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“Once the gods speak, I become the conduit through which their words pass.” She arranged herself on the floor before the hole, folding her front paws, claws glinting in the dim light of the braziers smoldering to either side of them. “But yes—this shall be confidential.”
It sounded like a whole bunch of bullshit, but he blew out a breath, meeting those large brown eyes, and said, “Why does someone want Luna’s Horn?”
He didn’t ask who had taken it—he knew from the reports that she had already been asked that question two years ago and had refused to answer.
She blinked, wings rustling as if in surprise, but settled herself. Breathed in the fumes rising from the hole. Minutes passed, and Hunt’s head began to throb with the various scents—especially the reeking sulfur.
Smoke swirled, masking the sphinx from sight even though she sat only ten feet away.
Hunt forced himself to keep still.
A rasping voice slithered out of the smoke. “To open the doorway between worlds.” A chill seized Hunt. “They wish to use the Horn to reopen the Northern Rift. The Horn’s purpose wasn’t merely to close doors—it opens them, too. It depends on what the bearer wishes.”
“But the Horn is broken.”
“It can be healed.”
Hunt’s heart stalled. “How?”
A long, long pause. Then, “It is veiled. I cannot see. None can see.”
“The Fae legends say it can’t be repaired.”
“Those are legends. This is truth. The Horn can be repaired.”
“Who wants to do this?” He had to ask, even if it was foolish.
“This, too, is veiled.”
“Helpful.”
“Be grateful, Lord of Lightning, that you learned anything at all.” That voice—that title … His mouth went dry. “Do you wish to know what I see in your future, Orion Athalar?”
He recoiled at the sound of his birth name like he’d been punched in the gut. “No one has spoken that name in two hundred years,” he whispered.
“The name your mother gave you.”
“Yes,” he ground out, his gut twisting at the memory of his mother’s face, the love that had always shone in her eyes for him. Utterly undeserved, that love—especially when he had not been there to protect her.
The Oracle whispered, “Shall I tell you what I see, Orion?”
“I’m not sure I want to know.”
The smoke peeled back enough for him to see her sensuous lips part in a cruel smile that did not wholly belong in this world. “People come from across Midgard to plead for my visions, yet you do not wish to know?”
The hair on the back of his neck stood. “I thank you, but no.” Thanks seemed wise—like something that might appease a god.
Her teeth shone, her canines long enough to shred flesh. “Did Bryce Quinlan tell you what occurred when she stood in this chamber twelve years ago?”
His blood turned to ice. “That’s Quinlan’s business.”
That smile didn’t falter. “You do not wish to know what I saw for her, either?”
“No.” He spoke from his heart. “It’s her business,” he repeated. His lightning rose within him, rallying against a foe he could not slay.
The Oracle blinked, a slow bob of those thick lashes. “You remind me of that which was lost long ago,” she said quietly. “I had not realized it might ever appear again.”
Before Hunt dared ask what that meant, her lion’s tail—a larger version of Syrinx’s—swayed over the floor. The doors behind him opened on a phantom wind, his dismissal clear. But the Oracle said before stalking into the vapors, “Do yourself a favor, Orion Athalar: keep well away from Bryce Quinlan.”
