Chapter 26

26

S omething about what he'd said didn't sit right with Lilith. Part of it was that she made him feel guilty for being a terrible person. That was good, though. He should feel a little guilty and if he didn't, then that was a problem she couldn't fix.

But something else stuck in her mind. The circus master was going to replace her. He wanted her dead because everything would be easier that way. Even Envy himself had agreed with that. It made her feel like she wasn't good for anything other than being an instrument of prophecy and that... well; it felt strange to her.

Envy had disappeared for a while now. He'd claimed that he needed to be a king for a bit. There were many people who were still part of his kingdom, and those were the ones that he needed to focus on. Magical items to review. Amulets to approve and send to other kingdoms. A hundred jobs were his to approve, and he'd taken quite a bit of time away from everyone to be with her.

At least this time, she was able to leave her room and the pool area. Envy had given her a little more freedom, and by a little more, he apparently meant the entire castle. It kept her busy for quite some time, walking through all of his living quarters before she poked her head out back into the endless tunnel that disappeared below her feet.

Envy had fixed the stairwell since the chimera's attack. Apparently, he'd reordered quite a few of the stairs to get to her, and she still felt a little nervous walking around by herself.

He claimed he had put all the protection that she would ever need in this place, but she couldn't shake the fear. He'd been wrong once, after all. What if he was wrong again?

As she stepped out into the stiff wind that toyed with her hair the moment she stepped onto the stairs, she knew she had to face her fears. If she was going to live here, she had to. She would not stay in the cage he'd created for her.

Wings flapped above her head. She froze, terrified that there would be a chimera hovering above her head for a moment before she remembered chimera's didn't have feathers. And the sound was definitely feathers.

She took a long, steadying breath before she opened her eyes to see Envy's raven had landed on the steps just below her. It hopped a few times closer to the edge, then peered down into the mist that had gathered there.

"What are you doing out of your room?" Orphe asked, her voice little more than a croak that was surprisingly easy to understand today.

"Exploring. I cannot stay trapped in those rooms any longer. I needed to get out and do something." She moved to walk past the creature, only to be stuck against the wall when it didn't move. In fact, the raven spread its wings wider so she couldn't go by it.

Huffing out a breath, Lilith crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the small creature. "Just what do you want now?"

"I think you need to know what you have done in this kingdom. You are ignoring all that you have caused."

"I'm not ignoring anything. And I caused nothing personally." But it was a lie.

Or at least, in some sense, it was. Lilith hadn't wanted any of this to happen, and she hadn't summoned her old master to her side or bid him to kill her. In fact, she'd been nothing but a good little pet to every single person who had gotten involved with her.

With that thought, she straightened her shoulders and glared at the creature who suggested otherwise.

But Orphe was no mere raven. Lilith didn't know if Envy had given her a personality or if he had imbued the raven with the ability to talk. It didn't matter, because Orphe saw right through her.

The raven croaked, "You have spent too much time in this realm to believe that you have no power here. You are the one who sees the future, do you not? You have seen enough futures to know that much of what you say is a lie."

Her breath shuddered in her chest. "I did not ask for any of this to happen. No one can blame me."

"Does it matter that you asked for it or not? Want and need are two different things. You are an oracle. Even if your old master was the one poisoning your mind and making you forget, you are remembering now. And what do those memories tell you?"

That oracles had a keeper for a reason. It wasn't because she was weak, but because others would covet her power. Her keeper made sure her whereabouts were secret. No one was supposed to know where an oracle rested her head, and she was supposed to move throughout a kingdom her entire life. She wasn't supposed to be so easy to find and certainly wasn't meant to be a wandering sideshow.

But also she knew that the oracular order had no plan to save her. An oracle, once given to a keeper, was expected to live on her own and manage her own life. Unless she had become a teacher, she would never see another oracle again in her life. Or if she did, such an experience would be entirely on accident.

She leaned her back against the wall and slid down until her butt hit the stairs. "The oracles are no help."

"Your own people should have come for you."

"They forsake anyone who is weak. Considering he did everything to me and I allowed it, then it was my fault." She shrugged at Orphe's angry look. "It is just the way of things."

"It seems to be the expectation for many human women. None of you deserve it, though." Orphe's feathers fluffed in anger. "What I mean to say is you seem to allow them this control over you and your life. When you could fight back against them."

"Fight back?" she repeated with a scoff. "I don't have any ability to fight. I never learned in the first place. Not to mention that I don't have any power compared to so many of these people. My magic is seeing the future, and if I do not have the chance to do that, what am I?"

Orphe blinked at her. "You are an oracle."

"Which means next to nothing," she muttered. "I see Envy with all his powers and skill at battle and I want that. I want to be someone who is not only dangerous but also capable of protecting herself."

"I was in the room when the chimera attacked you. Envy may have killed the beast, but you were the one who protected yourself. You may have yet more to remember about your time in training."

The bird spread her wings and took off into the gloom, but Lilith remained right where she was.

After all, the bird wasn't entirely wrong. She remembered little of her own training. The oracular order had made certain that she had someone to take care of her, but her memory hadn't returned in full. Perhaps it would if she drank more of that tea, but she didn't feel like she needed more of it. Instead, all she could think about were the things she had forgotten.

