lifts his head, his red hair sweaty and matted over his smiling face,
all, is that all you’ve got? I’m starting to think he likes getting
beat up.
Karel doesn’t see me until Brendan’s eyes flick toward me. The
river warrior spins around in time for my fist to meet his face. Blam!
He’s out cold.
“We have to find the way out of here,” Dylan says, rubbing his
wrists.
But we’re not alone anymore. The warriors return and so does Isi.
Even if we make it to the outer ring and somehow find a way out, I’m
not leaving the Naga. I can’t just hand her over to the people that
wanted me to kill her. There has to be a reason I hesitated, something
I’m missing.
So in the only way I can think to save my ass, my friends, and a
strange beast girl, I say, “I wish to speak to the oracle.”
Brendan and Dylan hold on to Karel.
“You don’t have the nerve to hurt him,” Isi says to me.
“He’s hurt me a lot more than the Naga has,” I remind her. I look
at Yara, stepping beside her mother. “Tell her, Yara. Isn’t that
consistent with my human code?”
Yara nods once.
Isi looks like she’s going to strangle me. I’ve ruined her veiled
paradise.
The oracle has come forth on her own. She is small and wide, and
the veil over her face is drawn back around her shoulders. She is
fluid, moving effortlessly from her tent to the platform. The bark
lines of her face betray no emotion, but the air around her shifts
like the moments before a thunderstorm.
The villagers start talking among themselves.
We can’t let this be.
He’s cursed us again.
“Come with me.” The oracle places a hand on my arm. Instant warmth
spreads through me. I remember laughing with my parents, swimming with
my friends, lying on the beach with Layla.
The oracle sees me not following and says, “I will bring you to
the girl.”
I start walking.
“Stay,” she says to everyone who tries to follow. Even Yara. My
friends. Even Isi.
The river people part for us. I follow the oracle into the tent
where I was first welcomed. A white flame burns in the center. I sweat
the second I walk in.
The Naga is on the leather-clad floor, dressed in white. Her eyes
are closed. Her jet black hair is fanned around her. Her nails
elongate into claws as she shivers in her sleep. Then they retract
into fingers.
“Did you heal her?” I sit beside the Naga girl.
The oracle nods. “When you cut her with Triton’s dagger, it
allowed her to change into her human form.”
“But she’s fine, right?”
“This is the first time she’s been in her human form in centuries.
The weapon hasn’t broken the curse. Only a true death will do this.”
That’s reassuring, I think. “What’s her name?”
“Amada.”
I nearly jump out of my skin when the Naga girl sits up. She
brings her knees up to her chest and holds them with her arms. She
looks from me to the oracle then back at me.
“You’re awake!” I sit yogi-style in front of her.
She jerks back. Well, I tried to shish-kebab her, so that’s a
natural reaction.
“You’re Tristan Hart,” she says.
“How did you know?”
“I’ve dreamed of you.” Amada takes a wooden bowl from the oracle
and smells it for a long time before drinking from it. “For so long,
my dreams were black. Of screams and blood, and then I saw you, and I
knew you would be the one I was waiting for. Thank you for not killing
me.”
“It was you, wasn’t it?” I ask her. “You left me the berries. You
caught the fish for me. You sent me the lizard-bird.”
“Sun bird,” she says.
“Come here, Land Prince.” The oracle sits beside us with fistfuls
of a green paste that looks an awful lot like my neighbor’s dog shit.
She slabs the goopy stuff on my face. “You’re more bruised than
goddess fruit left out in the sun.”
“Oh, is that what happens?” I wince when she presses her thumb on
my cheekbone.
Then her fingers touch the scab on my chest in the shape of the
Naga’s claws.
“I’m sorry,” Amada says.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know you. They didn’t tell me. They
lied to me about everything.”
The crackle of the fire is strong. When I breathe deeply, the heat
burns my insides, but it feels so good.
Amada looks down at her human fingers. “It’s not all lies. I’ve
taken lives. Sometimes the beast would take over and I wouldn’t have a
human thought for so long. Sometimes I’d stay in my caves so I
wouldn’t hurt them when they tried to hunt for me.”
I kick the wooden bowl in front of me. I was played like a cheap
toy. I yell at the oracle before I can think better of it. “ Why did
you keep this from me? ”
“Isi didn’t think you would do it if you knew the truth,” the old
woman says.
“Am I so predictable?”
She shakes her head. “Your heart is still open to the world around
you.”
“That’s me,” I say, but it hurts more than I’d like to admit. “The
open-hearted guy. Kurt isn’t worried about doing the right thing, is
he? And Nieve didn’t create an army of merrows to save the world.”
“That is why you will always be greater than them.” She steps over
me with another wooden cup full of stinky liquid. “My daughter was
weak. She could not bear seeing Amada as she was. It is a great
strain, losing your children. Watching them suffer.”
Amada keeps her eyes trained on the tent flaps, her shoulders
hunched as if she’s ready to attack anyone who might intrude. Or maybe
she wants to run back to the outer ring.
“The Chief is your kid?” I didn’t know oracles could have kids.
“We can,” she says, reading my thoughts. “Not all of us. Not
Chrysilla in her shell. Not Alethea, as you saw her die in Eternity.
The oracles and the kings of the sea have always had a close
relationship. The first oracles created the trident with their blood.
“We consult with kings during times of war. We shift, as we must.
But I will always remain here because, unlike my sisters, I would not
advise the kings. I tire of their tempers, their eagerness for
destruction. My people still believe the Vale of Tears is a curse. But
I believe it is a blessing. Drink.”
“What is it?”
She doesn’t answer, but I chug it. The bitterroot liquid dries my
mouth, like chewing on cotton balls.
“Amada too.”
I pass it to Amada who makes a face but drinks it anyway.
The oracle brings out a glass arrowhead and slices the palm of her
hand. Her blood pools at the center. She brings it down to my chest.
She nicks Amada’s hand. Amada gasps, and for a moment her claws
come out. She cradles the hand to her chest.
“ What are you doing? ” I shout.
But the oracle pushes me back on the floor. She holds her hand out
to Amada and waits for her to comply. Amada looks at me for
encouragement, so I just smile. The oracle guides Amada’s bleeding
finger in a circle around the oracle’s print on my chest.
“To raise the Sleeping Giants,” the oracle says, “you must see
what they are capable of. For that, you need strength. She is your
connection to this plane.”
“Is that why I feel like I’ve known her before?” The room gets
hotter, like I’ll melt right out of my skin.
“I believe you were brought together for this purpose.”
In my drowsiness, I laugh. “I’m fuzzy on my feelings about fate.”
The oracle holds my stare. “I fear fate is often mistaken for lack