The Oracle's Secret (The Oracle Saga Book 1) (4 page)

A mile doesn’t sound that much, but turns out it’s a long way across muddy fields in the dark. I stumble a couple of times and pick myself up, blushing, but Steele faceplants right into the mud and, to be honest, that makes me feel a lot better. What can I say, I’m not a perfect person.

I don’t feel like talking as we walk. Instead I find my mind flickering back to my visions. If I let myself dwell on it for two long I can still feel my stranger’s hands on my skin, the warmth of his breath as he kisses up my collarbone to my neck, the heady taste of his mouth on mine, the strength of his arms enclosing me. It sends pulses of electricity through me, and I know I shouldn’t be thinking about it now when there are so many more important things going on, but it’s dark here and silent, and I’ve spent so many nights in my dark, silent room lying awake thinking about him, trying to figure out who he could be.

I’ve been preoccupied with my stranger’s identity ever since I first started having these visions, a few months ago. It’s started to turn into a bit of an obsession. I’ve been convinced that I’ve found him a few times and had to talk myself down. I even involved Abigail in an elaborate plot to spill water on the postman to make him take his shirt off so I could see if he had the tattoo. Not surprisingly, he didn’t.

You’d think someone who’s been having visions of the future since birth would have developed the patience by now to remember that everything that’s foreseen happens in its own time. I have definitely not developed that patience, but I’m trying.

I peer at Steele and Tarian in the gloom. For instance, both of them have a similar build to my stranger, and a similar lightly tanned skin tone. I could drive myself mad trying to work out if one of them is him - god I hope it isn’t Steele, but then Tarian isn’t much better. But the truth is there are plenty of men around who might be him, and there’s just no way to know until he shows up. I’m trying really hard not to get myself worked up with constant guessing. He’ll come when he’s ready.

In the meantime, though, I can’t stop thinking about him. Last night’s vision ended too abruptly, cut short by the alarm, but the one a few nights ago... now that was something special. I remember how frantic we were, how desperate I was to feel him inside me, to encompass him, make him mine. Droplets of water glistened on his skin in the soft, glowing light. He was naked, and even though I didn’t see his face, in the vision I knew that he was smiling at me, naked too before him. He stood in front of me and I pulled him closer, running my hands across his broad, firm chest, skimming the knot of his tattoo just above his heart. I wanted him so much. I wrapped my arms around his waist and drew him close to kiss him. The touch of his wet skin against mine made me shiver with anticipation, and yet at the same time I was warm, so warm I almost couldn’t bear it.

He laid me down - on a hard, cold surface but I didn’t care - and we held each other close. His hands roamed over my body, leaving sparks in their wake, making me gasp softly and lean into his touch. He kissed me deeply, blocking out everything else until all I knew or remembered was that kiss, like a warm, sensual eternity. I didn’t need to breathe, I didn’t need my heart to beat, all I needed was for his tongue and mine to entwine, our lips to collide. I felt as though my heart and his were beating together and I never wanted it to end.

When he pulled away I sighed in disappointment, but his mouth, hot and moist and soft, only moved downward, dropping kisses like tiny explosions down my throat and across my collarbone, while his hands clutched my hips, holding me close. A sweet ache spread like wildfire through me, gathering into a pinpoint of delicious need between my legs. Oh god, I wanted him. I licked my lips.

His kisses moved lower, until he took my nipple in his mouth and licked, and I lost control, yelping wordlessly. I felt him laugh against my breast, and he kept licking, his tongue moving in slow, firm circles until I thought I would die from want.

‘Please...’ I gasped, and he moved to kiss my lips again, cupping my head in his hand while I wrapped my arms around him, feeling the taut muscles of his back beneath my arms. His other hand moved between my legs, found the slick wetness of my arousal. His fingers danced and I almost came right then, but he took them away again, leaving me moaning and arching towards him. He shifted and I felt his erection pressing against my thigh.

‘I want you,’ I said. ‘Oh god, I want you...’

I stumble as my foot catches on a rabbit hole, and groan in annoyance. How could I have let myself get so distracted? Didn’t I just decide that I was going to be patient about this? I struggle to bring myself back to the present - this wasn’t even a vision, just a memory of one, but it’s hard to shake. There’s still an ache at the centre of me as I pull my foot out of the rabbit hole and follow the dim shapes of Steele and Tarian onward.

It seems like we’ve been walking in the dark for hours. I’m tired and cold and I’ve had a really intense day and all I want to do is go to bed. I’m beginning to doubt that Steele really knows where he’s going when he raises a hand to halt us, and points the way down into a little hollow, where there’s an oak tree.

