The Oracle's Secret (The Oracle Saga Book 1) (13 page)

We’re back where we started. The mundane side of the Major Oak, back in the visitor centre of Sherwood Forest. Judging by the light, it’s early morning. There’s nobody around but us. I gasp in shuddering breaths, my whole body shaking. I can’t believe we’re out. I can’t believe I’m not dead. I’m about ready to start crying.

Tarian wraps his arms around me and holds me tight, and for a moment I let him. It’s so nice to pretend that I can have this. I inhale the scent of him, let myself sink into him warmth. But only for a moment.

‘No,’ I pull back.

He looks sadly at me. ‘Livya, I’m so sorry... whatever I can do to make it up to you, I’ll...’

I shake my head. ‘It’s not just that. Everything is so complicated right now. I need time to think about everything. Please, will you give me that?’

He sighs, nods. ‘Of course.’

There are shouts then, and suddenly we’re surrounded. I tense, waiting for a fight, but I recognise the Prince’s own guards, led by Steele’s former second-in-command, a statuesque woman called Faith. I guess she’ll be his replacement now. She runs to me while the others take up positions around us.

‘Livya!’ she says. ‘Did you get the stone?’

I shake my head. ‘I had to destroy it to keep it out of enemy hands.’

She looks at me for a long moment, then nods. ‘Better than the alternative. Come on, we’ve secured this area but we can’t stay long, the Northern Prince’s people aren’t far.’

I let her lead me to a portal that takes us to a nondescript lay-by where jeeps are waiting. She bundles me in.

‘Are you ok?’ she asks. ‘Any injuries that need immediate treatment?’

‘I’ll live,’ I say. ‘But Steele... he didn’t make it.’

She looks at me solemnly, nods, then orders the guard in the driver’s seat to go, and we head back down  the motorway to Salisbury. I replay the moment of Steele’s death in my mind again - even after all the horrors of the last few days, it makes tears spring to my eyes.

My heart is in my throat for the whole drive. I was supposed to come back with the Lightstone. I failed. Have I broken my blood oath? Does it matter how hard I tried? Does it matter that Steele sacrificed himself?

I think back to the command the Prince gave me. He ordered us to do whatever was necessary to ensure that the stone didn’t fall into enemy hands. And I’ve done that, haven’t I? Faith is right, things would be a lot worse right now if I’d let Elise take it from me. But still I shake for the entire journey, fearing how the Prince will punish me when we get back. By the time we sweep into the driveway at court, my teeth are rattling.

Faith frowns at me. ‘I’ve got orders to take you to the Prince right away, but after that you’re going to Emmeline,’ she says. ‘You look like you need some TLC.’

‘It’s been a tough few days,’ I admit.

She and the other guards lead Tarian and I straight to the audience chamber, where the Prince is waiting on his throne. He fixes his eyes on me as we enter. We approach the throne and kneel.

‘Get up, get up,’ he says, impatient. ‘Oracle - where is my Lightstone?’

I force myself to look directly at him. ‘I’m sorry, my Prince, I destroyed it to keep it away from the Northern Prince’s forces.’

He lets out a scream of rage, and throws a goblet at me. I duck and it sails over my head, crashing on the floor behind me. Tarian moves to stand protectively in front of me, glaring right at the Prince.

‘Livya did everything she could!’ he growls, anger pouring off him. ‘She’s been through hell for you, she’s suffered and worked and almost died to reach your precious Lightstone, and when she saw that she couldn’t keep it for you, she destroyed it so that your rival wouldn’t have it. And this is how you repay her? If you knew what she’d been through for you,
you
should be kneeling to
her
.’

My heart beats loud in the silence. Tarian is still glaring at the Prince. Everyone else is frozen, stunned.

The Prince lets out a short, sharp laugh. I cringe, imagining how he’ll punish Tarian.

‘My Finder gets above himself,’ the Prince says. ‘But I understand that you’ve had a difficult few days. That sort of stress might make you say things you don’t mean, eh?’

Tarian’s shoulders rise and fall sharply with his breathing. ‘Yes, my Prince,’ he says at last.

I let out the breath I’ve been holding.

‘Well, both of you, I commend you for your efforts, even if they were fruitless,’ he says. ‘You may go.’

I’m so stunned that Faith has to lead me out of the chamber.

‘He knows how much worse it would have been if you hadn’t been there,’ she says to me under her breath as we walk up the stairs to Emmeline’s infirmary.

It still feels like the narrowest of narrow escapes.

My mother and Cherry are waiting in the infirmary. Cherry shrieks when she sees me and teleports across the room to hug me.

‘You’re safe!’ she says. ‘Are you all right? What happened? We’ve been so worried...’

‘Later, I promise,’ I say.

I’m not ready to talk about it yet, not any of it. I sit quietly as my mother and Emmeline hug me too and Emmeline starts to inspect my various injuries.

I’m back. I’m home. I don’t know how to feel about it. I don’t know if I should be glad or angry. I don’t know where things stand with Tarian, or what I want him to be to me, or whether anything like that is even possible. I don’t know what the Prince will want me to do next, now that my blood oath binds me to his will. I don’t know whether the Northern Prince will retaliate after I took the Lightstone from him. I don’t know a single thing any more.

A vision washes over me suddenly, and I’m too tired to hold it back. It’s a vision of myself, spreading a thick layer of jam on a piece of toast.

When I leave the vision, I’m laughing. I may not know much, but at least somewhere in my future there’s going to be breakfast. And maybe that’s enough to start with.

~~~

Livya's adventures will continue soon in:

The Oracle's Dilemma

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