“Arric, honey,” Mum said. “I know this has all been a bit much, but you need to come with us.”
I didn’t wait to find out if he was going to follow, just pulled away from my dad and stalked to the castle.
Arric
“HE’S YOURMATE?” Kade asked, his eyes darting back and forth between me and Isla.
We were currently in a small room off the library, and it was feeling a little crowded, in my opinion.
“And that’s not all,” Connall Gunnach said. “He’s definitely an oracle.”
Kade said nothing, which told me everything.
“You knew, didn’t you?” I asked.
“I had my suspicions, but I wanted Haddi to confirm them to be sure,” he said.
“They were confirmed back in the barn,” Connall said. “Andi knew he was an oracle straight away. She was even compelled to bow to him.”
“Bow?” Kade asked. “Is it typical of oracles to bow to each other?”
“I don’t know, brother. Like you, until recently I thought all the oracles but Haddi were gone. Then Andi showed up and now this one.”
“If you suspected Arric was an oracle, why not say something earlier?” Isla asked.
“I didn’t want to burden Arric with any more information than necessary,” Kade replied with a weary look in his eyes.
“You can feel what I’m feeling can’t you?” I asked, suddenly finding myself acutely aware of an empathetic connection between myself and Kade.
Kade nodded. “It’s how I knew so much about you when we first met.”
I let out a heavy sigh.
“Don’t worry,” Kade said. “Your thoughts are not an open book to me. I’m simplyawareof your emotional state.”
“Is that because you’re the king and he’s an oracle?” Isla asked.
“Possibly,” Kade said. “Haddi will be here soon and I’m hoping he’ll be as insightful as he has been in the past.”
“Who is this guy?” I asked.
“Just before we fled Iceland and emigrated to Scotland, I met what was believed to be the last of the oracles,” he said. “Days before we set sail, our mother took me and my brothers to the oracle in order to gain sight, or as our people call it,öðlast sjón.”
“Like a fortune teller?”
Kade shook his head. “It’s much deeper than what you’d think of as fortune telling. Both for the oracle and their subject, and each oracle is different. Some can see the future. Others the past, but more importantly, each of their methods for gaining sight is unique to them and only them.”
“Andi is one of these oracles?” I asked.
“She can see the past. Sometimes the future. But only if she’s touching you,” Isla said as casually as if she’d mentioned Andi worked at a bank.
Gunnach continued, “When we arrived at Haddi’s thatched roof dwelling, dug into the side of a cliff-face, about ten miles from our home, I was gob-smacked. I remember as a child I felt like we were riding forever and feeling very cold. Not from the temperature, of course. But from the sense of isolation. I couldn’t understand why Haddi would have lived in a place so far away, as elders are typically elevated to almost god-like status.”
“Why was he isolated like that?”
Gunnach glanced at Connall. “During his reign as king, our father hunted down and killed the oracles after one foretold my mother’s betrayal of him.”
“Our mother, for her own gain, hid Haddi away in a remote location and kept him as her private seer,” Connall said. “Since my father’s edict, Haddi had little choice to comply, and my mother knew this.”
