Page 31 of The Shadowed Oracle (The Bonded Worlds #1)

Chapter Eighteen

Ingrid didn’t have time to fully familiarize herself with her enemy. She only made out Sylan’s shadow, the cloak over his large frame, his dark hair, and the small blade hurtling at him.

The knife appeared out of thin air and barreled directly at the general’s heart, but darkness swallowed them again before she could see the dagger’s landing spot. When the illumination returned, it was pinned to the steel frame of the door just behind him, and Sylan still stood upright, untouched.

There was no hurry in the prince’s movements.

Either he didn’t understand how close his prize was to escaping, or he wasn’t concerned about his ability to catch up to her.

His hair jostled with each deliberate step forward, and his voice was a rich but gravelly growl as he spoke to his caged servant.

“Tell me, Wrane, how long have you been in service to the true King Makkar?”

The Wrane answered gleefully, as if honored to be asked. “Since the beginning, my lord. Since first I heard of our king’s gracious proposal.”

“And how long had you been on this ugly rock? Better yet, how long before you realized this…” He spoke without looking at Ingrid. “This girl here was an Oracle?”

“Only a day, my lord.” The creature’s elated tone had become a pitiful squeak. “When first we crossed paths, I hadn’t known. I hadn’t been able to see the signs. Her eyes. I hadn’t seen them. Hadn’t?—”

“And why is that? Why couldn’t you see them? Why couldn’t you sense her power?”

The creature had trouble calculating what its master might have sought. “I just hadn’t, my lord. I wasn’t close enough. Couldn’t feel anything. Maybe she’d?—"

“That will be all.” Sylan pivoted quickly, and with deathly calm, finally fixed his eyes on Ingrid.

It was here that she was able to take him in completely.

He was as tall as Raidinn, but far more agile and athletic.

His hair was a void-like black. Face sharp, predatory, but youthful.

The onyx armor he wore was adorned with intricate depictions of creatures and horrors not unlike Ingrid’s tattoos.

And his eyes were a piercing gold. It was like looking into the eyes of an animal that was trapped in a human body.

Only, he wasn’t human. He was Viator. An immortal warrior.

“Dean,” Raidinn whispered. “Any idea what the fuck is going on?”

“I… I don’t know.”

The generator still whirred, the lights continued to flash, but the rapid beeping had plateaued. The monotonous bleating of the machine seemed to fade into the background, and everything came to a standstill. Even the lights appeared dimmer.

As a consequence, all attention was turned to Ingrid’s hunter.

“Oracle,” Sylan said, still holding his unabating glare on her. “I will make you an offer. Come with me, and I swear on Mother Ealis, you and your friends will not be harmed.”

The words barely registered. She couldn’t focus. With his glare, his size, his rumbling voice, the swords and daggers adorning his belt, he looked every inch a born killer sent from a world hellbent on ending all of Earth.

She could only stare, paralyzed.

“Go fuck yourself,” Dean answered for her. “If you want her, you’ll have to kill me first.”

The others looked to him curiously. Even Sylan was speechless. A little amused, but speechless nonetheless. He wasn’t used to such an invitation.

Just as the smile began to form in the corner of the prince’s mouth, Dean reached for his waist, solving the mystery of where that first dagger came from as he unsheathed another just like it.

“She won’t be your puppet,” he said.

“Puppet?” Sylan arched a brow. “No, nothing like that. All my subjects are treated with the utmost respect. See for yourself.”

He snapped his fingers, and it was only a moment before the things that had been incessantly banging on the door made themselves known.

First, hovering at a hauntingly slow speed, came an armored Wrane from the main hall of the basement floor.

It was larger than the one trapped below them, its claw-like fingertips much longer, and its lower machinations no longer a mystery.

Indeed, it had legs and feet and toes not unlike the sharp talons of its fingers, but beneath that nearly prototypical anatomy was a whirling plume of black smoke that seemed to carry the creature in mid-air.

Following close behind the soldier wraith, lumbering apace, were two gargantuan wolves.