‘This is it,’ he says. ‘The portal.’

‘It’s a tree,’ I say.

Yeah, I know that’s pretty inane but I’ve had a really long day.

‘This tree grew from a branch cut from the Major Oak,’ he says. ‘If I can perform this spell right, it should transport us to the actual Major Oak, in Sherwood itself.’

‘Let’s hope you can perform the spell right, then,’ I say.

The Major Oak, legend has it, is the tree where Robin Hood and his Merry Men camped. That’s pretty common knowledge. What’s not common knowledge is the fact that it’s also the dividing line between the mundane Sherwood Forest - the one with the visitor centre and the cafe and the guided walks - and the magical Sherwood Forest. It’s not accessible to anyone without magical powers, and they have no way of knowing it’s there, but if a person with magic knows how, they can use the Major Oak to get through to a Sherwood that’s a lot more like the one you hear about in Robin Hood stories - huge, mysterious, filled with wonder and danger. That’s the one we’re headed for. If Steele can perform the spell.

‘You both have to be touching me,’ he says.

Reluctantly, I put a hand on his muscular shoulder. Tarian does the same on the other side. Steele puts his hands flat against the trunk of the tree and takes a deep breath. Then he starts to whisper the incantation that will transport us to Sherwood.

It’s taking a while and I’m beginning to worry that Steele’s magic is still depleted from the chase earlier, but at last the dim field around us starts to warp and blur, and I feel a strange pulling sensation. There’s a few seconds of darkness, and then a rushing light, a wailing noise, and a feeling like I’m about to throw up, and then we’re standing in the same positions we were before, except that Steele’s palms are against the huge trunk of the real Major Oak, and we’re standing in Sherwood.

The tree is huge, maybe thirty feet across, and it’s not hard to believe that it’s a thousand years old. There’s a quiet energy to it that makes me feel safe. I look around us - I can see the visitor centre in the distance, and a tourist signpost pointing out the various different walks. This is still the mundane side of Sherwood. We need to get to the other side.

‘How do we get through?’ Tarian asks.

‘We have to be touching. Again,’ Steele says. ‘Right hands on shoulders, left hands touching the tree.’

Tarian and I obey. I put my hand back on Steele’s shoulder and Tarian puts his hand on mine. We touch our left hands to the Oak.

‘Now, close your eyes,’ says Steele.

I don’t like the sound of that, but I obey.

‘Now,’ says Steele. ‘We have to walk thirteen times around the tree -
exactly
.’

‘That would be a lot easier with our eyes open,’ I say.

‘I know,’ he growls. ‘That’s the point. It’s not supposed to be easy.’

I find a knothole in the wood just under my hand. I touch it, trying to remember the shape of it so that I’ll recognise it again. Then Steele starts walking and all I can do is follow, fumbling my way around the roots and leaf litter in my way, I don’t know what will happen if I open my eyes to look where I’m going - maybe it’ll just make the spell fail, maybe it’ll trap me in some sort of hellish limbo forever. I squeeze my eyes as tight shut as they’ll go. I don’t feel like taking the chance.

I’m starting to wonder if I’ve missed my knothole - surely we must have been at least once around the tree by now? - but suddenly there it is, I’m almost certain of it, but by then Steele is already moving us on. I hope he’s keeping a good count too. It seems like less time before I pass it again. I keep counting, three times around, four, five. With my eyes closed, I keep thinking I hear noises in the distance. I think about how weird this would look if someone else was here - three people playing some sort of weird game in the early hours of the morning.

I suddenly remember our pursuers, the servants of the Northern Prince who are on their way here too. If they get to the Oak while we’re wandering around with our eyes closed, we’ll be like sitting ducks. My stomach clenches in fear and I almost miss counting off our ninth time around. But there’s nothing I can do. If they see us they’ll kill us, but all I can do is keep my eyes closed and count and hope.

Ten times around, eleven, twelve, and the last one seems to take forever. I’m terrified I’ll miss it. Steele slows in front of me.

‘Um...’ he says. ‘I think we’re there?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘Keep going, we haven’t made it yet.’

Steele really must be unsure, because he does what I say and carries on. A few seconds later I find the knothole.

‘Stop!’ I yell. ‘This is it.’

‘Are you sure?’ Steele asks.

‘Positive,’ I say.

‘All right,’ says Steele. ‘Here goes nothing. Open your eyes.’

I open them and gasp. We’re through.

