Page 86 of Moon Chosen

Dead Eye stared around him in disgust. He felt his anger begin to burn and build and build and build…

“You may not enter!” croaked an old woman as she dragged herself up from a dirty pallet and limped toward him. “This chamber is sacred to our Reaper!”

Dead Eye glared down at the old woman in disgust. “It is sacred, and that is why I am going to set it to right.” He lifted his triple-tipped dagger, and began the work he knew was best for the People. The Watchers tried to run from him, but they were weak and old and sick. Dead Eye took no pleasure in killing them. It was a simple culling. Best done quickly.

“Kill them all. Purge the Chamber of the God. It is the only way.”

He was throwing their bodies from the Reaper’s balcony when the voice came from behind him. It was so musical, so lovely, so strong, he thought it was the God, finally,finallyspeaking to him. Dead Eye spun around, dropping to his knees beside the mammoth statue and bowing his head in supplication.

“I will always do as you command, my Reaper,” he said.

“Then we will always be in accord.” Her voice did not come from the statue. It came from the Watchers’ Chamber.

Dead Eye’s head jerked up. A woman was standing in the middle of the bloody chamber. In an instant he was on his feet. His back to the metal statue, he faced the interloper, brandishing his trident. “Prepare to join the culling,” he said.

“I already have. I choose to join it on the side of the Reaper’s Champion.” The woman took one step forward so that the light from the flames in one of the fire pits illuminated her face.

He stared at her. She wasn’t actually a woman at all. She was a girl—a girl whose body was supple and pleasing—whose long, chestnut-colored hair fell loose and thick around the curve of her waist. She dressed like a Watcher, breasts and feet bared with a simple skirt decorated with a fringe made of the Others’ hair, but when Dead Eye’s gaze lifted from her body to her face, he felt a terrible shiver of shock.

Where her eyes should have been there were only dark, cavelike indention on her otherwise unlined, pleasing face. “Who are you?” he asked, though the question only bought him time to order his thoughts. He had never met her, but he knew her name. All of the People knew the sightless one’s name. She had been taken to the God to be sacrificed when she was born, but the Watchers had said she belonged to the God, and spared her. That had been about sixteen winters ago, and this was the first time Dead Eye had glimpsed her.

“I am Dove,” she said, cocking her head to the side. “But you already know that. Here is something you do not know, Champion. The God has called me to be your Oracle.”

Dead Eye stared at her a moment longer, and then could contain himself no more. He threw back his head and laughed heartily.

“You laugh at your Oracle?”

“No. I laugh at an eyeless girl who has wit enough to survive.”

“I am touched by our God, a divine Oracle.”

Dead Eye gave sound to one more bark of laughter. “There is no need to pretend with me.”

“I make no pretense.”

“So, you have spoken for the God?”

“I have. I do.”

“Tell me how that works,” he said.

“I cannot see, but the God grants me visions,” she said.

“Does everything the God show you come true?”

“Yes, but I do not always speak of everything I see. Sometimes the God wishes to teach a lesson, or to admonish or reward. Then I speak only of what the God allows.”

“That is very convenient. If your visions don’t come true, you can always say later that you saw something you left out—because the God asked you to, of course.”

“You doubt me.”

Though it wasn’t a question, Dead Eye answered her. “I doubt you. Do you know why?”

“You wish to usurp my place,” she said.

“No, not at all. I am already playing the part of Champion to a God I know is dead. Being Oracle to that same God does not interest me. Though you interest me. You interest me very much.”

Dove went very still. Then slowly, knowingly, she began to smile. “You know.”