Since I can remember, my father has been preparing me for the day when I might become the Oracle, the day he would no longer be here to protect me, but I didn’t believe such a day would come so soon.
I told myself his power was too strong.
He would always foresee danger before it happened. He would even foresee his own death and prepare me for it.
This…would never be possible.
I grit my teeth, a desperate promise on my lips. “You won’t die here.”
Reaching for him, I prepare to slip my arms around him, to help him to his feet and carry him away from the smoke and the screams of battle. I’m determined to bind his wound. To save him. I just need to get him somewhere safe first.
His grip on my arm tightens so much that he stops me.
“Unwrap the blade,” he says.
I freeze. Can only stare in shock, certain I hadn’t heard him correctly. “No, Father, you told me never to?—”
“Unwrap the blade.” Between the sweaty strands of his hair, his faded blue eyes are rapidly brightening, a sign that his power must be flooding his mind. A sign I don’t want to acknowledge because it means he’s close to death.
“Unwrap the blade and your path will be clear.”
“No.”
The blade he speaks of is hidden in our home. I’ve neverseen what it looks like beneath the aged, ivory silk in which it’s bound.
I’ve never touched it. Father forbade me from ever coming into contact with it until the time was right. Given that the time hasn’t been right for all twenty-five years of my life so far, I assumed he meantnever.
He also refused to answer my questions about it. Just as he commanded me never to ask about my mother, so too he told me never to question him about the blade he has carried with him for as long as I can remember.
I curbed my curiosity long ago and trusted him.
Now he’s telling me to unwrap it?
Now…when I can see the life ebbing from his eyes and his voice is becoming weaker and…
“No.” I rapidly shake my head, struggling to focus on him through my tears as I deny the extent of his wound. “Keep fighting. Don’t die on me. Don’t you dare!”
“Thyra. Daughter. You know what happens when the Oracle dies.”
The next will rise.
I know this. And yet, I can’t stop shaking my head.
His hold on my arm doesn’t weaken. “You must prepare to come into your Oracle power now?—”
“You aren’t dying!” My voice has risen to a loud whisper. Overly loud. Dangerously so. But my hands shake, and my mind whirls, and I want nothing more than to stop what’s happening.
A tear trickles down Father’s cheek, and then, even more quietly, “I’m already dead, Thyra.”
A cry leaves my lips at the awful realization that his power must be allowing him to speak during these final, precious moments, even though his heart has already stopped.
“No.” I shake my head. “No.Please.”
“Your Oracle visions will come to you soon.” His voice sounds like an echo, becoming fainter. “Beware, daughter, for I know not what the blade’s curse will do to your Oracle visions. I know not what manipulations you might experience once you unwrap it. I’m sorry… So sorry, Thyra, for the pain you must now endure.”
His words wash over me. He’s talking about my power, about the blade and a curse and manipulation, but none of that can matter to me right now when I’m about to lose him, and there’s nothing I can do to stop his death.
The power fades from his eyes. The tension drains from his body. This man who raised me and protected me and stood so tall and honorable, and now…