Years ago, she might have been a more powerful creature all on her own. Perhaps she would have been able to fight on her own or to use that magic for something other than just lingering here by herself.

And it was cold. Everything in this home was cold. She leaned against an icy wall, feeling it creep into the very parts of herself that she'd always protected. Her love of life. Her belief that people were deeply good, even if they didn't seem that way at first. She'd once wanted all the people in this kingdom to know that she believed in them.

But there had always been a warning bell in her mind, screaming that being part of a circus wasn't the way to do that. She was meant to do what she had done with Envy. Walking through the streets and finding people who needed to hear her voice. People who needed to know that they were on the right path, even if it was a difficult one.

In those moments, Envy had fulfilled his duty as her keeper far more than the circus master ever had. Envy had been the one to watch her. To make sure no one attacked her, but also to make sure that she didn't stretch herself too thin. He had done an impeccable job, and she remembered that was the intent of a keeper.

They took care of their oracle. She wasn't sure when that had gone so wrong.

But what else had she forgotten? If she didn't even realize her master was supposed to serve her, not the other way around, how much more had he taken from her mind? Had he cast a spell to remove them? Or had it just been the effects of time wearing away at her psyche until she didn't remember a single thing about who she was, where she came from, or why she was here?

It was all so concerning. And she stayed there, freezing on the stairs until footsteps echoed. Envy could have teleported anywhere he wanted in the kingdom, which meant he likely knew that she was on the stairwell. Otherwise, he would have showed up in his office without even realizing that she was missing. Instead, he gave her a warning sound with how loud he was being.

He gave her time to pull herself together until she was almost not in tears when he found her where she sat.

Envy crouched on a stairwell below her, his face even with hers as he looked her over. His eyes touched everything. Her nearly purple toes that she had tried to tuck underneath her skirts. The way she had wrapped her arms around herself to prevent the cold from sinking in further. Even the way her teeth slightly chattered when she looked back at him, although her teeth chattering had nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with how horrible she was feeling.

"Why are you on the stairs?" he asked, tilting his head to the side.

"Everyone keeps asking me that."

"Because you are cold, and stairs are meant to bring you somewhere. One should not linger on them."

She shrugged, the numbness of the cold settling deep in her chest. "It felt like a good enough place to think as any?"

"You want me to believe that you're just sitting here, thinking?"

She nodded.

Envy rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, and she wondered if he was praying for patience. "What are you thinking about, Lilith?"

Her initial thought was to tell him everything. She didn't have the right words, though. She wasn't even sure where her head was at. But that wasn't fair to him. So she sighed and shook her head. "I don't know. How useless I am in all this? That my power is only good for one thing, and I cannot even give you that. Why should you keep me around when eventually I will lose this beauty and cannot even tell you your future?"

His expression softened and Envy reached for a lock of her hair. He wound it around his finger, watching the movement with almost rapt attention. Then he finally said, "You think your only use to me is your beauty?"

"The only use I've ever had is my beauty and my ability to see the future. I don't need you to be kind and lie, Envy. I know what I'm good for."

He tugged her by the hair, forcing her to lean closer. And then he pressed his lips to her ear. "You are worth so much more than your beauty, little love."

She held her breath at the words. Because she wanted to believe them. Oh, she wanted to think that he could adore her for so much more than what she looked like or what power she had. She wanted him to hold her to his chest and tell her a million times that she was valuable.

But those feelings frightened her too. Shouldn't she be able to stand on her own two feet? Shouldn't she know her own worth without having to have someone tell her that she was worthy?

All her thoughts were so jumbled in her head, and she didn't want them to be like this. She didn't want to be the person who was afraid of everything and everyone.

Sighing, she pressed her forehead to his shoulder and breathed out all the anxiety that filled her lungs. "I am afraid, Envy. Of so many things. But most of all, I'm afraid of you."

"Why?"

"Because I cannot see your future. I do not know what you are going to do or why you're going to do it. I cannot see what you have done or who you once were. All I can see is darkness."

His lips pressed to her hair, his hand skating down her back. "Why is that, oracle?"

She didn't want to tell him. But the words still flew free from her mouth, regardless. "I'm afraid that our futures are too intricately intertwined. I cannot see my future at all, just a darkness like I see in yours. I fear that our souls are so tangled that your future and my own are impossible to untangle."

The words hung between them, a nail in the coffin to their safety. Without their future, she couldn't predict what would happen or how she could save them. She had to sit and wait just like everyone else did. For her death? Perhaps.

Or his.

And she didn't know what she'd do if she was the one who failed to keep them safe. After all that he had done for her, she wanted to be the person who actually did something right for once.

He sighed, then tugged her a little closer to him. "I'm going to meet with one of my brothers. Perhaps he will have something to tell us. Something that can help protect us both, but also help end this problem in our kingdom. Then we can focus on just the two of us. How does that sound?"

Terrifying. But she still nodded her head against his shoulder and stayed lingering in his warmth until he disappeared from her grip.

And just like that, she was alone again.