Oracle: The House War: Book Six by Michelle West

Author:Michelle West [West, Michelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2015-05-04T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

‘‘WELL MET, TERAFIN,” the seer said. Her robes—the same deep hue of midnight—looked at home in these ancient halls, cats squalling like vocal storm overhead. They caught her attention and earned a grimace, no more.

“Well met. Before you ask, I have no idea what the date is.”

Evayne’s smile, glimpsed briefly as she drew her hood away from her face to rest across her shoulders, was sharp but genuine. She glanced, once, at Kallandras, who offered her a bow that put Jewel’s gesture of respect to shame.

This Evayne was the older Evayne. “You walk a path of the Oracle’s choosing. You walk in her shadow. You no doubt intend to take and pass her test.”

“Will I succeed?” she asked, bluntly.

“I am not the person of whom you must ask that question,” was her counter. “But it is, as you suspect, a pointless question, here.” She turned to the Oracle, who waited. “I did not expect to find you here.” Her tone, as Shianne’s, was chilly.

“You did not look,” the Oracle replied. “But you seldom do.”

“For you? No. If you require my presence, you will find me.”

“And did you expect to see Jewel?”

Voice even cooler, Evayne said, “I do not know why you persist in playing these games. I thought I might—might—meet Shianne, and I see that she is here.”

Shianne was silent.

“My apologies, Lady.” Evayne bowed. “I am Evayne. Evayne a’Neamis. I walk, with my lord’s permission, across the paths carved by time. I recognize you because we have met before—in my life. In yours, we have not.”

“A’Neamis?” She turned to Celleriant and spoke. His reply, soft, was almost inaudible.

Shianne turned again to Evayne; her face was still. Her eyes, however, were unblinking. “You . . . are the child of a god?”

Evayne nodded, grave now. “I am. But I was born as your child will be born, not as your Lord was.”

Shianne said, to Celleriant, “I do not understand.”

Celleriant replied, but not in Weston. Before Jewel could ask him what he’d said, the Oracle spoke again.

• • •

“You have not yet answered my question.”

Evayne turned. She lifted a hand, and let it fall as Jewel drew breath.

“I want Calliastra because I see something in her that I might—just might—be able to reach. I want her because yes, she’s deadly, and yes, she’s dangerous. I’d say I want her in spite of that—but I’m not sure it would be true. She is beautiful,” she added softly, “but not because she offers death or temptation; she’s like—like this place. This ancient, empty hall.

“She’s like my forest. She’s like my rooms. None of these things is of me. None of them are part of how I perceive myself. But they respond to me, regardless. The strength of my own belief—or my anger—defines how and where I walk in these spaces.

“It defines how I touch the dreaming. And it defines how I touch people—like me—who are trapped there.”

“And is that the answer, Jewel Markess?”

“Yes. Because if I had met her when I was twelve years old, I would have offered her a home.

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