Chapter 36

36

" Y ou're doing so well," the feminine voice said as fingers stroked through her hair. "Look at how much of this you've made for us? Such a good oracle."

She was in a haze. There was the sensation of her power going out into the world, but it wasn't the same feeling that she normally had. Something about this was... wrong. Usually her power went out of her body and there was a vivid burst of color and experience.

She lived the lives of a hundred people. And the beauty of that was she never had to fear it. Nothing bad happened when she was living what other people had experienced. They might have gone through hardship or strife, but that didn't mean she had to. Even when she looked into their past, there was a disconnect. There was still her and them. A realization that what she was seeing wasn't her actual reality.

But then... this wasn't the same at all. She could feel memories, but they weren't all from the same person. Like multiple people were touching her at the same time, but that wasn't how she used her magic. She knew better than to do that. She knew better than to experience so many memories at the same time.

Why? She wasn't all that certain. There was a faint memory of someone telling her not to get overwhelmed. That many people were in this world, and too many memories would make it hard to tell whose future went with each person.

Her job was to tell their futures. Her role in this world was to walk through every path of their life and then inform them which pieces were the right choices. She was supposed to do whatever she had to do to keep the wheel of time moving.

And yet, that didn't feel like what she was doing.

Frowning, she tilted her head away from the cool hand that brushed through her hair.

"No, no, don't do that, Lilith. We're not even close to done and you can't stop now."

She was supposed to do something, wasn't she? There was mist. She could feel her power was reaching for something and someone, but she wasn't supposed to just lie here.

Her power flexed a little, wrapping around the woman's wrist where she patted Lilith's hair. She could not see much of her future, almost as though she was very weak. And that made little sense as well. Seeing into the future had never made her weak before, not when there was so much of her magic that was available to see into the next realm.

"You have to be very careful," she whispered to the woman. "You're going to make a lot of terrible decisions in your life. All of them are the wrong choice, all to feed your own desires. You don't think of other people, and that will lead to a very unhappy life."

"Oracle, don't waste your power on me. Don't you think you should focus on yourself?"

"You're doing terrible things." Her eyes widened, even though she couldn't see very much at all. Just a gray haze that stretched over her vision like the white mist that surrounded her. "You keep making choices for yourself, but none of those choices actually help you. You want to align yourself with people who don't care about you. All they care about is themselves. And when you try your best to make them see you, it only makes them hate you even more."

"Shut up."

"If you don't choose a new way to live, this will be the only path that you ever walk. You will spend the rest of your life trying to prove that you are valuable and they will prove that you are not. Trust me when I say?—"

That cool hand pressed over her mouth so hard that her lips cut on her teeth. Lilith could taste blood, but when she was in this state, it didn't matter. A little blood was nothing when there was a future that was so dark right in front of her.

Still muttering beneath the woman's hand, she tried to get the words out. There was so much more she wanted to say.

The man that this woman had pledged herself to would bring about her undoing. The moment her beauty was gone, he would toss her to the side. It would take years for that to happen, but he would replace her with someone younger and prettier.

Her age would be a factor. As would the way that she had treated herself. If she ate a little healthier, if she focused on her own longevity a little more, then perhaps she would linger in his life longer.

But that wasn't right. This woman shouldn't stay with him. He didn't care about her, and everyone deserved someone who at least thought they were nice. This man didn't even like her. Not at all.

Breathing harder, she tried to say all the words, but they weren't coming out with this woman's hand clenched on her jaw.

"Careful with her," came a barking order. "We only have two cases full, and we need a lot more than that. If you damage her, that might throw the whole fucking thing off."

The hand came loose, throwing Lilith's head to the side so hard she saw stars behind her eyes. The little speckles were so pretty. Glittering in the dim light that she couldn't see past.

"That's not what I said to do," the same voice hissed.

"Oops." The woman walked away from her, out of reach for her sluggish power that still wanted to touch someone.

If the mist was out of her body, it couldn't stay still. She wanted to see a future that was better than the one she had just touched. She needed to see a future that was bright and happy and let her escape from this horrible reality.

But no one was coming close to her now. There was the muttered burble of voices, but they were hard for her to understand.

"I don't know how we're going to collect more of her power if we can't get close."

"Just hold out the bottle. Maybe we can convince it to slide in without being near her?"

"That won't work, you dolt. Someone has to get close to her."

They were all so afraid to be within reach of her magic. Why? Were they afraid of their futures?

Something evil inside her uncoiled, grinning and spreading her lips over bloodied teeth. If they were afraid to see what their path would be after doing this to her, then she wanted them to know where that darkness would lead them. She wanted to tell them that everything would get even worse from here. They didn't have a choice in the matter.

If they continued to hurt her, then they would know what pain truly was. A single cut to her body would be a hundred on their own.

Another voice chimed in, sweet and familiar, and oh so aching. "I can get close to her. Lilith has always listened to me, haven't you, darling?"

The fire eater.

Joan, that was her name. She could finally remember it.

She turned her head just slightly, whispering the name. "Joan?"

"Yes, it's me, Lil. Will you let me get close to you?"

Nothing was standing in her way. Lilith had never been a bother. Not in the circus, and not to her friend. She didn't want Joan to fear her, least of all for any reason related to her power. If her friend didn't want to know her future, then she would respect that wish.

"Look at that," another voice muttered. "Parted for her like a walkway."