The space around me now is nothing like the one we just left. That one was open, clear, tame and safe even in the darkness of the early hours. This is somewhere primal, this is what my soul feels when it hears the word forest. The trees are thick around us, moonlight filters down through the leaves, the place is alive with the sounds of nocturnal creatures, not all of them the ones you’d see in the mundane countryside. I hear howls and animal cries in the distance, and somewhere the rushing of water. Something small with glowing eyes stares at me for a moment then runs away. Everything smells green.

‘There’s one bit of the spell left,’ says Steele. ‘Put your hands on mine.’

I lay my fingers over his and Tarian puts his over mine. Steele uses his other hand to scrape up a fistful of soil and sprinkles it over our joined hands, whispering. I feel energy jolt through me. Steele lets go with a grunt of satisfaction.

‘What was that?’ I ask.

‘Binding spell,’ he says. ‘None of us can leave Sherwood now unless we have the Lightstone.’

I stare at him. ‘So if they get to it first, we’re trapped here forever?’

‘That’s right,’ he shrugs.

I fly towards him to punch him, but Tarian holds me back.

‘Don’t touch me! Who said you could touch me?’ I snarl.

Tarian lets go and I aim a punch at Steele, but he blocks it and flips me onto the ground.

‘Calm down!’ he yells at me. ‘It was Prince’s orders. I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d react like this. There’s nothing I can do. He wants us back with the Lightstone or he doesn’t want us back at all.’

I swear at him and he just rolls his eyes.

‘Look,’ yells Tarian, stepping between us, ‘what’s done is done. We’re in this situation now, let’s just find the damn Lightstone and get out of here before anything else happens.’

It’s the angriest I’ve heard him get all day. His dark eyes glitter and he’s breathing hard. He didn’t ask for this either, I remember. He’s probably just as pissed off as I am about the whole situation.

The magic here is strong, so strong I can feel it on my skin like static or like tiny insects buzzing. It’s so strong that it catapults me into another vision, one with a clarity and intensity I’ve never experienced before. Every detail is clear, crisp, high definition. Sounds are real and audible, they don’t come to me through glass or water. Colours are bright. Everything moves in slow motion so that I can pay attention to every tiny nuance, remember every little detail.

I’m eating a banana. I’m eating a banana in a room. The banana is a little overripe but still good. The room isn’t one I’m familiar with.

A banana. All the magic here and that’s what I’m foreseeing.

When I come back to myself I’m lying in leaf mulch on the ground and Tarian is sitting cross-legged nearby with his eyes closed. Steele is prowling around looking suspicious.

‘Vision?’ he asks.

‘Yeah,’ I say.

‘Anything useful?’

‘Well... I’m going to get plenty of potassium,’ I say, sitting up.

He snarls at me then goes back to prowling.

I mean, I suppose it’s encouraging that sometime in the future I might be doing something as ordinary as eating a banana in a room, but for all I know there are bananas growing here in Sherwood and I’m seeing my far future when we’ve been trapped here for years eating bananas while the outside world has gone to hell. So actually not
that
encouraging. Stupid visions.

‘What’s he doing?’ I ask, cocking my head towards Tarian.

‘Finding,’ says Steele. ‘He says he has to concentrate.’

I watch Tarian. He’s breathing slowly and he’s totally still. The wind moves the loose waves of his hair, but that’s the only motion I see. He’s in his own bubble of stillness and calm. I wish I had one of those. A long time passes before he opens his eyes and looks at us.

‘Do you know how big this forest is?’ he asks Steele.

Steele shrugs. ‘Nobody does.’

‘It’s big,’ says Tarian. ‘I’m finding it difficult to get a read on the Lightstone. The most I can tell you right now is that it’s at least two days’ walk that way.’

He points in a direction, but it might as well be any direction, all of them are just as bad. Two days’ walk? At least?

Tarian looks at Steele. ‘Did the Prince give you any more information about how to get to the stone?’

‘No,’ Steele shakes his head. ‘He only knew that it was in Sherwood. His father never told him anything else. It’s deliberately hard to find, so that nobody goes to get it unless there’s a really good reason.’

I frown. ‘The news Arin brought... did he mean that the Northern Prince knows the exact location of the stone, or does he just know that it’s in Sherwood, the same as we do?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine, Oracle,’ says Steele. ‘For all we know they could be picking the stone up and taking it away right now, and by the time we get there it’ll already be days too late. But we swore we’d do everything we could, and that’s what we’re going to do.’

His expression is serious, his blue eyes intense. He’s determined, so focused on the mission that for a moment he’s forgotten his usual sarcasm.

