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I knew that voice. Esta.
Warm hands touched my brow, and a wispy sensation hummed in my body, cooling me. “Child of the Morn. Good to see you again.”
“Is it really?” I asked ruefully. “Last time I saw you, you had drugged me and sold me to the Owl.” My vision slowly returned, and I could make out the blurry gems of Esta’s headdress.
She shrugged and leaned back. We were under some kind of canopy. Behind her I could see a sky as blue as Demos’ eyes. “I did what I had to do. Do you really regret it?”
No, I didn’t.
She nodded, knowing already my answer. “How do you feel?”
“I feel… like I’ve been in a dream.” I sat up, and whatever was covering me slipped off to pool at my lap. Fresh air tickled my naked breasts, kissed my shoulders. “Um… have you anything…” I looked around for something to wear, but she handed me a gown. It was a rich crimson, its material soft as butter.
I quickly put it on and knotted up my hair, then got to my feet. “Where are we?”
Esta stood as well, and when she lifted a hand out to me, I took it without a thought. “Outside Elusian Fields.”
A place of myth, somewhere outside of time, outside of reality.
Esta led me out of the canopy. All around me were fields of green. We stood on a hilltop, and I could see the ocean down below, a sliver of silver under that powdery blue sky.
“Are you really Omega or was that a ruse to get me to trust you?” I had been wondering that ever since the Owl had me in that wagon.
“I was, once. Before.” She closed her eyes and lifted her delicate chin, a hint of a smile playing at her bow-like mouth. Her skin seemed to glow, and as I stared, her features sharpened, her dark hair and golden skin saturating with contrast. It reminded me of Auria, how she had done that very thing, like dropping a veil from her face and revealing what lay beyond, sleeping all this time.
“Why am I here?” I asked, breaking away from staring at her. Instead, my eyes went to the end of the hill, where that serene sea moved.
“You are our future, Sierra. A catalyst still. Soon, our purpose, mine and my sisters’, will be over, and it will be up to you to carry things to the next generation.”
“What does that mean?” Here we go, I thought, cryptic messages, meddling in my life again.
“It means that you will be making sure things are set to rights. That the Owl finds its true purpose again, that the leaders of the Ongahri and Titus work together. It means gentle encouragement for real leadership. For the future Omega to come. You have all that in you, a vision. Like your mate, Lucius Dega. You have a former Servant, who knows the Owl and knows the Old Ways. You have a captain of an Ongahri House army. You have the ear of his queen. You have two mates with a mighty king’s blood running through their veins. Your power lies in being a touchstone, a hub. We elementals were never meant to interfere with you and your fellow people of Titus. But it couldn’t be helped. We had to right a wrong, something we had done many moons ago. But now it is all up to you.”
Her words spoke to something inside me, a seed that shone like the dawn. There was nothing magical or dramatic about it. Nothing that would compromise who I was nor require me to do something outside what I already planned to do: live and make a difference.
“The prophecy,” I said, “I wasn’t much of a ‘White Queen.’ I did nothing.” I laughed now, self-deprecating that it was, feeling a little drunk, honestly. Was it really over? And what was happening back at the Basilica? I felt nothing through my bond with the others. I could only “feel” myself and the peaceful breeze billowing at my gown.
She smiled. “If it weren’t for you, Child of the Morn, you and I wouldn’t be standing here. Boriel wouldn’t be home, and…”
“Cae—”
“Shh. No need to name him.”
“Where—what happened to him?”
For the first time since we’d been talking, Esta’s face became a deadly mask. Her eyes hardened, and the air seemed to still as if afraid. “He is where he belongs.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Sierra
The sky was a majestic map of colors from a sunset that many of us hadn’t seen in months. I had just arrived back from being with Esta, Demos having arrived to get me. He had appeared out of that silver sea, a beacon of gold and blue and white, his smile radiant, his eyes relieved at seeing me whole.
“Don’t forget,” Esta had said with that secret smile before we faded away, “a touchstone.”
And then I was at the gates of the Basilica, where it seemed the whole of the Ongahri were. All sound had stopped as each face took in my appearance: long crimson gown like a beating heart, white hair piled on top of my head, a crown of starlight and moonshine. A white owl at my feet. The owl flew up, and I automatically raised my arm. The owl’s talons bit into my forearm, his weight defying my arm muscles, enough to keep my arm upright.
The Ongahri, as one, dropped to a knee, heads tilted, throats exposed. A gasp went around when a shiny crow, whose feathers shone a blue sheen, flew down from above. I raise my other arm, and the crow perched upon it.