No, not wolves , Ingrid realized. They had the shape and gait of a canine, but the heads and necks were far thicker, wider, with long yellow fangs protruding well over their bottom lips.

Foaming at the mouth, baring their claws, with that earthy, sour smell steaming off of their thick fur.

The creatures looked to Sylan, beggingly. The Wrane did the same, no question of their intentions. They wanted to attack, wanted to feed, wanted to reap the reward for all their tracking and following, all their hammering and breaking and pushing to get where they stood now.

“Patience,” their master called them off. “Patience.”

The creatures at the prince’s side made small growls of disapproval, but stood their ground. If the point Sylan was trying to make was that his soldiers had autonomy, he’d proven it. They were still glaring at Ingrid, inching closer, not seeming at all afraid of the consequences of disobeying.

They would attack soon. If there was such a thing as fate, Ingrid thought, then this outcome would just be another failure fitting right in with all the others from her past. Like Sisyphus, trudging through the unseen forces pinning her down, finally catching the glimmer of hope on the other side, only to fall back down and do it all over again.

“Let them go,” she announced, surprising even herself with the declaration. “And I’ll come willingly.”

“Don’t,” Dean whispered. “We’re almost there.”

Ingrid squeezed his hand in response, as if to say, “And what if we aren’t?

” What if this was the only way to save them?

If her fate had always been to be hunted, to be pursued, then why take down the few who’d shown her kindness?

The few who’d gone out of their way to help, to make sense of the darkness shadowing her?

She couldn’t sit back and watch. She wouldn’t.

Standing tall, she said, “It’s okay,” and hoped that Dean would understand. “It’s okay,” she said again. “Thank you. Thank you all for?—”

She turned to him, to Tyla, to Raidinn…

But they were gone.

She raised her empty palm, gawking at where Dean’s hand had just been half a second before.

“Please,” Sylan said, amused. “Do continue. What were you saying?”

Ingrid rounded her head back to center, staring out at the room now entirely populated by her enemies.

Was it a trick? Had one of the Wranes invaded her mind again?

It didn’t feel that way. No, this felt nauseatingly real.

She was alone. She knew the feeling well.

The ignorant orphan who just days ago knew nothing of her roots, nothing of this new world, she now stood alone in front of the merciless general of Ealis’ largest army.

Everything else seemed to fade, even his fanged wild animals, and the Wranes, and the persistent mechanical signal, and the trembling quake of the engine, leaving her utterly stranded with the most ungodly being she’d ever laid eyes on.

“It seems your little toy failed.” Sylan looked to the control panel. “It left you behind. How curious.”

Ingrid gulped, a war of two choices again raging on inside her.

She could run. Hope her power was valuable enough that Sylan would give her enough time to get outside the blast radius.

Or, she could stay. The emergency measures would surely start counting down now that the others had gone through, and when they did, maybe the explosion would leave these monsters injured enough to slow them.

She couldn’t decide.

“Maybe it’s for the best,” Sylan continued, snapping Ingrid from her plotting thread. “Maybe this was your… fate.”

Ingrid was too concerned with the decision ahead of her to notice the coincidence. How one might think he was mocking her for her attempt at self-sacrifice, her thoughts about fate.

“Maybe it was necessary,” Sylan continued. “To feel this emptiness.” He smirked devilishly, enthralled by his own dramatic pause. “To know what it would feel like if those new friends weren’t so friendly at all. Had you considered that? Have you doubted your saviors yet, Ingrid?”

Her stomach lurched. “How… how do you know my name?”

Sylan only kept that small smile plastered on, so calm and so still that Ingrid could’ve sworn the contours of his body suddenly faded. She blinked, and with each passing second, everything became cloudier.

Sylan seemed to fizzle, contorting into a twisted shadow before her eyes, like her vision had tunneled and everything before her caved in on itself.

He was only a mess of shadows now.

The red and yellow lights had turned pure white.

And then, all at once, she was somewhere else.

Somewhere in between, falling endlessly through a colorless, formless void.