But it only raises questions.
Her dark hair could be black or dark brown, depending on which way I turn the parchment in the light. Her facial features are constantly concealed by her hair. At some angles, she looks tall. At others, shorter. The color of her skin could be fair or possibly tan.
She may as well be faceless. Even nameless.
Yet, every description of her is emphatic: her beauty was beyond compare, and her power was breathtaking. Not a single assassin could touch her. As for other women, they were unbreakably loyal to her, speaking only of her generosity.
On the page I’m looking at, one line of script has leaped out at me.
I never paid much attention to it before today, not before I met the new female Oracle.
She is all things to all people.
It was just as I re-read that line mere moments ago that the cold chill struck me.
I listen carefully, but I’m not certain if my senses are playing tricks on me.
After all, it’s been a long day already…
As the silence stretches and I relax once more, I’m assailed by memories of the new Oracle’s face. The way her features had transformed before my eyes.
It was as if she reached into my mind and plucked from my thoughts my ideal of perfect physical beauty. Not only in her appearance, but in her voice, thrumming with the songs of my ancestors. She might have stepped from a past that had been destroyed and brought it back to life.
And yet, as beautiful as she was in that moment, I wished her to return to her complex self, the version of her that fed my soul with all her furious emotions.
Behind me, past the next door and deeper within thecatacombs, her father lies in a crystal coffin, completely preserved in ice.
I will study him next, but first, I need to continue searching the ancient texts for any mention of stars ever going out.
Scooping up the scroll, along with the anonymous note I received this morning and the charred Frost coins I confiscated from the assassin named Stanimir, I prepare to store them safely in an ornate chest resting on the nearest shelf.
That’s when the smallest whisper reaches me from across the room.
A heartbeat that is not my own.
Any other fae wouldn’t hear it, but I can.
Fucking assassin.
The chill clawing at my stomach returns.
Before today, I wouldn’t have thought much more about an assassin. It’s nothing new for Frost Fae to come after me. My people want me dead. I’m descended from Lethians. It matters not that I’ve kept them safe.
Now I have to ask myself if this assassin is of Frost, or if this imminent attack could be connected to the Oracle’s father’s death.
Without pause, I continue pushing back my chair, but more slowly now, listening beneath the scraping sound for the scuffle of feet.
Whoever they are, I’m certain they’ll only move when I move, attempting to conceal their presence beneath the sounds I make.
Let them fucking get near to me.
I have no problem giving an assassin false hope before I flood their bones with ice, freezing them, but only enough to immobilize them so I can interrogate them.
The smallest change in the shadows to my right tells me that, whoever they are, they’ve reached that row of shelves.
I step slowly out from behind the table, drawing my power to my fingertips, keeping my movements nonchalant.
Come closer so I might capture you…
