Page 158 of The Shadowed Oracle
There are rumors of Oracle’s using stones like backup reserves,Tyla had told her.
To use it when they are in need.
It was only speculation. Something Tyla was hesitant to tell her about in the first place. But the way the stone awoke, after she’d been calling out to those that came before her, it was impossible to ignore. She and her friends would likely be dead if it hadn’t helped—if her raw, untrained power wasn’t guided and supplemented by it.
She took one last glance into the amber gem, squinting with one eye before returning the necklace beneath her blouse, then leaning over to blow out the light by her bed.
She slunk down, just about to slide under the duvet when a knock came at the door. Still mostly dressed, she stood up, threw her long black coat over her shoulders. “Come in.”
The hinges of the old cabin creaked open slowly. Dean appeared from behind, emerging from the shadows of the dark hallway below the ship. He was dressed in his own clothes again, out of the well-worn merchant’s attire. The bloody loincloth he’d been forced to wear in the arena, he joked, was thrown into the sea just minutes before. When he was returning to his room after washing, he saw the light was still on in Ingrid’s cabin and wanted to check in on her.
As always, Ingrid returned a curt, “I’m fine.”
Dean laughed at the predictability. “And I’m good too, just in case you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t,” she lied.
Since Dean abruptly left Callinora’s room after the restraints were set up on the princess’s bed, she’d been wondering how to approach him. Ingrid had taken two or maybe three steps to track him down before convincing herself he was better off. She’d been so attuned to the chaotic emotions circulating on the ship that she didn’t trust herself to be good company for anyone. It was why she’d returned to her room and closed herself off as best she could.
“Any hangover?” Dean asked. “Karis had difficulties, sometimes. After using his magic.”
“Ahh, hangovers. I remember those. Awful, but I’d take them over whatever this is any day.”
Dean gave her a knowing smile. “I thought so.”
“You do know everything.”
“No.” He hung his head. “I’m realizing more and more, assuming I know anything gets me in trouble.” He looked to his knife, hinting at the scuffle with Veston. “I was just angry. Scared.”
“I felt the same,” Ingrid said. “Maradenn, I think I resent them for having to rely on them. Maybe it’s just some weird Oracle thing. But the thought of them, of that place, it sets me on edge.”
Dean stepped closer to the bed, urging her to go on.
“It’s strange,” Ingrid said, again reaching for her necklace. “When I held that magic in my hands, I felt invincible. I felt weightless. I felt… nothing, but in the best possible way. As soon as the action stopped, though, all kinds of little images and spikes of emotion hit. Not to mention the little aches popping up.” She gently touched her jaw, checking in on the bruises that had formed after her tussle with Arryn.
“It’s healing already,” she added. “But you must have worse, I’m sure.”
Dean reached for his sleeve, pulling it up to reveal a cut the length of a Wrane’s nail. “I think this is the worst of it. Should be gone by tomorrow.”
“Let me see.” Ingrid patted the bed, beckoning him to sit so she could take a look. He did, the thin cushion of the mattress now sagging a bit with the weight of him.
Ingrid made herself comfortable, lifting her hand inches above his skin and trailing her finger along the cut. It was deep, but clotted, and there was the faint scent of blood, though it was nearly masked by the stronger whiff of Dean’s Earth-made soap. Cedarwood and sweet bourbon.
It reminded Ingrid of the cheap whiskey he’d order at her bar.
“I never asked you,” Ingrid said, still assessing his wound from every angle. “Why did you always order the shitty stuff from my bar?”
“What?”
“When you came into my bar, why’d you always order?—”
“Oh, right.” Dean bent his uninjured arm to face her. “That brand.” He shook his head, a complicated smile forming. “It was what Karis bought me for my twenty-first birthday. I’m almost positive he just asked the cashier what a good present for a twenty-one-year-old was. They told him booze, so he bought the first bottle he found.”
“Sounds thoughtful.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Dean said. “But for Karis, it was spot on. He never drank, and he never understood things like birthday gifts. Never understood most human things. His head was too full of visions and epiphanies and meditations on life. Every outing we went on, every ball game or trip to the zoo, it was like being chaperoned by an alien. I’d have to explain everything.”
“Well, technically,” Ingrid mused. “Hewasan alien.”
