The Fire Seer

1 - Oracle of Ilya

Stumbling nude from the woods, I collapsed into the grass of the clearing. Up ahead, the packhouse glowed golden in the twilight, and down the hill, the town shimmered without a thousand street lights and store front lantern streaks. I coughed into the grass weakly, and blood spurted out. Ever since the monoliths, my body would not obey, exhausted beyond comprehension and thrown into disarray. I reached for the clothes I had left behind, slowly getting them back on before another fit came over me, and I vomited blood into the grass. Scents whirled around me as the realization that a circle of people had formed came. My ears rang too hard to make out the voices as they shook my body and checked my pulse. Then, the aching feeling of Absolute Authority washed over me, and I knew Alpha Elijah must be there. I thought of when we were children and how when I scraped my knees, he would wrap them in sloppy bandages and feed me snacks to make me stop crying. I laughed weakly through my blurred vision, unable to make out anyone. "Eli," I said softly, "I scraped my knee a little." I dared a joke, not all there. I wondered if he was there at all or if I was just hoping.

My body was shifted, and then the ground left me, and I fell limp into the arms of an unknown. My consciousness faded in and out, and finally out for good, as the warmth of the packhouse enveloped me.

Images flashed in my mind again of burning, of war between worlds, and of a looming black wolf. I saw a snowstorm blanketing the town, the whole of the city engulfed in darkness. I saw Beatrice coughing blood.

When I awoke, I was sweating all over, but my vision was clear. I sat up with a start in a room I did not recognize. My body ached. A chorus of voices erupted around me as I realized the room was full of people. "She's awake!" Beta Markus said, rushing in with the pack doctor Juliette behind him. Juliette pushed forward, coming to my side and using a stethoscope around her neck to assess my heartbeat. Startled, I did not resist, looking up at Beta Markus, then Delta Anthony, then. My breath stole as Elijah walked in, and I tensed so rigid my muscles groaned in resistance. All three of the men looked at me in awe. "How are you feeling?" Juliette asked, removing the cold metal of the stethoscope from my chest as I swallowed thickly. "I feel fine," I said, "what is all the commotion about?"

"What is it all about?" Elijah said bitingly, putting out his arms. "You passed out on the edge of the clearing puking blood and barely conscious after missing for an entire day! Davina, where were you? And why are your eyes like that?" He questioned. Markus tried to quell him, but it started a growling match that was only broken as the small frame of an elder woman shoved past them. "Move, you nitwits," Elder Simone ordered, her wild dark hair contrasting stark against ebony skin adorned with gold bracelets and jewelry. Her staff that she held firm in her left hand was carved from white oak, tipped with the crystal of Damarisce, an ancient moonstone. The three men bowed to her, the eldest of our numbers, and the last of the traces of the ancient ways of Ilya's people. She approached me, and Doctor Juliette bowed to her and drew away. I looked Elder Simone in the eye, my heart wavering to the starkness of her milky white eyes.

"Child," She said gently, "you have been blessed with an incredible gift. Praise the Moon Goddess, for among us, we have acquired a true Oracle of Ilya. We have in our very midst the one and only Seer." The room went silent with shock, mouths dropping open and blood running cold. The Oracles of Ilya had once been a profound group independent of any pack with incredible gifts bestowed by Ilya herself. The last of them had vanished eons ago, leaving behind only their teachings passed through disciples. Among the Oracles were ranks. The Bone Shaman, the Cloudwatcher, the Dreamwalker, and the Moon Healer were just some of the elite positions bestowed. The only one that had the ability to know the future for certain in their mind was--

My heart twisted in my chest. "You..." My voice did not obey me. "You must be mistaken, Elder. I can not be the Seer."

"And yet, your eyes speak to us," She said, and I reached up, touching my cheek below my eye. I looked sideways at Doctor Juliette, whose expression was grim as she picked up a small mirror from her tray of tools, holding it out to me. I looked at myself in the mirror where my once bright eyes of hazel were now glowing gold. I looked at Elijah, terrified at his reaction, and found an expression twisted with rage. "If I may," Elder Simone said, coming close and brushing the hair away on my neck. She let out a breath, as did Doctor Juliette. "It is certain," Elder Simone said. "She bears the mark of the moon. The gold heart of the Seer lives in her." Where? On my neck? I twisted to try and see it myself, like I could break my bones to make it untrue, to prove it false, to prove that this was all a cruel joke on their part.

"I will not accept this," Elijah said as he looked dead at me. My stomach lurched. "I want you gone."

"My Alpha, that is sacrilege," Elder Simone hissed, and Elijah relented, "Elder Simone, there has to be a mistake. For the Goddess to bestow such an honor after centuries would be like forgiving her."

"Then maybe that, too, is her will, Alpha. But incurring the wrath of Ilya is not wise," Simone insisted. Markus put a hand on Elijah's shoulder. "Whatever you decide, my Alpha, I will always support." My eyes went wide with horror. I was already an outcast, the only pack member that would not submit to any Alpha's Absolute Authority, the murderer, the betrayer. If I was made rogue, they would hunt me for sport. My mind swirled, making backup plans to backup plans, and I felt nauseous again, covering my mouth out of fear that blood would come up again. This couldn't be real. They would forsake the Goddess for pride and ego. They would.

Delta Anthony's voice cut through the intensity of the moment. "Throwing her out would not be wise, Alpha," He said, and my eyes went to him, how I had been the cause of his son's humiliation, yet how Delta Anthony had been my father's closest confidante and childhood friend, and tears came to my eyes. I shook like a leaf.

Elijah's eyes swiveled on Anthony, and he growled low. "You would defy me, Delta?" He snarled, but Anthony stood firm. Simone stood next to him, then Juliette behind Simone. People were siding... with me? I could not understand it. I opened my mouth to speak, but the words would not fall from my lips, trapped behind my tongue. I looked at Elijah helplessly, gripping the blanket over me tight, when the words finally broke free. "I'll leave," I said. Everyone looked at me in alarm, so I lowered my head to avoid their eyes. "I am a prisoner in my own home. I have spent six years here, under the scorn and hatred of the people I once called family, and now? I can't eat, I barely sleep, and every day is just a tortured day to get to the next. But if I leave," Tears welled up in my eyes and fell down my cheeks, "will the beatings stop? Will the fight for happiness stop? Would... would everyone finally be happy and move on from what that sixteen-year-old me did?"

The room was quiet, then someone approached, grabbing my face so hard their fingertips burned and ached where they touched. Elijah forced my face up, the whites of his eyes swallowed by black. I trembled under the rage of an alpha. "Move on? Move on!" He screamed. Anthony put out a hand to stop him, but Elijah kept going. "Don't touch me!" The command thundered through the room, stopping everyone else in their tracks with the command. "Davina, you! You murdered my whole bloodline with your stupidity! You led the rogues into the heart of our territory and walked them up to my father! You watched, so delighted in it, I'm sure, as the silver cut him down! You're a monster beyond anything, and I'll be damned if I let you ever find joy in anything ever again!" He let go as my mouth filled with copper from the manhandling, but before I could even recover, his hand cracked across my face, sending my from the bed to the ground. I cradled my face and bit down on my tongue as sobs wracked my body. My ear rang on my left side where I was hit, but I could make out Elijah storming out and screaming orders to Markus as he went. Juliette came around the bed and knelt in front of me, trying to wrench my hand from my cheek, but I shook my head furiously, curling into a ball and crying.

Elder Simone shook her staff after Elijah. "This is blasphemy, Alpha Sinclair! The gods will not forgive so easily your transgressions! May Ilya have mercy on us!"