Oracle (Book I)

Myth of The First

Caprice took off her gown and worn robes then toed out of her slippers. Dressed only in her shift, she sat down, swung her legs onto the bed, and pulled the soft, cool covers over her weary body. Caprice had to smile a little. Thierry was right: The bed was very nice. She settled into the pillows, wishing Thackery and their parents were sleeping in nice, soft beds of their own, too. She untied the knot of the floppy bun on top of her head. The thick weight of her hair fell around her face and shoulders and down her back. Parting it with her fingers, Caprice quickly and efficiently plaited it into braids.

"Ready?"

Pulling her hair over one shoulder, Caprice lay down and pulled the covers up to her chin.

"Yeah."

In the pause that followed, she looked over and saw Bossa idly flipping the pages of her book. Caprice remembered how their mother had whispered stories to them before bed. So quietly and softly, so the watchers wouldn't hear.

Without looking at the book or its words, Bossa didn't whisper but she spoke softly and quietly.

"When The First came down from the mountain-that-reached-the-stars, she glowed brightly as though filled inside and suffused outside with the radiance and power of starlight. Her mate saw how she shined and he grew angry. He saw how she healed any wound with her touch and stopped a felled tree with her bare hand, how she spoke to spirits. What was more, anything she saw in her mind was made manifest and near impossible to diminish as long as she willed it. He was afraid. So powerful was she that he bound her hands with words inked in symbols and markings. With this act, her luminance shrank and shrank, withdrawing from her until only two glows shining inside her palms remained. So she held a star in each hand."

As she listened, Caprice's heart was still racing and her mind was in two places. Listening to Bossa and wondering what would happen tomorrow. Karrigan is going to be steaming riled. I shouldn't make trouble for mama and father. And Thack either.  Stay here. Ask Bossa and Nezzle to teach her betiding. Or work on her apology to Karrigan and go back to the village. Caprice's thoughts chased around and around in her head, echoing and tripping over one another. Tomorrow, after I finish with breakfast and apologize to Karrigan, everything will be set rights. Nothing was expected of her except to do as she was told. Comforted by this resolve, Caprice gave herself over to the sound of the music out in the corridors and Bossa's voice.

She had seen a woman play the beautiful instrument once when the Whitehares were invited to the Founders' house on the Hill. The delicate plucking of the sitar's strings and the familiar deep bass of the drumming came together harmoniously, lulling Caprice as she drifted off to sleep.

~

White clouds
sail towards my land
carrying no rain
but soon sailing away
belly full of blood and screams

Staring at the wall, Bossa finished the suddenly recalled poem, knowing by the sound of her breathing that Caprice had fallen asleep right after her story.

It is a good thing, Caprice falling asleep, she thought. The poem might have given her nightmares, so heavy with darkness and pain they were.

Nezzle appeared, sitting on the air near the end of Bossa's hammock at the edge of the window's alcove, legs crossed at the knee. An ever trusty book was held halfway up her face, her gaze roaming from line to line.

"I thought you don't like to talk about gloomy things or dwell on the past," she said.

"I don't."

"Then what's with saying that before bed. You said that it gave you nightmares."

"You didn't greet us earlier."

Nezzle noted the change of topic in a brief glance up from her page.

"I did. I introduced myself to Caprice."

"Let me say again: You didn't say greet me. You ran off and left me with that shrew Earithean," Bossa pouted.

"I knew I'd see you later." In the same curiously lilting yet somehow disinterested voice she usually spoke in, Nezzle turned the page with tattooed fingers and added, "Besides, it looked like you were having fun getting proverbially failed again."

"Yeah. Right. Loads of fun." She stuffed Enchanted Doors: How to Find Them & Make Them Open For You beside her and crossed her arms over her chest. She wriggled and rocked until the hammock swayed again.

A piece of parchment floated down onto her chest. It was the notice for the placement examination.

"You get this, too?"

Nezzle hummed.

"What do you think?"

Over the top of her book, Nezzle momentarily glanced at Caprice, who was frowning in her sleep.

"I like her. Lets do it."

Bossa smiled and closed her eyes.

"Yeah. Lets."