The Oracle

 Note: This story is a sequel to The Sisters and Son of Apollo

“It doesn’t make sense.”

Jaz threw open the closet door. She rifled through dresses, shirts, and coats. “It’s not like her,” Jaz muttered. She reached the end of the hanging clothes, then moved on to the dresser.

“Nothing’s missing,” she said. “Is it?”

“Should I be here?” asked Yuri. He stood near the foot of Nidala’s bed. The sheets were undisturbed, and had been for the last three nights. “In the castle, I mean.”

“You’re fine,” Jaz said. She yanked out another drawer, and started pulling it apart.

“But what if someone recognizes me? Don’t you think it’s dangerous?”

“You’re safe as long as you’re with me,” Jaz said. “I learned to make dangerous decisions a long time ago.”

Jaz shoved the drawer back into place, and turned around. Yuri remained in the center of the room, looking afraid that the walls themselves would attack.

“Don’t just stand there,” Jaz said, “Look around.”

Yuri blinked, then moved to a bookshelf next to the window. It didn’t hold any books, just stacks of loose paper: pamphlets, lists, Nidala’s notes-to-herself. Jaz guessed it would be barely legible. Yuri handled the papers like he was flipping through old tissues.

Jaz felt like something electric was buzzing around inside her. She hadn’t been this nervous in years. Her little sister knew how to find trouble. If it lurked in the dark, she brought a torch. If it hid in a safe, she broke it open. Their secure housing was a recent change and a stroke of luck. A few years before, Jaz and Nidala were on the streets, doing whatever it took to stay together.

Those years had made them strong, but the two of them bent differently under the weight. Nidala was always trying to fight the world. Jaz had to protect them from it. She couldn’t afford to be reckless. She had to do the work of keeping them both from getting hurt. And sometimes that meant protecting Nidala from herself.

Jaz turned her attention to the nightstand. It had a single drawer, which she pulled out and turned upside-down. Junk scattered across the carpet: loose coins, pens, stolen trinkets, a handful of mismatched keys. Jaz knelt down, and sifted through them.

Paper rustled from Yuri’s side of the room.

“Find anything?” Jaz asked, still scanning the floor. “Like a strange map or a glowing crystal? A note that says, ‘I miss my sister, and this is all a prank’?”

Jaz’s voice trailed off at the end of that line, and she felt a knot at the back of her throat.

“How about a ransom letter?” said Yuri.

Jaz looked up. Yuri was holding a roll of paper with a broken seal. It didn’t look like it had come from the stack on the shelf. Yuri wasn’t reading it; he watched the sky with a distant expression, one Jaz didn’t recognize.

She stood, and snatched the paper from his hands. She unrolled it.

“Your margesty,” Jaz read aloud, “we found a little lost ward of yours. If you want to see her alive again, brung 50,000 gold to the West gate. No gards. The 5th at Sunset. Sinsarly, your humble servants.”

Jaz squinted, re-reading the letter. It was stamped at the bottom with an emblem of a troll skull framed by four crossed daggers. “That’s the seal of the Second Culling, right?” Jaz said.

“I think so,” Yuri responded.

“Strange. I thought they were just country bandits. Why would they try to move against the royal family? Seems ambitious.”

Yuri shook his head, and said, “I don’t know. Maybe they’re gaining confidence.”

“No,” Jaz said, “it still doesn’t make sense. But someone might be trying to frame them.”

“To stir something up between the king and the Second Culling?”

“Or to make themselves seem more powerful than they actually are,” Jaz said, turning the paper over in her hands. She rubbed her thumb against the broken seal as her thoughts churned.

“Does it matter who took Nidala, so long as we get her back?” asked Yuri.

“No,” Jaz sighed, “what matters most is finding Nidala. And there’s a bigger question than ‘Who sent it?’”

“Which is?”

“Why would anyone hide a ransom note? The whole point is to get someone’s attention. What if nobody found it in time?” Jaz looked back at the scattered papers Yuri had been searching through. A scroll should have stuck out from this mess, but she hadn’t noticed it when she’d scanned the room initially. She had been searching the room itself for clues, but now her eyes landed on Yuri. “Where did you find it?”

“I...” Yuri started, shaking his head slowly, eyelids flickering. He had been acting strange for the last couple days, but Jaz had assumed it was his worry for Nidala. From the moment they entered Nidala’s room, he had been stilted, fearful. It occurred to Jaz that all this time, Yuri might not have been afraid for her, but of her.

“You had this letter, didn’t you?” Jaz asked. Yuri nodded. His face tightened, and he swallowed.

“It’s a trick,” Yuri said, finally returning Jaz’s glare. “From the temple. They told me I had to give you the letter, to try to buy them time.”

