So he didn’t have to leave. He wasn’t told to leave. He chose to leave. It really was all up to him. It had been him who hadn’t wanted to stay. A fresh sear of pain flashed through my chest.
“I did not wish to harm you more, my child. Even so, I will not lie to you.”
I just nodded, unable to form words.
I’d wondered about the possibility that he’d felt he had to leave because of some prophecy the nymphs had spoken to him. Fantasized that he would return at the slated time they’d told him about. That he hadn’t really chosen to leave me, that he’d been forced. Not so much, it seemed.
I found my voice, albeit tight and hoarse. “Will he come back to me?”
Jordskote’s springtime eyes held mine, refusing to let go, darting back and forth in minuscule motions as she searched within me. “Are you positive you want the answer to this inquiry?” The green around her pupils darkened, shooting more thrusts of color into the brown. “Be certain.”
I opened my mouth to say yes, but paused. What if she said no? I’d have to give up all hope. I’d know he was gone for good. What would I be left with? But what if she said yes? I’d just have to wait. It might still hurt and take forever, but I could wait if I knew he was going to return. Unbidden, Schwint came to mind. He’d asked me on a date. I’d said yes. Really said yes.
I wasn’t sure why I’d thought of him, and I couldn’t tell why it was important that I had. His too-large yellow eyes glinted at me in my mind, his flirtatious, cocky smile, and his laugh that was so full of life….
“No. Actually, I think I shouldn’t know that. I guess I need to let life unfold as it will on that one.”
“In truth, it is an answer that is beyond my knowledge, but you needed to make such a choice. Your wisdom is growing, my child.”
I gave a sardonic laugh. “About time, I suppose.” The back rooms and the past weeks came to mind, unbidden. “I’m not so sure about that, actually.”
“Wisdom comes in many forms and through many different paths.” Her tone was a little too all-knowing.
“You know, don’t you?”
Jordskote had the grace to not respond.
“You do.” I looked away. I’d been so proud of myself after. Not feeling any guilt. So enlightened. So independent and free. What a joke.
Another thought surfaced, and I looked at her once more. “May I ask you another question, my lady?” I was pushing my luck, and I knew it. The nymphs were not used as fortune-tellers. They were here to help us, guide us, love us. The physical hands of the Creator. Jordskote had already given more direct answers than I’d ever received from the nymphs before. More than any other exchange I’d ever heard of, actually.
“You may inquire, Finn de Morisco.”
“Do you know—” Did she know? Of course she knew. “Will you tell me about the voice that keeps speaking to me since I first went to…”
“Since you first went to the Square?” I couldn’t detect any condemnation, but she wasn’t going to let it go by without having me take ownership of it either.
“Yes. Since I first went to the Square.”
“I do know of the voice. And there is little that I can offer to you. This is a path you must undertake on your own. A path that you must discover—one where you will either succeed or fail. I cannot make that choice for you.”
“But you know what I will choose?”
Her chin lifted. The closest thing to pride I’d ever seen from Jordskote. The motion was more akin to Ventas, the nymph of the wind. “Of course I do. That does not make the knowledge mine to impart.”
“Forgive me, my lady. I mean no disrespect.”
The draping tendrils from the willow curled in toward us, enclosing the space, shutting out more of the light. Though darker, the light that shone through the leaves gave the space a soft green luminance.
“I will tell you that the one you hear is a child of us, the child of Cenera. Nothing more, nothing less.”
The child of Cenera? A child of fire?
“The voice is a warlock?”
Jordskote didn’t reply.
Witches and warlocks are distant descendants of demons, but so far removed that we, for all intrinsic purposes, are a different species. Where demons have one particular power—fire, creation, perception, and so forth, witches have been so crossbred we have a wide mix of powers, though none to any comparable extent of a demon. Even so, we typically have at least one power that is stronger or more evident than the rest of the assortment.