Footsteps approached, and Lilith wished she could see something other than white. She wanted to see Joan's face and beg her friend to give her the release that she needed. She ached. Every part of her body hurt, and she didn't understand why.

But then the mist parted, and all she could see was the flaming red of Joan's hair and the soft smile on her face. "Hello, sweetheart. I can see you're hurting."

"Everything hurts," she whispered.

"I know. I know. We're such bad people for hurting you like this, but you know we have to see the future. So many of us rely on this place to live. The circus is the only place where we are fully accepted. And you are the best way to get money." She swiped some of the blood from Lilith's mouth and wiped it off on Lilith's shirt. "It's okay. I know this hurts now, but you're not going to feel any pain soon and we're all going to live our best lives. Isn't that wonderful?"

Lilith shook her head from side to side, trying to clear her thoughts a little more. "I don't want to do that..."

"Of course you do! Everything in your life has always been for us. You lived to make sure we thrived. And we will thank you for that for the rest of our lives."

Lived?

That felt past tense. Like she wasn't expected to live past this and that... wasn't right. She could feel the mist drawing tighter into her body, as though it sensed the danger as well. Nothing was right, and she wasn't herself and...

Where was Envy?

He was supposed to be here. It wasn't likely that he would let her wander off on her own without him. He seemed to always be glued to her side, both as protector and lover.

Would he let her disappear like this? Or had they taken her?

"No, no," Joan whispered, and then her hands were on Lilith's cheeks, forcing her to look at flaming red hair and nothing else. "Easy, oracle. Nothing is wrong. You are doing the right thing. All you have to do is keep trying to see our futures."

In the haze of her mind, that felt right. Lilith couldn't see anything other than Joan and the white mist that surrounded her.

So it was easy to allow that mist to coil around her friend. Joan had never wanted Lilith to look into her future, nor had she ever given her permission to do so. Taking someone's future without permission was wrong and immoral and everything that Lilith had never wanted to be.

And yet, now Joan was asking. She let the mist wrap around Joan's shoulders and it seemed to hold her in a grip tighter than was reasonable. Her power seemed to know something Lilith didn't, though, and she had learned to let the magic do what it wanted.

Joan's eyes widened as she was dragged forward. Her red hair billowed and there was a shout from the other people who were in the room.

But she could feel her power snap closed around them. The others were fighting against the mist. She could feel them, but there was something here she had to do first. Something very important that she could only do with Joan.

"Lil," Joan whispered, her voice perhaps a little raspy. "You have to let me go. I'm not doing anything wrong, and you're going to regret doing this. Aren't you?"

"I don't know if I am," she replied before diving into the other woman's future.

And what she saw there chilled her to the bone.

At first, it was all so hazy. She couldn't see much other than the overwhelming feeling of guilt. There was so much of it swirling around the other woman's future in every single path she could take.

Then Lilith saw herself. Her own body, laid out on the stone here surrounded by scrolls of paper that were actually prophecies. Every one of them. Prophecies that she had said, in her sleep, in her waking days, and recorded from every time she had told any person their future. Prophecies that meant something to so many people, and that gave Lorenzo far too much power.

All of these pieces were brought about because they were stealing her power. They'd sent the priestess to care for her first, because that woman had so many other paths in her life. The priestess wouldn't stay long and besides, she hadn't understood really what the consequences of what they were doing were. But Joan knew.

Joan knew every single thing this would bring about and why it was so wrong to do. She knew that she was going to lose her friend, and that hadn't stopped her from helping them.

Joan had always been a friend. But no matter what choice she made in the past, present, or future, it always brought her right here. To this moment. Laying Lilith out until she bled to death on the stone.

Maybe that was why Joan had never wanted her to look into the future, because all Lilith would see was her own death. And right now, that's what she was looking at. A dead husk of a body. Her power drained out of her and bottled away. Taken from her.

Her power tightened around Joan's neck, and she heard the wheeze of breath struggling to get into her friend's lungs.

"Why?" Lilith asked, her voice almost as breathless as Joan's.

"You know why."

"I haven't the faintest idea."

Joan blinked, and then her lips curved in a sad smile. "You were always the favorite. You never felt the hardship, and you never knew how much we all suffered."

"I suffered for you," she hissed. "You all lived your own lives, and I was the one licking his boots clean. I barely ate. I barely rested. I worked for hours on end using powers I did not understand for you ."

"You had to know that would never be enough. You were still human to them. To everyone." And then Joan's future flashed in front of her eyes. The future that was as set in stone as the carvings surrounding them.

Her mist tightened and then jerked as the future dissolved. Joan let out a choked sound of shock as she moved, but then Lilith's magic heaved her body forward. Lilith turned with it, allowing the momentum of Joan's body to force her body to roll. And she watched as her friend toppled forward and then over the cliff's edge.

She was still weak, still shaking with the stolen misuse of her power. But she knew Joan wasn't dead just yet. She would live long enough to see the ground coming up at her and to see a demon king step into the room.

With a lungful of air, Lilith shouted, "Envy!"

She called out his name with every desire in her as the mist barreled back toward her body. Shouts and screams filled the room with a cacophony of sound, but all she could focus on was shielding herself. The mist created a tight bubble around her body, too small, and yet just enough.

And when fists began to pound against it, all she could do was wrap her arms around herself and hope that he would come for her.