I might still be screaming, I can’t tell. I might be groaning. I might be silent. I’m doubled over, my arm locked in an outstretched position, and all I know for certain is that the light is surging again.
This time, a single thread like molten gold shoots up my inner arm, all the way along the inside of my biceps, lighting up my tunic sleeve as it disappears beneath the material, and then I can’t see the light’s path, can only feel its path like a burn as it snakes up the side of my neck.
A moment later, the blade’s power hits me again, but not like before, not mindless pain.
This is sharp. Purposeful.
Everything around me disappears: the workshop, my father’s body, the pebbled area, and suddenly?—
I’m covered in iron dust, tearing at chains wrapped around me. I’m burning from the inside out, and I’m screaming, but not with pain. Every inch of me is alive with a need I can’t identify and can’t seem to quench?—
I gasp against the ground, coming back to myself to discover I’ve collapsed onto the pebbled path, sprawled on it, my heart pounding and my breath rasping in my throat.
My eyes are wide, my throat dry, and the need I felt shudders through me, a trembling ache, an overwhelming heat.
Amid the whirl of confusion within my mind, the push and pull between pleasure and pain, only two things are clear to me.
One is that the agony the blade was causing me is gone.
Oh, blessed relief.
But it brings me no peace, becausetwo…
What I just experienced was not an Oracle vision.
My father described clearly to me what would happen. The Oracle’s visions start with a flutter in their chest. When I asked him what that felt like, he said it’s as if a bird lives within our hearts and it would awaken, stretch its wings, and beat them gently against our ribcage.
He commanded me never to ignore this warning sign, because I’d have less than a minute before the vision started. While I’m having a vision, I’ll be vulnerable to attack. If I can, I must get to a safe place first. During the vision, I’ll be aware of my surroundings, and I can even speak, but I’ll have minimal ability to move, if at all.
What I felt just now didn’t start with my heart. There was no fluttering. No gentle sensation of wings against my ribcage.
It consumed me entirely. I had no awareness of my surroundings, no ability to speak. As for moving, well, I collapsed to the ground without any awareness that my body was falling. My father never collapsed during a vision.
My focus flashes to the blade, now partially unwrapped, the tip of its golden edge exposed. There’s no doubt in my mind that the ‘vision’ I saw came from the blade, carried on a golden thread of magic to my mind.
Father said he didn’t know what the blade would do to my Oracle visions or what manipulations I might experience once I unwrapped the blade.
And now I can’t seem to let it go.
Desperately, I fight the fear flooding my body. It’s only been moments since I picked up the blade, but the threat of being captured or even killed by the highborn has only increased.
My chances of surviving an encounter with them will be very low if one of these visions…theseblade-inducedvisions…takes over me while I’m trying to escape.
I grit my teeth with a savageclack. I need to release the blade, even if I have to break my own fingers to do it.
It’s a good thing I’m located beside a carpentry workshop containing an array of hammers.
I push myself back to my knees, determined to hurry inside the workshop, find a hammer, break my fingers, and then find some sort of metal or wooden receptacle to carry the blade that won’t require touching it again.
I haven’t even made it back to my feet before the golden light surges again, and my stomach sinks.
A second thread of magic shoots along my arm, this one moving faster than the first. I barely have time to take a breath before another vision hits me?—
I’m immersed in snow, chilled to the bone, pushing against the weight of an emptiness that has drained my heart of all love and all hope, and yet… I feel everything. Every part of my body is awake and yearning for the stroking touch of heated hands?—
I come back to myself, discovering that I’m now leaning against the carpentry wall near my father, but at least I’ve somehow made it to my feet.
Groaning with effort, trying to make my legs obey me, I push away from the wall, attempting to stumble past my father.
