Page 168 of The Shadowed Oracle
Enitha erupted. “Lies! LIES! I did no such thing!” She turned to the High King. “She’s lying!”
Makkar only watched as Monia’s tongue continued to spin the tale, “You were so jealous of the Lady Ingrid. You envied her gifts. Envied how her companions looked at her. Not in fear. But real admiration.” The voice coming from Monia paused. “You envied how the males looked at her. How everyone looked at her. You became so jealous, so jealous. And you lost control.”
“Lies!” Enitha cut in again furiously. “Lies lies lies!” The whites of her eyes were red and veiny, magic furling at her fingertips. “Lies!”
Monia’s body seized, tugging her forward. She couldn’t fight back, didn’t have any feeling or wherewithal to do so. She could only listen as her own voice damned her.
“You were so jealous. You wanted her dead. So you forced General Sylan to put Lady Ingrid in the arena. You bewitched him. He was already on the ship, ready to sail back here with the Oracle in tow! But it wasn’t enough for you.”
Oracle?
What was left of Monia’s mind shuddered in confusion. Was that the great gift Lucilla had been speaking about? Lady Ingrid was an Oracle?
“Silence!” Enitha’s finger raised, pointed nail aimed directly at her former servant. Embers sparked in the plume of smoke, then little silver orbs cast off wildly in every direction. “I demand you to be silent, or to speak the truth!”
In her mad desire for power over the maiden, Enitha was losing control of herself, just like the magic speaking through Monia’s voice accused her of.
“Do you see!?” that voice called out. “She’s mad! She’s doing it again! She means to hexmenow!”
In answer, Enitha raised her other hand slowly.
Monia had seen this movement before. It was what preceded an outburst of her power. That black magic she brought Viator to their knees with.
Monia braced herself, tensing as Enitha’s hair sprawled out in mid-air, magic shrouding her completely, ember turning to flames, and those orbs turning darker, growing tumor-like, erupting in the room.
“Stop.”
It was a dry whisper, strange amidst so much screaming.
Then it was followed by a croaking sigh.
“Stop,” Makkar repeated. Only that one purring word, and the High King had defused Enitha and all of her magic at once.
“Leave us,” the Hydorian King said, and with a flick of his wrist, a silvery gust of wind blew Enitha away, casting her into the shadows of the colossal room. Not a peep of protest echoed as she was carried off on that shadow of power.
“General Aloris,” Makkar said plainly. “Is it true?”
Sylan pondered a moment. He did not deign a look at Monia, but that didn’t stop her from pushing as hard as she could against her invisible restraints to gaze up at him with doe eyes, begging him to show her kindness.
It didn’t even have to be an outright agreement. He didn’t need to confirm the voice’s claims. He only had to refrain frominvalidating them. If Sylan kept the mystery of it alive and allowed the doubt to linger in Makkar’s mind, maybe she’d be spared.
“There are holes,” Sylan said finally. “I’m not certain, but the events on that dock are hard to grasp. Like nothing I’d experienced before.” He lowered his chin. “Apologies, my king.”
“Very well,” Makkar said, and turned his back on his small audience, cape billowing as he walked off in the same direction that he’d dismissed Enitha in.
Monia didn’t have time to rejoice before Sylan ushered her away. He placed a hand on her shoulder and led her out of the hulking black doors of the throne room. Her stomach was tangled, sweat drenching the nape of her neck as they made their way back down the stairs.
She’d escaped the gallows, for now, but she couldn’t avoid the dungeons. They retraced their path. Slowly, the tingling sensation faded, though the haze Monia had been clutched in lingered. Each step of the winding staircase looked to be the same. Endless.
Three, four, maybe ten levels down, Sylan said, “Are you alright?”
Monia opened her mouth tentatively, testing to see if she was still being controlled. She had the use of her mind and her tongue back, but her voice was hoarse. As if the machinations had gone rusty.
“I—I think so,” she said.
“Good.” Sylan kept his voice low and his eyes on the steps above, looking over Monia’s shoulder as she spoke.
“What is it?” Monia asked softly. “Is something wrong?”
