Page 42 of Moonlit Fate

“Tell me something I don’t know.” My sarcasm was a thin veil over my rising anxiety.

“Patience, my dear. The threads of fate do not unravel at our command,” the seer said.

“Of course.” I closed my eyes for a moment. When I opened them again, Patches was looking at me, his expression almostsympathetic. Perhaps it was merely my own emotions reflected back at me, for what could a cat truly understand of shifter burdens?

“Thank you, Patches,” I said softly, reaching out to scratch behind his ear. “For the distraction, if nothing else.”

The cat purred contentedly, his regal demeanor melting into simple pleasure.

The room was a cocoon of silence, as if holding onto the remnants of enigmatic revelations and the musky scent of books that clung to the walls. The peculiar cat now turned its one eye toward Atticus and mewed loudly.

“Does he always do this?” Atticus asked.

Patches pranced over and scaled the length of Atticus’s arm to perch on his shoulder, wrapping his tail around Atticus’s neck for balance.

The seer huffed and shrugged. “The traitorous little thing only does this when he likes someone. Or when he’s hungry. With Patches, it’s hard to tell the difference.”

Atticus scratched the feline beneath the chin, eliciting a satisfied purr from the creature. There was something disarmingly tender about the sight of a rogue wolf and a one-eyed cat finding camaraderie amid the chaos of prophecies and peril.

“Seems you’ve made a new friend,” I remarked, unable to mask the undercurrent of tension in my words. “Perhaps you should consider negotiating with felines as a side profession.”

Atticus’s deep laughter filled the room, and for an ephemeral instant, it chased away the dread that was slowly consuming me.

“Maybe after all this is over, I’ll retire and become a cat whisperer,” he said.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” My words were a feeble attempt to reconstruct the protective walls encircling my heart, which his presence seemed to erode with disconcerting ease.

Patches leaped back onto the table, sending another cascade of scrolls tumbling to the floor. I brought my hand up to my mouth to stifle my giggle.

The seer’s gaze landed on the bracelet adorning my wrist. The stones shimmered subtly in the dim light of the cave. “Ah, a trinket of truth. It will serve you well.” The seer remarked cryptically. I wasn’t sure the man could lie straight in bed, never mind hold a straightforward conversation. Maybe he’d been alone with Patches for too long.

Suddenly, he stilled. His eyes glazed over, and his voice turned distant as if he were somewhere else entirely.

“For the ritual, seek the place where light and shadow intertwine in a mesmerizing dance,” he stated. “There, the eclipse will reveal what is hidden.”

My heart started racing. The spirit Seren had conversed with on the battlegrounds had shared the same obscure message.

“What ritual? How do we perform it?” I demanded.

The seer, with his wild mane and twinkling eyes, seemed unfazed by my growing irritation. “You will need to execute the triskele in the exact spot of which I spoke.”

A triskele. My grandmother, a wise shifter who’d taken on the role of teacher after my mother’s death and before she herself passed, had shared her profound knowledge about triskeles and their symbolic significance. The seer’s unexpected comment triggered a memory of my grandmother and her teachings of the intricate patterns that mirrored the boundless complexity of the universe.

“And we just make this with what? Hopes and dreams?” I asked with growing frustration. The seer was jumping from ritual to triskele without explanation.

“Your sarcasm is noted, but not appreciated,” the seer censured with a quirk of his brow. “You have an ability, a special secret ability that allows you to manipulate one of thefundamental elements, do you not? As does your companion. You will need to use the basis of life.” The seer bobbed his head toward Atticus, who remained silent.

What did he mean by “the basis of life”? My mind scrambled through memories, searching for some hidden intelligence I might possess.

“I think you have everything you need,” the old man said with a slight tilt of his head, as if he were listening to a voice we couldn’t hear. “Yes, yes, I’ve shared all that I can.” He distanced himself from me to delve into the mess of his cluttered shelves, where disorder and pandemonium lay in wait. “More details will be made known when the time is appropriate.”

“What ingredients are in the basis of life? Where do we find them? What’s the purpose of the ritual?” Each question tumbled out with more desperation.

“Patience is a tool that guides us through our trials and tribulations,” he advised me. “The fates are not to be rushed. Events must unfold naturally in their own timing.” Without warning, the seer pivoted on his heel, his amiable face now etched with severity, completely discarding any trace of the bumbling man. “That’s quite enough of that, boy. I may be old, but I’m not an old fool. Do you understand me? You try that unbidden again, and we’ll see how you enjoy the view as a toad, hm?”

Just like that, the seer’s amiable nature reappeared, and he went back to his shelves, transferring scrolls of parchment from one counter to another.

Confused, I gave Atticus a bewildered look. Had he tried probing into the seer’s thoughts?

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