My eyes narrow. “How so?”
“Perhaps some of these passages hold merit in the accounts of what has already come to pass. The oracles have access to these memories of the Sponsa Noctis. It is also correct that they cannot see decisions involving others apart from Vessa and the Blood Master. However, the rest of the entries are convoluted. There is no mention of future encounters with her betrothed. Maurleen told you that she wrote these visions out of order because she does not have a reliable timeline for which they occur, correct?”
“Yes,” Nell and I answer together.
Daphne sighs. “That was a lie to gain Vessa’s trust. To control the narrative.”
The chicken bone snaps in my hand.
“If this oracle truly held any regard for Vessa’s fate, she wouldn’t have written these things down so carelessly. This information, these visions,are to be guarded and protected with one’slife.It is the very reason why your parents died along with so many others here twenty years ago. The Master knew we had come into possession of a key detail pertaining to the curse.”
Nell shudders. “What did the Servant tell you in Volken, Mama? Before she was captured?”
Her mother straightens her posture. “Rose and I had just arrived in Volken to seek counsel with the Kuza family when she found out she was pregnant with Vallery. It was positively frigid that first week of January. But not near as cold as the Alpha Commander’s rejection of our alliance. Rose stormed out of theopera house only to be ambushed by an elderly woman on the street. She urged us to follow her, so we did, creeping through filthy back alleys and into the temple of Helius. In the darkness, she revealed herself as a Servus Primae Lunari and told us to leave the capital at once. The Blood Master was also in the city, hunting for oracles.
“She foresaw that the Skornokovy line would take in a human that was believed to be the key to ending the strife between species. If the Sponsa Noctis were to align with her male heir, together, they would overthrow the Blood Master by obtaining the Final Death, destroying him along with all the demons of Somnium he and Clethra created.”
Nell’s eyes go wide. “No wonder Rose was so frantic in those last few months.”
I tilt my head. “You saidif. Whyif?”
Daphne’s eyes darken. “Because Vessa’s fate is not determined. That is the greatest of all Maurleen’s omissions. Servos Primae Lunari experience visions in dualities. They see two decisions and two outcomes. You see? Vessa has always had a choice.”
She’s been stringing Vessa along this entire time, letting her think that isolating was in her best interest. How could she possibly call herself a friend? A guardian?
My jaw grinds.
Daphne places a new journal in front of my empty plate. Hers. She flips to one of the last pages in the book, removing a crumpled piece of parchment that marks the place. My breath thins as she unfolds the paper. “Although it’s vague, this is what the oracle told your mother that night. She knew she didn’t have much time before the vampires snuffed her out.”
The Sponsa Noctis craves the darkness by design. When she finally meets the one hailed as the prince of demons, she will know him as one would recognize their mate. Have no doubt, he will tempt her. But he will not repeat his past blunder. In death, he will free his true love from all mortal confines. Only then will they join in matrimony. Together, they will rule over the eternal night.
Nell’s face drains of all color. “Tell me I did not just read the wordmate.”
Daphne steels herself. “I don’t understand why Maurleen omitted this warning in your discussion. Why she didn’t want Vessa to know how easily she could be corrupted. But what I do know is that the Blood Master has eyes in wolf country. I know that anyone who goes around sniffing for the Final Death meets the same fate. There’s a long trail of bodies to show for it. Rose had gone as far as compiling a list.”
My jaw clenches so hard it could snap at any given moment. Scenarios of torture fire off in my head left and right, each worse than the last. I can’t keep ignoring the panting of my erratic demon. Or the suffering that echoes across the bridge between Vessa and I.
“I don’t have time to debate any more of this oracle bullshit. My mate ismissing.”
“Listen, please. There’s more. It’s been said that the closer to the arrival of the Sponsa Noctis’s birth, the more visions Servos are burdened with. Perhaps Maurleen fled because she came to the same realization our witch in Volken did.”
Nell’s breathing quivers. “She knows how to find the weapon.”
Pushing out of my chair, I grunt.Enough of this, my wolf rumbles.Tesni will drag her ass back here one way or another.
Throwing the door open, I stomp out. Nell and her mother are right on my heels. “Don’t write the oracle off just yet,” Daphne urges.
“Think about it, Axe. We find it first and there’s a chance we can potentially negotiate.”
Furious, I whirl around to scold them. “I have no intention of negotiating with the monster responsible for murdering my family.”
Vessa
After shivering all through the night, pondering how I might escape the bowels of this frigid holding facility, I am in a daze all morning. Working alongside the others is a struggle, as I barely have the energy to scrub and soak the stained fabrics. Why must all the lighting be obscenely bright?
I pay the price for slacking when the designated shift manager, the guard who pinned my arms down yesterday, casually walks over to my table and decks me in the eye.
He strikes me so hard, the next thing I know I’m bobbing in a black pool of unconsciousness. When I rouse again, I’m confined to my cell with a pitcher of water and a bowl of moldy fruit. The swollen eye temporarily distracts me from my battered abdomen and the sharp pain of the inflamed bitemark.