‘Or they could be waiting in the forest to kill us,’ I say.

‘Yeah, they could,’ he agrees.  ‘But we don’t know and there’s nothing we could do about it anyway, so we may as well get going. Finder, lead the way.’

Tarian stands up, gives both of us an angry look that I really don’t think I deserve, and leads the way into the trees.

I’ve led a sheltered life, mostly, but you get used to being scared quickly when you have to walk home by yourself late at night in a part of London where the streetlights are few and far between and the taxis won’t stop. A couple of those nights will stay with me forever, but walking through Sherwood in the darkness is scarier.

Now that we’re away from the clearing by the Oak, the trees are thick and close together, sometimes so close that I have to squeeze sideways between them. My feet catch every few steps on rocks and holes. Things brush against me and I shudder. In the distance I hear a scream like a child and I dart towards it, but Tarian holds up a hand to stop me.

‘Just a fox,’ he says.

‘You sure?’ I ask.

‘Positive,’ he says.

I shiver, that scream still echoing in my head. It sounded so human.

‘I guess you’d know about it,’ I offer. ‘You probably see foxes all the time at home.’

He shrugs. ‘You’re more likely to hear one in London, I’m surprised you didn’t while you were there.’

His voice is suddenly abrupt, he walks away from me again, leading the way.

‘I didn’t live there that long,’ I say.

He doesn’t reply. I’m still kind of angry with him for finding me when I didn’t want to be found, but now it seems like he’s angry with me, and that a whole different kettle of fish. What have I done to him? What right does he have to act like that to me when I’m the one who’s been dragged away from my whole life?

I glance back at Steele, walking a little way behind us to make sure we’re not being followed. I jog a few steps to catch up with Tarian.

‘Hey,’ I say. ‘What’s your problem with me?’

He doesn’t look at me. ‘I don’t have a problem with you,’ he says.

‘Oh,’ I say, looking down just in time to avoid getting my foot caught in a tree root. ‘So why are you acting weird?’

‘How do you know what’s weird for me?’ he asks. ‘You’ve known me less than a day. And already you’ve...’

He stops, turns his attention back to our slow journey through the trees.

‘Already I’ve what?’ I demand.

‘Let’s not talk about this,’ he says. ‘You don’t want to hear it.’

‘Oh, I do,’ I say.

He raises his eyebrows.

‘Fine,’ he says. ‘I felt bad for you this morning, I really did. It seemed a shame that you had to be taken back home to the Prince when you didn’t want to be. I tried to be understanding. I tried not to mind that the Prince’s guards came and dragged me out of my house to get you, so suddenly that I didn’t even have time to say goodbye to my family. Because we all do the Prince’s bidding. That’s just the way it goes. We all know the consequences of disobeying him.’

I watch him, wondering where this is going.

‘We all know that,’ he says, ‘except for you, apparently. You can just run away to London, have your little adventure, and then when you return you get back to your party lifestyle like nothing ever happened. No thought to the guards who were punished because they were meant to be keeping track of you. No thought of your friends worrying about whether you were even still alive. No thought to the total strangers taken away from their lives to find you. Oh, no.’

My mouth drops open. ‘That’s not..’

He’s not done. ‘All of that I can forgive. You’re sheltered, you’ve been living in the court almost your whole life. You don’t understand. I can’t blame you for wanting to see the outside world. So all day I’ve been trying not to hold it against you... but this! This is...’

‘What? What are you talking about?’

He whirls to glare at me, and his eyes glimmer in the approaching dawn light.

‘Do you think I would have been anywhere near court, anywhere near that party tonight if it wasn’t for you?’ he asks. ‘I never expected to even
see
the Prince, not in my whole life! But there I was, right when he needed a Finder to go to Sherwood. And now, here I am. Trapped here. If it wasn’t for you I’d be home in my bed right now. As it is I’m probably going to die out here or be stranded forever with you - and right now I honestly can’t decide which I’d prefer!’

My throat catches. ‘I didn’t mean for...’

‘No, you didn’t mean for any of this to happen,’ he says. ‘But it did happen. You dragged me into all of this, and I’m probably never going to see my home again, and you’re such as spoiled princess that you can’t even see it, can you?’

Spoiled? Princess? I open my mouth to tell him exactly what I think of him and his opinions, but he’s already stalking ahead of me, so fast that I can hardly keep up.

This is terrific, I think. I’m going to be trapped forever with two guys that hate me. And I’m pretty sure there are woodlice in my hair. There’s no way this could get much worse.

I hear a yipping close by that can only be a wolf.

Damn.