden to do the Grand Order’s bidding for no other reason but to keep her safe. They knew too much about her after being inside his mind, and they would come for her if he failed.
“Amma, I have a request to make.” He offered her his hand from atop a steep embankment.
She looked up, blue eyes wide and expectant, and slipped her fingers over his palm without hesitation.
“I’m unsure exactly how, but Xander and those fools he convinced to help him have found us twice now, so I think it would be prudent to stay close together.” He squinted at her as she got her footing amongst the rocks below. “If you do become angry with me again, do you think you could remain within my range of vision?”
Her face reddened. “Oh, right, that storming off thing I did was a little risky, huh?”
“You were right to be upset.” Damien held her steady as she began to climb upward. “I shouldn’t have used magic on you at all, but especially not in the Everdarque where it so often goes wrong. It just seemed at the moment the only way to keep the noxscura away from you.”
Amma took a last, long step upward to crest the ledge beside him. “I understand why you did that, but you know I wouldn’t have turned into her, right?”
“I know you are a different person than Delphine—averydifferent person—but the prospect of someone with the ability to completely enthrall me, to compel me with so much power, to—”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Well, if anyone understands, it’s you.” He cleared his throat. “The purpose of my request is safety. To protect you from furtherabduction or foul play. It would be prudent to remain close.”
“I don’t mind that.” She squeezed his hand, pressing herself right up against him, sunlight glittering off her hair and dappling her breasts.
Damien swallowed, tasting the memory of her skin on his tongue. He could so easily pull her into a long and passionate kiss that would hopefully lead to other long and passionate things, but he heard that word in Xander’s smarmy voice—corruption—and it burrowed itself into the base of his skull to fester.
“We should address what happened at Yvlcon.” He pulled his hand from hers and continued onward.
She followed. “What happened?”
Well, not enough, he thought with a frown, but then huffed. “When you kissed me.”
“You kissed me too,” Amma said, and the vaxin chirped in agreement. “In a lot of places.”
