Chapter 50 The Oracle's Burden
POV: Mina (Age 18 - Journey to the Lunar Sanctum)
I nearly kill a tree.
Not metaphorically. Not in some poetic sense about testing my limits. I actually almost obliterate a century-old oak because I'm trying to practice control and I have none.
The tree splinters at the roots. Not from being hit. From the force of my voice when I speak with Oracle power behind it. The command I'm attempting is simple—just trying to move a branch—but the reality is anything but simple.
When I speak, reality bends.
The entire tree shudders. The roots crack audibly, tearing through earth. The trunk groans like something dying. Smaller branches explode into splinters that rain down around me.
I stop speaking immediately, cutting off the command mid-word.
The tree settles but doesn't recover. There are visible cracks running up the trunk. The roots are damaged beyond repair. It'll die eventually. Maybe not today but soon.
I stare at it, processing what just happened. Processing what I almost did.
Through the bond I feel the Trio's reactions from where they're standing at what they judged to be a safe distance. Fascination mixed with terror. Awe mixed with the kind of fear that comes from witnessing power that has no governor.
None of them says it out loud. Through the connection I feel them actively choosing not to speak. But the truth sits heavy in the bond anyway.
I'm dangerous. Not just to Council forces or assassins or threats. To everything. To the mission. To them. To myself.
Oracle power without training is a weapon I can't safely wield. And every day we travel closer to the Lunar Sanctum is another day I might accidentally destroy something—or someone—I don't mean to.
I try again with a different target. Smaller this time. Just a puddle of water from yesterday's rain.
I focus on it and speak.
"Freeze."
The water doesn't just freeze. It flash-freezes so fast the expansion cracks the earth beneath it. Ice spreads in a radius three times larger than the original puddle, frost creeping across stone and grass and anything in range.
The temperature drops ten degrees in the immediate area. My breath comes out in visible clouds despite it being early autumn.
Through the bond I feel Logan's wolf react to the sudden cold. Feel Asher's calculating mind trying to process the physics of what just happened. Feel Jax's tactical assessment adjusting to accommodate an Oracle who can alter temperature and matter state with a single word.
I release the command and the ice begins melting immediately, returning to normal temperature, but the damage is done. The ground beneath where the puddle was is cracked and fractured.
Wild. Untrained. Immense.
The words cycle through my mind as I stare at the results of my attempted practice.
I have the force of an Oracle and the training of no one. My mother's journal gave me combat spells and Lunar Binding and Shadow Step, all of which I can execute with reasonable control. But the Silver Voice—the ability to command reality itself—that's something else entirely.
That's power I don't understand and can't safely practice alone.
Movement in my peripheral vision. Jax stepping forward from where the Trio has been observing.
His posture is careful. Not threatening. Not presumptuous. Just deliberate in the way someone approaches a situation that requires precision rather than force.
"I've spent my entire life training power suppression," he says. His voice is controlled, precise, carrying none of the ego I'm used to hearing from him. "Let me help."
The offer hangs in the air between us.
Through the bond I feel what's underneath it. Genuine desire to help mixed with recognition that I need help mixed with his own fear of Oracle power. But beneath all of that: understanding that this is something he actually knows how to do. That power control is something he was raised for. That this might be the one area where his training is actually relevant to my survival.
"I don't want anything from you," I tell him.
The words land like a dropped blade. Sharp. Final. Cutting through the offer and leaving it bleeding on the ground between us.
Through the bond I feel him flinch. Not physically. Internally. The rejection hitting somewhere that's still raw from carrying my trauma through forced empathy.
But through the connection I also feel what I can't say. What's underneath my refusal that I don't want to acknowledge.
It's not hatred. Not fully. Not anymore.
It's self-protection.
I'm terrified of needing him. Terrified of depending on someone who spent months destroying me. Terrified that accepting help means admitting I can't do this alone means accepting connection that goes beyond forced mate bond means losing the anger that's been keeping me functional.
Needing him feels like betraying Rafe. Like admitting the mission isn't enough on its own. Like accepting that I actually require the three wolves prophecy forced on me.
Through the bond I feel Jax understanding all of that. Feel him reading the truth beneath my refusal. Feel him recognizing that I'm not just rejecting his help. I'm protecting myself from the vulnerability that comes with accepting it.
He doesn't argue. Doesn't push. Just nods once and steps back to where Logan and Asher are standing.
Through the connection I feel his complicated processing. Understanding my refusal while also recognizing that I'm going to hurt myself trying to do this alone. Wanting to help while respecting that I'm not ready to accept it. Carrying the weight of knowing his training could prevent me from destroying myself but having no way to force me to use it.
We break camp and continue traveling without discussing it further.
That night the nightmare returns.
I'm in the clearing again. Rafe's hand in mine. Silver poison on his lips. His wolf going dark. The telepathic bond we shared for nine years going silent forever.
The dream forces me through every second of it. Every moment of watching him die. Every instant of knowing I was losing the only person who'd ever mattered. Every breath of the afterwards when the world was just empty silence where his presence had been.
In the dream I scream. A sound I couldn't make when it actually happened because I was mute. A sound that carries all the grief and rage and absolute devastation of that moment.
