Power caressed my skin. Every hair on my body lifted. I fixed my stare on her chin, and I knew I was as helpless to resist her as I’d been the night the portal dragged me to 18th century Scotland.
“I am Asmira,” the woman said, her voice like a warm, flowing river. “The mouthpiece of the gods.”
Chapter
Twenty-Four
TAVISH
Icouldn’t speak.
My throat had closed, words dying in the face of the Oracle’s power. Reading about Asmira was one thing, although I hadn’t done much of that. But Albie had, and he’d told me all about Mullo’s infamous trade. According to Albie, the witch had risked his life when he approached the gods.
Now that I’d seen the Oracle, I understood what that meant. Asmira was terrible the way volcanoes and hurricanes were terrible. Those things weren’t evil—they were indifferent, their destruction impersonal and complete.
Albie moaned, and not even the gods’ representative made flesh could hold my attention. I held a shaking hand over Albie’s cheek, terrified to touch him and make his pain worse.
He curled tighter. Tears leaked from under his fingers and ran down his pale cheeks. It was one of his headaches. Next came vomiting and agony that chewed him to pieces.
“Easy, darling,” I said through the lump in my throat. “I’ve got you.”
But I didn’t. I couldn’t do anything to help him when he got like this. Helplessness was like acid in my gut.
A soft sound brought my head up. Asmira gazed at Albie, and for a moment, I could look at her directly. Stars swam in her eyes, which were huge, dark pools that seemed to contain the whole night sky.
“You have suffered a great deal, scholar,” she said slowly, “and for greed that was not your own.”
A clawed hand emerged from the portal behind her.
Portia cried out. My dragon surged, and I leapt to my feet, ready to protect my mates.
The hand stretched, filling the portal. Black and twisted fingers ended in long talons that gleamed like obsidian. A shadow followed, a man-shaped form stepping one foot outside the portal. Smoke coiled upward from its leg to its shoulders. But where its face should have been, there was only a void.
Niall Balfour sucked in a sharp breath. He threw his arms wide, magic crackling and snapping around him as he shielded Cormac and Isolde. Power hovered around him, the elements ready and waiting.
Asmira appeared unbothered as she turned to the shadow behind her. “Halt, shade,” she said, and thunder rumbled overhead. “You have no power here. You traded it long ago.”
The shadow shrank back. Its form blurred at the edges like it struggled to hold its shape.
Asmira turned her gaze back to Albie, and something that might have been pity flickered over her face. “Although,” she said softly, “an echo of it lingers here.”
The shade shrieked. I winced, the inhuman sound lodging in my molars. The clawed hand expanded once more, rapidly filling the portal. Its fingers stretched past Asmira and headed straight toward me.
I grabbed Portia and tucked her behind me.
“No!” Niall bellowed. He flung himself between me and the shade. “You won’t touch my child!”
The hand recoiled. Then it surged forward again, its long fingers clawing the air. It didn’t give a shite about me, I realized. It wanted Portia.
Niall thrust out his hands, and steam exploded from his palms. It slammed into the hand, and the shade shrieked and recoiled once more. Its form wavered, the shadows around its face swirling like water circling a drain.
Features appeared in the smoke—a nose, a mouth, eyes that burned with hatred.Dark eyesI’d seen before, when I watched Mullo Balfour burn the demons’ boat in Razrothia.
He stared out from the portal, his gaze locked on Niall.
Portia gasped at my shoulder. “You’re dead. Chloe killed you.”
The Oracle of Asmira turned to Portia. “Your great-grandfather is indeed dead, young one. But his curse lives on.”
