I close my eyes. “Zaire?”
“Alive but still unconscious. He’s in the next room. If he weren’t your Firetender, he’d definitely be dead. But that’s why we’re all here. You were very close to death when we brought you in. I don’t think you would have survived to make it to my clinic.” And if I had died, Zaire, cut off abruptly from our bond and my healing energy, would have likely died too. They did the right thing.
“Thank you,” I grit out.
As pained as I am to be beyond the range of my bond with Fiona, Morwyn wouldn’t lie about the severity of our injuries. He kept the three of us alive by using his keyto open a portal and bring us here. The realm itself is healing to our kind. Cardinal Island is a place between places, a realm gifted to us by the creator for our safety and use, imbued with the celestial stuff we come from. I’ll heal faster here. Zaire’s and Bone’s survival was far more likely here than anywhere else.
“You did the right thing,” I tell him.
“Someone send a heater to hell because it has definitely frozen over.”
“How long have I been out?”
“A few hours.”
“And how long before I can go after her?”
“Two days,” he says. “If you eat and drink and rest, you’ll be ready to fight again in forty-eight hours.”
I close my eyes. It’s too long. “Twenty-four hours.”
“This isn’t a negotiation. You don’t have a choice. I can’t make your body heal any faster.”
I lean back against the pillows, my eyes closing of their own volition. I’m wrecked. Forty-eight hours.Fuck. What might he do to her in forty-eight hours?
“Do I need to knock you out?” Morwyn asks, brushing an invisible piece of lint from his sleeve. He’s capable, and it wouldn’t require drugs. Despite the lab coat, he is as much a warrior as I am and has knocked me on my ass in the sparring ring a few times when I was perfectly healthy.
“No. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good. Because the Oracle wants to talk to you, so much that she’s coming here.”
My eyes pop open. “Here? Like today?”
“I’m supposed to send word when you’re awake.”
Never, in my recollection, has the Oracle ever left her temple for a personal visit, which means I’m probably in big trouble. Will she remove me from the brotherhood? I squeeze my eyes shut. I knew when I took Fiona that there would be consequences, but I can’t bring myself to regret it. She’s worth anything that comes. So I look on the bright side. Meeting with the Oracle might mean answers about Fiona, about what’s happening to her, about how I can get her back.
“Tell her I’m awake,” I say, “and honored she’d give me her time.”
Morwyn reaches a hand out, and I grasp it. “I got you, Connor,” he says softly. “You’re not alone in this.Wegot you. That’s why this is a brotherhood. Seb, Remus, and Ellison are already zeroing in on her location.”
And wasn’t that just my worst nightmare, to have to wait and exercise patience, to not be the one leading the charge? But I hold on to Morwyn a good long time. I want to rain violence on the Order, the likes of which they’ve never seen before, and carry Fiona out of there myself, but in lieu of that possibility, having my brothers do it is the next best thing.
Soon after Morwyn leaves,one of the Oracle’s acolytes arrives. Dressed entirely in red, their face is masked by a red veil that’s tucked into the high neck of their uniform so that no skin shows.
“Peace, warrior,” comes a soft, low voice through the veil. “I am Nova, here to prepare the room for the Oracle’sarrival.” Nova heads for their bag, their tall, slender body breaking up the endless white and ivory of the room. Bones hobbles after them, wagging his tail, but ends up tiring quickly and returning to his bed.
All acolytes take vows of piety and abstinence before entering the vocation, and in exchange they train directly under the Oracle in divination and astronomy. One of them will eventually rise to replace her. The Oracle herself has a mate, but per tradition, her acolytes must remain celibate while in the position. Celibate and, to the outside world, genderless until they either rise to become Oracle themselves or leave the position.
I push myself up in bed, groaning at the pain that branches through me.
Nova mercifully stops what they’re doing and puts another pillow behind my head. “Be at ease. She knows you are recovering and will require nothing of you physically.”
“Right.”
They return to their work, lighting the red candles and topping them with reflective domes that diffuse the light. They place a gold clock on the dresser across from me. It looks like something out of the Victorian era, all gears and glass with gold-and-pearl accents. Quiet ticking fills the room. Nova removes a black silk shroud from the bag and covers me and the bed with it.
The acolyte bows and exits the room, turning off the lights on their way out. Everything in the dim, candlelit room is black and red and gold ticking gears. My mind goes quiet in that space, my focus landing on the rhythm of my heart, my breath.
