“The Oracle sends word that you’ve broken the rules by bringing the human here without permission. She relays her deepest disappointment at your inappropriate behavior.”
“You tell the Oracle—” I stop myself from saying something I’ll regret and take a deep breath. “Please relay my deep contrition to the Oracle and ask if she might make an exception this one time for the woman whose magic ended the destroyer’s reign.”
The acolyte bows again and then disappears. The door closes between us.
Zoe is responsible for ending the Saint’s Order’s reign of terror, at least for now. After Roman’s and Jeremy’s deaths, the Order seems to have gone underground. Roman’s body was found in the ocean off his Rhode Island estate, his death reported in the news as an accidental drowning. Jeremy was found just off a hiking trail in the desert a few days later, an apparent victim of dehydration and poor planning. Since their deaths, many of the most powerful Saint’s Order members from Imani’s list have stopped wearing their rings in public.
The brotherhood repealed the code red, and civilian dragons returned to their daily lives. That was days ago, and so far, there hasn’t been a single incident. Just to be safe, Connor and Fiona have dispensed thousands of vials of celestial water to the heads of each of the major dragon families. It appears that, at least for now, Zoe has restored peace to our kind.
But if the Order should ever rise again, I still have the ring and a bottomless thirst for vengeance.
The doors open, and again, the acolyte greets me with a bow. “The Oracle recognizes the sacrifice of the human woman and agrees to grant you an audience. Please follow me.”
The acolyte leads me through a maze of dark corridors until I feel like a rat who has lost his way searching for the cheese. And then with a sharp right, I find myself standing under a dome that magnifies the stars. A gold couch with turned legs sits at the center of a room of clocks, each one displaying a different time. One on the wall is shaped like an orange dog, its eyes looking left and right with every tick. It’s disorienting, as if I’m in some sort of alternate reality where time itself doesn’t exist.
The acolyte gestures toward the sofa, and I gratefully set Zoe down.
“My Taurus warrior,” the Oracle says as she enters the room.
I lower myself to my knees, head bowed. “Thank you for seeing me. I broke the rules bringing Zoe to Cardinal Island, but only because I believe it is absolutely necessary.”
“Necessary for whom? For you, I think.”
“Yes. But also, our kind. She made this ring.” I hold up my hand to show her. “We owe our current peace to her.”
I hear a snort, but then her voice softens. “Perhaps. Rise, dragon.”
I do, and my gaze falls on the Oracle for the first time in years. By human standards, she’s unremarkable, an older woman with wild, dark curls and eyes the color of espresso beans. When she smiles at me, she reveals a crooked eyetooth and wrinkles around her hooked nose.
She’s surprisingly diminutive for a thousand-year-old dragon who can see the future. But then, dragons understand that with age comes wisdom and that the part of the ocean you can see from the shore is just a sliver of that which you cannot see.
The Oracle is ancient and cunning. If anyone knows how to save Zoe, it’s her.
“Oracle, please?—”
She waves her hand through the air, her joints bulbous with arthritis. “Save it. You wish to know how to bring your mate back, yes?”
“Yes.”
She turns her eyes up to the stars, their dark color reflecting the pinpricks of light from above. Time ticks on, the clocks around us reminding us constantly of every moment. I know better than to interrupt her.
Dragons believe the Oracle is capable of seeing every version of reality that branches off this one. All I need is one where Zoe wakes up. One future. I will walk any road to get there.
Finally, she lowers her chin and turns back to me. “There is a way. You must go into her mind and convince her to come out.”
Dammit, Morwyn! I should have done that days ago! “I have her consent.” My eyes dart along Zoe’s body, so quickly I feel like the dog clock on the wall.
She frowns, and her voice carries a pensive melancholy as she adds, “You should know that the stars say there is a fifty-fifty chance you will never come out of her mind. But if you don’t go in, there is no chance she will survive.”
My throat bobs on a reflexive swallow. “I don’t understand. Do you mean there’s something inside her mind that could trap me?”
“Yes. Despite appearances, she’s incredibly strong. Only, her strength has shifted into the darkest part of herself.”
“And if I get trapped?”
“Your mind will no longer be your own. You will be like she is, trapped inside, unable to function. Unable to eat. Unable to sleep. Unable to communicate.”
“We’ll both die.”
