Enjoy a Scene from Chapter Sixteen!
The Oracle
With a knot in her throat, she took the oracle's hand and stepped closer to her. The moment she took a step forward, Meilon pulled her into the green light and there, Caia came face to face with the oracle.
She didn’t know if she was expected to do something, but it was near impossible to do more than stare into the oracle’s eyes which were completely white, outside of the small black pupils in their centers. A sensation like that of vertigo came over Caia, and she wanted to lift a hand to her head, but felt frozen in place. After a moment of silence, Meilon held Caia’s cheeks in her frigid, bony hands. She cocked her head to the side as she spoke through blood-red lips.
"I see," Meilon whispered as a tear streamed down her cheek. "I see a love perfectly bloomed, promises made, then swiftly entombed." As Meilon spoke, Caia could feel her heartbeat grow faster and stronger. She felt naked with someone inside her mind.
"A past slowly rises through the ever-flowing mist, as she asks, 'what can and cannot exist?' Far more questions than answers will be, for the all-seeing Voice will cease to be free." The oracle stood in silence for a moment before her eyes widened and she continued, "What is this? I see darkness veiling light; yet another coming plight."
Archai quickly stepped forward. "Plight? What new plight? There's been nothing but plight."
Meilon turned her blind eyes to the Sapient with her reply. "Listen carefully to my words or lost you shall be. You will be her eyes when the Voice will not see."
Archai's face twisted into a pained expression as he looked to Caia. Something like terror radiating from him. "The esgal'hehn?" he whispered. "No, that cannot be. Not Caia.”
The oracle stepped closer to Archai and quietly answered, "Will it or not, these all-seeing eyes will fade into darkness as the Voice will arise." She turned around and placed her left hand on her head and sighed. "Sapient, I see the beginning of your journey as one. The test for you is nearly over and done. You must go, with your quest proceed; I have spoken what I see and all that you need. May the Highest Power bless you both on your journey."
As the oracle finished her words, the stream of green light faded, and Meilon disappeared into the darkness from which she'd emerged, leaving Caia and Archai standing alone in the room. Without a word, Archai suddenly turned and walked out of the shack. He looked up to the dark canopy, then took his horse’s reins. Caia frowned.
"Archai," she started, then took her horse and followed him. "Archai, wait. What just happened? I didn't understand everything in there."
"Which part did you not understand?" he asked.
"Well, I can tell you that I did understand the part about love. But then she started talking about plight and sight and then you said some word I didn't even understand."
"Esgal'hehn," he replied in a monotone voice.
"Esgal what?"
"Esgal'hehn. It is a process through which you gain large amounts of information and increase the use of four of your senses. It is something that is only supposed to happen to born-seers, knowing who they are and what their task is in life. We did not know you are a born-seer.”
Caia thought on that for a moment. She didn’t seem to know it any more than anyone else did. "But the Voices are all considered seers, aren't they?"
"Yes, but this is different. The visions the Voices would see were through their mirrors within the Chambers in the Rehnedhen. That is why they are useless without their eyes. A Voice would channel those mirrors on occasion, but none of them would suffer true visions of the mind."
Caia took a deep breath and tried to find her words. Archai's stress about the revelation was clear, but she didn't quite understand it herself. "What exactly is the esgal'hehn, though? What's going to happen?"
Archai clenched his teeth and bore his gaze into hers. "There is no easy way to explain this,” he said with a quieter voice. "You lose your sight."
Caia swallowed her next question and let his words sink in. Archai mounted his horse and held the reins of her own steady so she could mount. She pressed her lips into a tight line and followed suit. "Can we fix it?" she finally asked.
Archai nodded. "It passes…eventually. The problem here is that the phase of the esgal'hehn can take years."
Caia was staggered. "Blind for years? When will it happen?"
"None can know. We will see what Dy'Mün has to say about it, though Keiren's request for you to see Meilon in the first place makes sense now. He saw something in you, and I needed to know what it was. Without hearing it coming from Meilon’s lips, I may not have believed it."
With a nod, Caia's eyes fell to the reins in her hands. Her palms were suddenly damp and her heart thumped hard and fast. She had many more questions that needed answers, but even in Archai's momentary silence, she could sense his frustration and confusion. He needed to work through his own understanding of the situation before she bombarded him with the need for more information. Tomorrow would be a better day for it.
Archai's horse bumped against Caia's right leg, and Archai reached over to place a hand over hers on the horn. "I will help you through it," he said. His brow was furrowed, but his eyes were bright and intense. "You will not undergo it alone."
The smile that tugged at Caia's lips was impossible to resist. She bit her lip and nodded again, then followed Archai out of the dark forest.