The scream has Oracle power behind it.
Reality fractures in the dream. The clearing shatters. The trees explode. The earth cracks open. Everything around me destroyed by grief given voice.
I wake gasping.
Through the bond I feel them wake simultaneously. All three of them jolting to consciousness, their wolves responding to mate in distress, their human minds immediately flooded with what the dream showed.
They felt it. All of it. The bond forced them to experience Rafe's death again, but this time with the addition of my scream. With the reality-breaking power of Oracle grief given voice.
Through the connection I feel their agony. Logan clutching his chest like something's trying to tear out of it. Asher's breath coming in short gasps as he tries to process emotional pain that his shattered shields can't filter. Jax going completely still, his control the only thing keeping him from falling apart.
They're awake now. Processing. Carrying it with me whether any of us wants them to.
I don't apologize. Don't acknowledge it. Just lie there in my bedroll feeling them feel what I feel and hating that the bond makes privacy impossible.
Eventually their breathing evens out. Eventually they settle back into something approximating rest. Eventually the night goes quiet again except for forest sounds.
But through the bond I feel Jax not sleeping. Feel him moving quietly. Feel him positioning himself outside my sleeping area and settling there.
Standing guard. Not announcing it. Not explaining. Just there.
Through the connection I feel his purpose. He's not guarding against external threats. He's guarding against the nightmare coming back. Against me having to experience that alone even though the bond ensures I'm never truly alone.
It doesn't fix anything. Doesn't undo what he did. Doesn't make us okay.
But it's something. Some quiet acknowledgment that he understands what I'm carrying and he's choosing to carry part of it if the bond allows.
I don't thank him. Don't acknowledge his presence. Just lie there knowing he's there and hating that I find it almost comforting.
He stays until dawn.
Morning comes cold and clear.
I wake to find Jax exactly where he positioned himself last night. Still awake. Still watching. His ice-blue eyes showing the exhaustion of a night without sleep but his posture still alert.
Through the bond I feel his wolf settled now that mate is awake and safe. Feel his human mind processing what the nightmare showed. Feel his recognition that I'm not going to discuss it and his acceptance of that boundary.
I get up and go through my morning routine. Ignore him. Ignore all three of them. Focus on the practical necessities of survival.
But when I'm done, when I've eaten and packed and prepared to continue traveling, I find myself walking to where Jax is standing.
I stop in front of him and nod once.
He understands immediately. Through the bond I feel his recognition. Feel him seeing the acceptance I can't voice. Feel him understanding that I'm not doing this because I forgive him or trust him or even particularly like him.
I'm doing it because Rafe's mission requires me to succeed. And succeeding requires control I don't have.
Practical necessity. Not emotional healing. Just survival.
He begins the lesson without a word.
Starts with breathing. With centering. With the kind of foundational control that he learned as a child when his father was teaching him to suppress wolf aggression during formal events.
"Power responds to intention," he says quietly. "But intention without control is just chaos. You need to build the control first. The foundation that lets you direct force instead of just releasing it."
He demonstrates. Shows me breathing patterns that ground energy. Shows me how to gather power without immediately releasing it. Shows me the mental framework that separates intention from execution.
It's careful. Methodical. The kind of teaching that comes from someone who's spent their life learning to control something volatile.
Through the bond I feel the weight of what he's carrying. Feel him understanding that I'm not doing this for myself. That every lesson is in service of Rafe's memory. That I'm learning to wield Oracle power not because I want to but because completing the mission requires it.
Feel him recognizing that teaching me means helping me honor a brother he never met. That his training is in service of a ghost. That every moment of this is weighted with the knowledge that I'm only here, only accepting help, only still moving because someone who's dead asked me to.
Through the connection I feel it undoing him quietly. Feel something in Jax that's separate from Logan's protective violence and Asher's calculated atonement. Something that's about proximity and shared silence and recognition that some burdens can't be carried alone even when you desperately want to.
He doesn't say any of that. Just teaches. Just shows me how to center power. Just gives me the tools I need to not destroy everything I touch.
We practice for an hour. Then two. Then three.
The others watch from a distance. Through the bond I feel Logan's wolf settling as he sees mate learning control. Feel Asher's mind cataloguing what this means for future encounters. Feel both of them recognizing that something is shifting between Jax and me that's different from the bond they share.
Something quieter. More complicated. Built on necessity and nightmare vigils and the kind of teaching that requires trust neither of us is ready to name.
By midday I can freeze water without cracking earth. Can move branches without splintering trunks. Can speak with power behind it and have reality bend instead of break.
Control. Not mastery. But control.
Jax nods once when the session ends. Doesn't congratulate or praise. Just acknowledges progress and steps back.
Through the bond I feel the weight he's carrying. Feel him understanding that I'm doing this for Rafe. Feel it breaking something in him that he doesn't have words for.
Feel him beginning to separate from Logan and Asher in ways that have nothing to do with hierarchy and everything to do with the particular burden of teaching someone to survive for reasons that have nothing to do with living.
We continue traveling. The lesson ends but the weight remains.
I'm learning control. He's carrying the knowledge of why I need it.
And through the bond, whether we want it or not, we're both changed by it.