The Underland Chronicles book 6 (The Prophecy of Ripred)

The Prophecy

Everywhere Ripred went, all everyone could talk about was the Cutters. And Ripred knew they were right to worry. They'd been amassing at the borders, evidently planning an attack. So, all the Regalians scurried to the prophecy room, tried to find one that matched our situation, and, surprise surprise, found one.

It happened to be called "The Prophecy of Ripred". Yippee.

Ripred had memorized the prophecy by now, and even though it was obviously a bunch of mumbo jumbo, Ripred had to decipher it in a way to meet his needs.

He had a lot of needs.

He needed Luxa to be more cooperative, he needed to round up all the Bane Rebels, the rats who had followed the Bane and refused to follow Ripred. Which Ripred didn't find fair, but they were also burning up a lot of things and killing a lot of other non-burned things, so Ripred just said that that was why they needed rounding up. Ripred also needed enough food to supply the rats with. Oh, and he needed the assassination plots to stop. He was getting tired of pinning them all to the ground while Lapblood informed everyone else. If it didn't stop soon, he thought he might as well kill one.

But this stupid stupid prophecy wasn't about Luxa's destiny to be cooperative, or the Bane rebels all falling over dead one day, or the assassins finally realizing that their pitiful attempts to kill him were pitiful.

The prophecy was about the cutters.

"Your enemy is on your borders.The Warmblood species out of order.One Warrior since retired.One Peacemaker since hired.

Peacemaker, come, find the secret,To cutters hatred- what made it?Retrieve the page, destroy it's fate,Find the queen before too late.

He won't belong in forsaken home.She won't but will be alone.She's traumatized by never forgetting.He's filled with guilt, always regretting."

The first stanza was simple. Enemy on border, warmbloods crazy (which was true), Gregor retired, Ripred hired. There. Done.

But the next stanza wanted him to, what? Go find a secret? There were tons of secrets here. Find out why the cutters hate us? Obviously they're in denial. Well, probably not, but how would we figure that out? 

And destroy a page, not that hard, but the underland hardly has any paper. Ripred had gone up to a random library and destroyed half the books, tons of pages, to try and fulfill the prophecy. He'd also planted a dog in a suspicious place so the dog would get the blame. 

And find the queen- Luxa? No, the queen was found, unless it was her evil twin sister, which didn't seem quite likely.

The last stanza was so messy Ripred didn't even know how to go about it. But he'd decided it was four people. Four people to find. Gregor- doesn't belong in the Overland; Luxa- surrounded by advisors but oh so alone; Lizzie- fantastic never ever forgetting Lizzia; and some guilt stricken person. Everyone down here was guilt stricken. We could bring along a guilty mite in a bag if we had to.

Plus, all mites were guilty. GUILTY OF HARMING ME!!

But anyway, now all Ripred had to do was break into the Overland and find Gregor. Perfect. Next stop: Gregor's apartment.