Page 69 of The Oracle of Dusk

“Aurora.”

“Fae, it’s too early,” Aurora moaned.

“Aurora.”

Aurora shot up with a gasp.

“Fae!”

There, at the foot of the bed. Phaedra smiled, waving at her, wearing a gown in the ancient fashion, her hair partially done up in intricate braids. She twirled, showing it off.

“What do you think?”

She was alive. Unharmed. Whole. Tears blurred her vision, emotion choking her.

“Phaedra,” Aurora sobbed, crawling out of bed. “How?”

The moment Aurora stood, her legs buckled under her like a fawn’s. She reached towards Phaedra, but her friend danced out of reach with a giggle.

“Come on. I want to show you something.”

“Wait! Come back, Fae,” Aurora pleaded.

Phaedra skipped to the terrace, her long red hair bouncing with every step. As Aurora struggled to her feet, Phaedra sat on the railing of the terrace, her arms stretched wide. Her smile was dazzling, her cheeks rosy with health. Behind her, a thin orange line bled into the deep blues of the night sky. Outlined by the first rays of dawn, Phaedra was a vision of beauty. Of home. Aurora wanted nothing so much as to fall into her arms and weep, to know that all was right with the world once more. If she could just touch her, she could convince herself everything up until now, all the pain, all the horror, had been a nightmare, forgotten with the rising of the sun.

“I’m right here, Aurora.”

Aurora lurched towards her on unsteady feet, reaching towards Phaedra. As she lost her balance, Phaedra was there to steady her, their fingers intertwined.

“I thought you’d died! I thought you were gone forever. Why did you do that? Why did you take my place? It should have been me, not you! You were supposed to live, Fae! I never wanted—”

“Shhhh. It’s alright now,” Phaedra said, leaning her forehead on Aurora’s. As Aurora wept, Phaedra wrapped her arms around her. “Come with me.”

Then Phaedra pulled.

“Aurora!” Theron shouted, grabbing Aurora around the waist and dragging her from Phaedra’s grasp.

“No!” Aurora cried as Phaedra fell from the terrace into the gardens far below. She struggled in Theron’s hold, fighting for freedom. “Fae!Fae!”

“It wasn’t her,” he said, his voice calm.

“No! She fell! She might be hurt! Let me go!”

“It wasn’t her, Aurora. Look.” Theron walked towards the edge with her secure in his arms. Aurora frantically searched the ground below but there was no one.

“No, she was right there. She was here,” Aurora sobbed. Despair ripped through her fragile heart, all the more vicious now that she’d been given a ray of hope.

“It was a spirit. An angry one. They see into your heart and present you with what you want most in order to bring you harm,” he explained, his tone gentle.

Theron carried her back to the bed and sat her on the edge. Aurora curled up, hugging her knees to her chest, and wept. She didn’t want him to see her like this. She didn’t want anyone to see her as her heart shattered anew. She wanted to be back home with Phaedra and her favourite book, in a world without spirits, or Drakon, or the fate that tied her thread to all the worst things in the Tapestry.

Theron whispered to the attendant at the door before returning to her side. He sat beside her without a word, his warm hand on the back of her neck, keeping vigil as she grieved. She’d kept herself together this whole time, never once coming apart. How could she have? Surrounded by predators, in constant pain, she’d merely survived. Grief had been a luxury for a prisoner in this gilded cage. But now it poured out of her, her walls irreparably fractured. And like a fool trying to clean up shattered glass with her bare hands, Aurora cut herself on every memory.

Phaedra’s last message, her death, played in her mind over and over. The moments before the device took her back in time, her fall, repeated over and over. Why hadn’t she been allowed to die? Was Fate really so cruel? She wished she could scream it aloud, but she knew the answer.

If her fever-addled memories could be believed, her wild magic had exploded from her last night, leaving her trapped and suffering without Theron’s magic to ease her. It wasn’t until she’d drained her magic dry and passed out that she’d had any relief from the pain. Fate truly was the cruellest of the goddesses. What was the point of a magic that would drive her mad with visions, or trap her in time, or cruellest of all, give her enough hope to want to survive through the suffering ahead? Magic was an untameable beast in her chest, and she never wanted to be at its mercy again.

Through all her dark thoughts, Theron sat at her side, his warmth seeping into her. She cried until the tears had leeched the worst of the poison from her system, until the raw, aching wound in her heart had been numbed. For now.

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