AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Liam’s chin trembled, responding to the visual evidence of my own troubled heart.
“All will be well, my sweet boy.” I wiped away the silent tears that streaked down his cheeks with a sweep of my thumbs. “Why don’t you go eat your breakfast?” I said, glancing toward the low table in front of the sofa, where Tamal had placed the tray loaded with food and tea for both Liam and Ada.
Ada already sat on the sofa, arranging the two plates of food, cups, silverware, and teapots.
“Thenyou can pick a book to read,” I offered.
Liam’s glassy eyes lit up, and he stared around in wonder. “Anybook?”
I grinned at him, knowing he would pick something from the fiction shelves. Something filled with discovery and adventure. “Anybook.”
His lips spread into a broad smile, and he turned and raced back to the sofa.
I watched him for a moment, pleased to see he had a good appetite despite his troubled heart. So long as he was still eating and sleeping all right, I didn’t want to enlist the services of a Gauge who specialized in emotional siphoning to drain his excess anxiety.
I turned my attention back to my prophecy research. It took almost a half hour, but I finally found and recorded all the prophecies noted on the first bookmarked page of the index. Some were pages long, composed of incoherent and nonsensical ramblings, while others were a single line, so vague they could have related to almost anything, even to Fin’s prophecy:Uncover and destroy the destructive force hidden under the earth in Death Valley.But none specifically mentioned Death Valley, a destructive force, or anything concealed or hidden underground.
With a sigh, I dismissed this first tagged entry as irrelevant and stood to return the books of foretellings to the bookcase before moving on to the next marked page in the index. It was going to be alongmorning.
* * *
In midafternoon, I sat up straighter and squeezed my bleary eyes shut for a long moment before rereading the line marked as prophecy #76 in the book of foretellings attributed to Callum James Campbell. Lunch trays had come and gone, and Liam dozed on the sofa while Ada read, curled up in an armchair by the dormant fireplace. I was researching the ninth page of indexed prophecies I had marked in Mother’s book, and my brain was fatigued from the mental gymnastics I had been performing in an attempt to make sense of the endless riddles.
Uncover and destroy the destructive force hidden under the earth in Death Valley.
“I found it,” I breathed, sitting up straighter. I laughed softly, looking up to meet Garath’s ever-watchful stare.
He only had a vague idea of what I was searching for, but he smiled back at me anyway.
I returned my attention to Callum’s book of foretellings, skimming over the page. The lines directly preceding and following had been marked with #75 and #77, suggesting they were completely unique and unrelated prophecies.
I flipped back to the book’s title page. It had been printed only thirteen years ago, and the brief biography at the beginning implied that Callum, a citizen of the Noctem Kingdom directly to the south of us, had still lived at the time of printing. Perhaps if we could track him down, he could expound on his prophecy. Ifwecould get our hands on the destructive force mentioned in the prophecy before King Eduart, perhaps we could use whatever it was to stave off the war.
I quickly jotted down what I had found in my notebook, then moved on to the next prophecy listed in the index.
One by one, the seven will fall until only one remains.
Thesevenmentioned in the prophecy had to be the seven allied kingdoms. I was unsure of how Mother had linked these prophecies together, but if she knew of such prophecies, did others? I thought of King Eduart. If he had copies of the same books of foretellings and made the same connections between prophecies as Mother had, it was no wonder he was hellbent on fulfilling the first prophecy in this index entry. He wantedhiskingdom to be theonenamed in the second prophecy.
I sat back in my chair, my stare going distant. This new prophecy was like a missing puzzle piece falling into place. It went a long way toward explaining why Eduart was behaving so aggressively toward not just the Corvo Kingdom but all of them.
Assuming Eduart truly had made the same connections Mother had, I couldn’t help but wonder if he had done so himself or if he had received privileged leaked information from someone within Mother’s trusted circle. And if hehadreceived such assistance, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind who delivered the information: Maylar.
Every rotten discovery seemed to point back to that cretin. I gritted my teeth, forcing myself to refocus on the task at hand. There was one more prophecy to find and record.
The last prophecy was attributed to RMV—Rebecca Marie Vaughn, a.k.a. Becca, the Patron of the Oracles. My heart beat faster, a combination of anticipation and nerves. As I learned during my research, she’d had as many fragmented prophecies, cutting off mid-sentence, as clear and thorough ones.
I quickly found prophecy #256 in Becca’s book of foretellings, my eyes devouring the page until I found it at the bottom.
When purity kills and the last raven falls, look to the dreamwalker for guidance. The cure will...
I turned the page, but the first line started with the heading of a new prophecy—#257. Of course—of course—the indexed prophecy was one of those fragmented in Mother’s copy of Becca’s book of foretellings.
“Damn it!” I hissed, sitting back in my chair. I stared at the books strewn across the desk, frustrated at reaching this dead end.
And to have the prophecy mention a cure—the very thing that could spread peace and unity among the people and strengthen the kingdom. What a horrible tease and a colossal disappointment.
I stood and approached the window behind the desk. The wooded wildlands that Fin had called home for so long stretched out across the strait toward the northern horizon. Perhaps this wasn’t necessarily a dead end but a signpost directing my search elsewhere. What if I could track down the rest of Becca’s prophecies—the rest ofthisprophecy?