“Where is she?”

“Underground. In the crypts beneath the temple. She followed me down there, and the oracle told me to kill her, but I couldn’t,” Yuri sat down on Nidala’s bed, and his eyes filled with tears. “I couldn’t hurt you.”

A storm of conflicting emotions swirled in Jaz’s chest. She had trusted Yuri and protected him, but he had lied to her face. After all the time they had spent together, she thought she knew him, could discern the difference between the boy and the acolyte. Now, she didn’t know which she was looking at.

“Is Nidala alive?” Jaz asked. Yuri nodded his head.

“But not for long. The elders want her as a sacrifice to Apollo. The ceremony could happen at any time.”

Jaz felt the fear she had been suppressing rise once again from the pit of her stomach.

“Is there time to alert the king?” Jaz asked. “If Landry and some guards stormed the temple--”

“They’d just kill Nidala,” Yuri said. He stared off towards the window and the sky beyond, like a bird with clipped wings. “Any actions the king makes will just throw the city into civil war. The church versus the monarchy. Everyone picks a side.”

“Then I’ll do it,” Jaz said. She moved to the other side of the room, to the pile of junk she had dumped on the floor. “I’m taking my sister back.”

“I want to help,” Yuri said. Jaz stopped, and looked back at him for a moment. His eyes were still wet, but there was desperation in them. “I need to fix this. To set things right.”

“I don’t know if you can,” Jaz said. Yuri pulled back, stung by the words. It felt good to hurt him. She wanted to do more, to lash out physically, then have him thrown out of the castle. But that wouldn’t help Nidala. She looked back to the floor, and said, “But I guess you can try.”

Jaz heard Yuri shifting his way to her side of the bed. She scanned the carpet, and found what she was looking for.

“I can’t get you in the front door,” said Yuri. “They’ve doubled the guard postings since Nidala snuck in.”

“That’s alright,” said Jaz. She held up a slender key with chipped, black paint. “I know another way.”

The catacombs echoed with the sounds of Jaz’s and Yuri’s footsteps as they shuffled through the darkness. The air was thick, and carried an acrid, earthy smell. A green flame in Jaz’s hand cast their surroundings in a sickly pallor. Ancient, brick walls, glistening and overgrown with trails of limestone, entombed them. Ahead and behind, the tunnel stretched on like black throats waiting to swallow them whole.

The first catacombs were constructed over a thousand years ago, but centuries of extensions, modifications, and cave-ins had created a maze of mis-matched architecture that spread across the city. Every so often, Jaz and Yuri passed sarcophagi or stacks of bones laid out on slabs inset in the walls. Whenever they found a branching tunnel that did not look manmade, they crept past as quickly and quietly as possible. Not everything in the catacombs was dead.

As they walked, Yuri told Jaz about his part in Nidala’s disappearance — about Nidala sneaking into the temple and the oracle’s demand for her life. Jaz listened without question, her mind set only on the danger her sister faced.

“How can I trust you?” Jaz’s whisper broke a long silence.

“I was never a good liar, “Yuri said. “The church of Apollo demands complete honesty from its members. I’ve been training my whole life for it.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I never wanted to hurt your sister,” Yuri said, his voice pitched up, pleading. “I never wanted to hurt anybody. That’s not the kind of person I am.”

“What kind are you, then?” Jaz spun, and Yuri stumbled to a halt. “The kind that stands back and watches people get hurt? Or killed?”

“I wanted to warn you. I did warn you.”
“Yeah. Three days later, and still following orders.”
Jaz faced forward once again, and continued westward, climbing over a heap of

stalagated rubble.
Yuri’s footsteps followed at a reduced pace.
“I’m not brave like you, Jaz,” Yuri said. “I’ve never stood up for something or

fought someone off, like you did with that pickpocket in the streets. I’m trying to do what’s right. Just tell me what to do.”

“That’s not going to help,” Jaz sighed. “If you just do what people tell you to do, you’ll never decide to do anything right. You might do the right thing from time to time, but that won’t be because of you.”

“Apollo’s will is right.” Yuri’s voice cracked as he said it. Jaz looked back and Yuri’s downcast eyes met hers. “I thought being a part of the church would make it easier.”

Jaz laughed for the first time in almost three days. “What do you mean?”

“Being able to know right and wrong. It’s all there in the scrolls. And when the scrolls aren’t clear, the teacher knows, or the teacher asks the oracle. The oracle gets it straight from the sun god himself. The light from above.”

“Maybe they’re all right,” Jaz said. “But who will you follow if they’re wrong? When more than one voice is telling you what to do, you still have to decide who to listen to. Especially when one of those voices is yours. Sooner or later, you have to make a call.”

