Page 10 of The Oracle of Dusk

Silvanus barely spared her a glance.

“That will depend on Aurora’s magic.”

“What have the others in Aurora’s place used as their magic?”

“I’m curious about that too,” Aurora said.

“I wasn’t informed of that.”

“Oh.” Aurora’s face fell.

“I apologise. We’ll send a messenger to the temple to contact the High Priestess on your behalf. If anyone knows something about it, she will,” Silvanus offered.

“Do you have a plan for what to do if the beast catches us before she has magic she can use?” Phaedra pressed him, refusing to let him play the saviour for long.

“Run.”

Aurora seemed as surprised as Phaedra to hear it.

“So you don’t actually have a plan!” Phaedra accused him. Success.

“Theplanis to safely escort Aurora to the wellsprings in Aureum, Gilvus, Roseum and Niveum to awaken her magic,” Silvanus replied.

“And the holy sword?” Phaedra gazed at it tellingly.

“What about it?” He raised a pale brow.

“Isn’t the sword supposed to seal Drakon? Isn’t that why they call you a hero even though you haven’t done anything?” she taunted him. Perhaps if she could show he was both incompetent and emotional, Aurora would see this for the farce it was.

“The sword is one piece of that, not the whole of it,” he replied calmly.

She hated him for that false bravado.

“Apparently it’s the smallest piece too, if you don’t even have a plan to defeat Drakon without Aurora!”

Men always took the bait when their honour was at stake. Whether they admitted it not, shame ruled every single one of them. It was simply a matter of finding the right pressure point. Silvanus was putting on a good show, but he would crack eventually.

Except he ignored her outburst. It only made her angrier. None of these temple rats had any idea what to do. Scrabbling around in the dark, putting all their faith in omens and legends instead of sense. Their entire grand design seemed to be throwing Aurora at Drakon and praying. Useless, weak, short-sighted fools. They’d already bungled this cycle of chaos, their initiates running around from outbreak to outbreak, a day late and a step behind, no one organizing a proper response to the rise of monstrosities. Her own mother had been little better, allowing people on the periphery to remain in their unprotected, isolated settlements instead of demanding they evacuate to safer towns with temples where they could shelter during outbreaks of monstrosities.

“Just admit it! You don’t have a plan! You’re placing everything on Aurora’s shoulders and you don’t even have the decency to say it!”

Aurora looked up at the bastard as if pleading with him to deny it. For her, his mien was soft, comforting. But when he turned his gaze to Phaedra? She detected the barest hint of a glare in his cold blue eyes, the merest tightening of his hands on the loper’s reins.

“Much rests on her, but she won’t do any of it alone.”

Aurora’s worry eased a fraction, her shoulders loosening, the fear in her gaze lessening ever so slightly. Whoever this was, he knew well how to charm a woman. All the more reason to crush him underfoot.

“Save the horseshit, avatar. If you or any of the high priestesses want Aurora to survive what you have planned, then you’d have brought a whole damned army with you, not a handful of glorified gladiators and a single fucking sword.”

“A smaller group moves faster, Princess.”

“And a more organised one is safer.”

“You’re welcome to organize that fighting force, Princess. In fact, I hope you do. In the meantime, we make haste and reach the wellsprings while we know where they are.” Silvanus pushed his loper to outpace hers as Phaedra swore under her breath.

She waswelcome to organize the fighting force?!Triad’s tits, she should strangle him for that alone. She’d spent months trying to force the sclerotic temples into organizing a larger fighting force, into training more martial initiates not just of Justice but of Knowledge and Passion too. There was no reason anyone with divine magic should not be fighting at this very moment, with the safety of Trisia at stake. But of course, the temples were resistant to change and moved at a snail’s pace. Their excuses were always the same, and they always made her blood boil—that it had been this way for longer than anyone alive remembered, and things had always worked out. If Phaedra had been the crown princess, instead of the fifth spare, maybe they would have listened.

The man was a brick wall—just like his temple. She hoped she’d given Aurora something to think about though. It was clear they cared nothing for her safety, their supposed saviour. Phaedra swore she would get to the bottom of their ruse one way or another. She slowed her loper. Once she was next to one of her imperial guards, she tilted her head, motioning for him to break away from the main group. Who knew where the loyalties of the ‘hero’ or the paladins truly lay? They may wear her colours, but they showed no respect, no deference.

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