Page 16

Chapter 16

‘Can you tell me about the prophecy?’ I asked abruptly.

‘You’re not even going to wine me and dine me first?’ Melva tittered. At my flat look, she laughed even more. ‘Sorry, Amber, I don’t mean to tease you but you’re such fun to play with.’

‘Like a kitten with her fur stroked the wrong way, and she’s spitting fury at you but she’s only five pounds wet,’ Bastion murmured, looking at me affectionately.

‘Miaow,’ Melva said, before laughing again.

I put my hands on my hips and glowered at them, but my heart wasn’t in it. I was being teased in a friendly way; this wasn’t the bitchy bullying of my childhood but a gentle prod. They were laughing with me rather than at me – well, they would be if I were laughing. ‘If you two clowns are quite done,’ I harrumphed, ‘we have some urgent business and time is rather of the essence. ’

Melva sobered. ‘Talking of circuses, you’ll need tell him about yours before long.’ She nodded at Bastion.

Bastion stared at me. ‘You have a circus?’

‘Later,’ I said. ‘Let’s focus on saving Melva for now.’

Melva breathed a soft sigh. ‘Is it so soon? Tonight?’

Crud. ‘You don’t know exactly when?’

‘I knew it would be the day I revealed the prophecy to you, and here we are.’ She folded her hands in her lap.

I frowned. ‘Okay, well don’t reveal the prophecy to me then. We can find it out some other way then you get to live.’

Melva looked at me and her eyes were too knowing. ‘For someone who doesn’t believe in fate, you’re awfully willing to bend to it if it means saving my life. I appreciate that, Amber, I really do. But you need to know the prophecy and you need to face it. It’s already nibbling at you but you’re in denial. The knowledge has been tickling your brain but you’ve refused to accept it. The prophecy isn’t the driving force in your life, but it is going to be a tool to awaken your potential. Are you ready?’

I shook my head, stomach roiling. ‘No,’ I blurted out. ‘I’m not. ’

Bastion squeezed my hand. ‘You’re not alone. You’re ready. We are ready.’ His gaze told me he was giving me another clue, but whatever it was I missed it.

I blew out a sharp breath and nodded grudgingly as my fingers tightened on his. ‘Hit me.’

Melva’s purple skin seemed to glow with a faint luminosity and her eyes leached to purple. Her grey hair flew behind her, like it was being blown by an invisible breeze. She opened her mouth, and when the words came out they were deeper somehow, thick with portent. My neck prickled.

‘Through the veils of time, a mother’s plight

Her mind is the cost to set things right.

She weaves the threads of fate so tight

Her sacrifice made in love’s pure light.

A griffin’s wings upon the loyal guide,

A familiar bond, forever tied.

A bond hidden as the fates decide,

Loneliness consume, until realms collide.

The witch, the Crone, her destiny clear,

Black witches tremble when she’s near.

With heart and rune, she’ll persevere ,

A hunt for justice, she’ll have no peer.

But lurking deep within the night,

The Coven’s head, her father’s might.

A reckoning awaits in close sight

A clash of dark and radiant light.

So heed the hidden prophecy spun

Of time, protectors and battles won.

The Crone shall rise like the morning sun

To face her father, his darkness undone.’

Melva’s head sank to her chest as the prophecy ended, and my head spun with the weight of the words that had fallen from her.