She gives me a firm nod and, without another word, shouts orders at the other two warriors, even though both of them can’t have missed my commands. I let her regain her sense of agency and control, even if it’s an illusion.
One day, I’m certain she will attempt to stab me in my sleep as many assassins do, and I will be forced to end her, but until that day, she will remain a useful tool to me while she, herself, reaps the benefits of her position in my army.
Within minutes, she and the other two hurry toward the village, their icy power flaring.
I tell myself that the dousing of the flames is not a mercy. It isn’t because the Oracle chastised me for my lack of action. It’s because I want to keep Lilis busy while I return to the dead man whose body was propped beside the workshop.
Uttering a low whistle beneath my breath, I call to my wolf, who makes her way down the mountainside. She pauses at my call, her head rising, her alertness visible even at this distance.Now that I’ve got her attention, I give another low whistle, a forlorn melody this time.Follow me.
Her alertness remains, her quick progress resuming as I head back toward the northern end of the village. Slipping past the nearest homes, I avoid encountering any villagers as I approach what remains of the carpentry workshop.
I need to study the body of the man the Oracle appeared to be shielding. I hope he wasn’t incinerated in the explosion of power between Maxim and me. At the time, I didn’t look back to see.
It’s eerily quiet on this side of the village, but as I round the final corner, the man’s body comes into view.
A splatter of ice melts across his slumped form. The top of the carpentry workshop has been blown apart, while the bottom of the structure remains miraculously standing. Judging by the disappearing ice, my power must have reached the man first, preserving him as well as protecting that portion of the building so that Maxim’s flames didn’t cremate him.
When I first stood in this clearing, the Oracle consumed my focus, but I didn’t miss the fact that this man must have been the carpenter who fell victim to the lowborn I encountered on the beach.
At that time, I couldn’t be sure who the dead man was to the Oracle, if he was her father, a brother, or a guard.
Now I kneel a short distance from him, studying his features.
Fascinating.
Just like the Oracle, his physical appearance is that of any other lowborn. I would never have picked him from a crowd.
The Oracle only gave away his identity when Antony grabbed her. She’d wrapped her arms around Antony’s chest, reaching back as he ran away with her, stretching toward the dead man.
Within the ear-splitting collision of my frost power with Maxim’s flames, I’m certain Antony could not have heard the grief-filled whimper the Oracle uttered.
A whimper that sounded as clearly as a bell within my acute hearing:Father.
The fact that her father died only today is extremely significant.
There is only ever one Oracle at a time.
When the previous Oracle dies, the next will rise.
This means that the woman standing before us, brandishing the Dragonstone Blade, has only just come into her power.
She isnew.
That makes her incredibly vulnerable.
The question is: How vulnerable?
I reach carefully toward the dead man, scrutinizing the dagger. It’s of a simple construction with a wooden hilt, a darker color than I’d expect of the trees along the coast, and with distinct whorls spiraling across its surface. The wooden hilt appears untouched by the fire, but if there are any identifying marks, I certainly can’t see them.
Allowing a hint of ice into my fingertips, cooling my skin, I turn my focus to the wound itself, lifting the torn edge of the man’s tunic to study the blade’s entrance point.
A skillful strike. Right into his heart. As clean as a trained assassin would make.
He has no other cuts or injuries that I can see. No defensive wounds to indicate a struggle. The blood that must have flowed from his chest has become tacky, its consistency no doubt altered by the influx of cold, then heat from the battle.
Regardless, it would seem the former Oracle was struck and died right here.
The villager I encountered on the beach, who wastrying to wash blood off his hands, didn’t appear to me as someone who would be so coldly skilled with a blade. Not judging by the way his hands were shaking.
