Chapter 62: Chapter. 62

My pulse was hot and quick.

Can this oracle know that I came back to life?

Cleta led Dealla and I back to the privacy of her chambers, ordering a servant to bring us cold water. A few minutes passed until Dealla’s vacant eyes focused on me.

“Who are you?” she asked.

I glanced at Cleta, uncomfortable. “Tatiana Franco, of the Epona tribe,” I answered, trying to repeat to myself that nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened to me. “We met at the Baelyn festival a little over a week ago.”

Cleta didn’t seem to find anything suspicious in Dealla’s attitude toward me. I remembered her opinions on oracles. Hopefully she would brush this off as another eccentric way in which the Cernunnos demons behaved.

“Let’s go to the forest,” Dealla stated.

“Now?”

Cleta looked as baffled as me.

“Yes, now,” Dealla replied.

“Okay,” I agreed. I had to know whether Dealla could sense that I had been given a second chance at life.

“Just Tatiana and I,” Dealla told Cleta, who was grabbing a cloak.

Cleta looked at me.

“You should go back to the party. Find an excuse for my abrupt exit. Please.” I realized I had left the party before the last of the guests, which could be perceived as an insult.

Cleta nodded, and Dealla and I left under her concerned gaze.

We progressed silently in the forest outside of the citadel, the rug of pine needles crunching underneath our footsteps. Eventually, Dealla raised a hand, signalling for us to stop.

“What do we do now?” I whispered.

“Stay here, sit,” she ordered.

She left me alone in the dark forest for a handful of minutes, during which I heard her rummage around, foraging the ground, picking up leaves. When she came back, she built a small fire, and placed some of her found items in a circle around me. I smelled the sharp tang of thyme, and noticed a few mounds of moist dirt.

“What is this?”

“Ancient Cernunnos ritual,” Dealla informed me, plunging her emerald eyes into mine. She was about my age, but her eyes betrayed an older soul. “I need to see into your past.”

“Why?”

“Too many deaths,” Dealla uttered.

“What if I don’t want you to see into my past?” I asked, getting up. “I thought oracles could only see into the future.”

Dealla stopped what she was doing, finally paying attention to me.

“Don’t you want to know if there is a way around Luther’s prophecy?”

“Uh…” I hesitated.

How much does Luther tell her?

She was equally fascinating and terrifying, at once beautiful and otherworldly. I understood why Cleta dismissed oracles as charlatans, yet could easily believe that Dealla was in contact with forces I didn’t understand, the same forces Luther had mentioned several times before.

“We don’t deal in beliefs,” Dealla croaked as if she were reading my thoughts. “Truths.”

I stared at her, stunned.

How does she do that?

“Nothing will leave this space,” Dealla said, gesturing to the odd circle she had traced using foraged items.

“Okay,” I finally sat back down in the center of her circle.

Wasting no time, she asked me to close my eyes and started chanting in a language I had never heard before. It lulled me into a daze, at the edge of consciousness. There was no telling how long it lasted, but when Dealla snapped me out of my stupor, the fire had gone out. I only saw her eyes, staring at me in the darkness, and feared what she had seen.

“You died,” she stated bluntly. “How?”

I paused, considering what to say.

“I don’t know,” I finally answered. “And I don’t want anyone to know.”

Dealla placed a hand on my knee. “We oracles see a lot, and tell little, as I’ve said. It stays in the circle.”

“Thank you,” I told her earnestly.

“Yours isn’t the only death that I saw,” Dealla continued. “Your father, your friend’s sister. They surround you.”

“Reghes?”

Dealla nodded, grave. “Reghes, Surya, Ravinger.”

I stared at her, stunned. “So we were all together during the war.”

“And you are still together now.”

I repressed the emotions that threatened to rise in my throat. How could I not remember something so important? My own father was with me when I was kidnapped, perhaps died in front of my eyes, and I simply...forgot?

“You survived, because you forgot,” Dealla leaned even closer to me. I could feel her reading into my soul. I changed the subject, uncomfortable.

“I have to ask, Dealla...Luther’s prophecy…”

She slid back. “I can tell you this. He was brought up to believe it. The oracle who passed it on was from his village, Nemetes.”

“Nemetes,” I repeated.

“Tatiana,” Dealla continued. “You died before, and came back. I know you don’t want to talk about it,” she quickly added, seeing my reaction. But perhaps there’s a way out of this. Hope. Let me look into it?”

I considered her offer.

“Okay,” I answered. “But not a word of it to Luther,” I told her, convincing myself that I wasn’t hiding anything consequential from him. But how could I ever tell him of something so unbelievable?

***

The sky was timidly bright when Dealla and I parted. I trudged to my bedroom, my head pounding from a sleepless night. But I couldn’t go to sleep. I had to talk to Luther. Dealla had never heard the exact wording of the prophecy, and while she was adamant that Luther’s mother had interpreted it correctly, I wanted to be sure. I had decided to travel to Nemetes and meet with the oracle myself.

But would he agree?

I lay awake in bed next to him, searching for the right way to word my thoughts. Luther had been guarded about the prophecy since I had met him, so I needed to be diplomatic about the subject, or risk pushing him away.

When I heard him stir awake, I rolled over, nuzzling him.

“You came back late last night,” he noted, kissing the top of my head.

“I met with Dealla,” I confessed.

Luther immediately sat up. “What did she say?”

“She confirmed that I was with Reghes, Surya and my father, Ravinger, when Surya and Ravinger died,” I answered, my voice breaking.

“Oh Tatiana, I’m sorry,” Luther held me tightly.

“I feel...strangely numb,” I said, realizing that the prophecy occupied most of my conscious mind.

We stayed quiet for a few minutes, my head resting on his bare torso.

“Luther?” I eventually asked. “Do you know the exact wording of the prophecy that was made about you?”

He stopped stroking my arm. “Why?”

I looked up at him. “Do you think, maybe, it was misinterpreted?”

“No,” he answered categorically, pushing the sheets away and rising up.

“Luther?” I continued, seeing that he was stepping to the washroom.

His shoulders slumped. “Yes?”

“I promised to tell you before doing anything. So I am.”

“What are you going to do?” he asked, his voice tired.

“I want to go to Nemetes, to find the oracle. I need to hear it from her, Luther. To be sure. There’s too much at stake.”

“She might be dead,” he pointed out.

“I have to try.”

He turned around, looking vulnerable in the weak morning light. “Okay then. Go to Nemetes.”

“Thank you,” I smiled.