“I don’t know if I can trust my own voice.”

“Well, that makes two of us,” Jaz said. “The last time I was down here, my sister and I ran into trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Oh, you know, the kind with glowing eyes and a sharp axe: monsters in a tomb we shouldn’t have wandered into. We only had a few seconds before they killed both of us. I didn’t have anyone to ask or tell me what to do. So, I put myself in danger to make sure she got away.”

“Why didn’t you both just run?”

“The same reason you’re here with me now,” Jaz said, “I couldn’t risk anyone else getting hurt. Maybe that was right, but at the time, it was the only choice I could live with myself making.”

They continued walking for some time, Jaz taking the lead, Yuri following. Staring into the darkness, it was easy to grow disoriented. The permanence of the size and shape of the tunnel felt loose, as though it were made of fluid that only solidified when the light touched it. Jaz thought she saw shapes in the void. As she pressed forward they always amounted to nothing but her imagination.

Jaz didn’t know how long they had been walking when the walls began to pull away, and the tunnel opened into a juncture. The room was circular, and three new archways stood before them. In the center, a shallow pool with shiny, rounded edges collected drops of water falling from the ceiling. Above the pool, a corroded lamp hung from chains bolted to the ceiling.

“Which way is it?” Jaz asked. She came to the first exit on her left and peered into the passage. There was little she could make out. She made her way around the room, stopping to inspect the other two as well. “They all look the same.”

Jaz expected to see Yuri looking over her shoulder when she turned around. Instead, he knelt beside the pool in the middle of the room.

“They collect rainwater,” Yuri said, looking up towards the ceiling. Jaz looked closer, and saw that what she had mistaken for a ring of stalagmites were actually narrow spigots, like those she had seen on the fountain in the city center. These were far older, and let through barely a dribble. At the bottom of the pool, Jaz could just make out the impression of a sun, with it’s corona of flames: the emblem of Apollo.

“The church built these catacombs hundreds of years ago,” Yuri said. “They started out as tombs, but as they expanded, they became useful as hideouts, secret paths across the city. The monks didn’t create maps, though, in case one fell into the wrong hands. They had to navigate by memory. But people still get lost from time to time. So they built in a backup plan: a way home in case they were caught wandering in the dark.”

He stood up, motioned towards the lamp hanging above the water. “Got a light?”

Jaz raised the green flame near her lips and whispered a command word. Like a dart, a tiny tongue of fire leapt into the air and arced into the bowl of the lamp. It flared to life, filling the room with a warm, orange glow.

“Look.” Yuri pointed at the sides of the pool. In the light of the lantern, the emblem of Apollo at the center glowed, having been gilded with a reflective foil. And along the sides, four smaller symbols caught the light, and projected mirror images above the arches overhead. The passage Jaz and Yuri had come from was marked with a crown. To the right and straight ahead were a pair of shackles and a sword, respectively.

“The light shines always from above,” Yuri said, looking towards the passage to the left. Above it glowed the emblem of Apollo. He was smiling for the first time all week, and a warm feeling fluttered inside Jaz’s chest. In different circumstances, she would have loved to see Yuri so giddy.

“Let’s keep moving,” Jaz said, shoving past him. “You can admire your priests’ handiwork once we’ve rescued my sister from them.”

“Should we put out the fire?” Yuri’s voice echoed from behind her, but Jaz was already a dozen paces ahead.

“Leave it,” Jaz shouted back. She heard Yuri say something, but couldn’t make it out. “What?”

Jaz turned and saw Yuri’s silhouette scrambling towards her, fumbling over terrain he couldn’t see. She took a few steps backward, and felt her stomach rise as the bricks beneath her step crumbled. With a yelp, Jaz fell backwards, she wasn’t sure how far. When she landed, all the breath was knocked out of her, and the flame she was holding vanished as though snuffed out.

It was pitch dark, aside from a few stones in the ceiling that gleamed with lantern light. Like stars emerging, pairs of red pinprick lights came to life out of the darkness all around her, accompanied by a sound like clattering stones.

Jaz gasped for breath, and rolled onto her side. After a few deep inhales and exhales, she regained control of her lungs. Jaz crawled blindly over mud-caked stones until she reached the edge of what she guessed was a pit she had fallen into. The red lights moved closer at a slow pace. There were more than a dozen of them now. From each pair, sounds of rubble moving and bones clacking grew.

Yuri’s called out from a distance.

Jaz cupped her hands and conjured a small flame, no bigger than that of a candle. As she opened her fingers, the scene around her came into detail like a horrifying tableau.

The floor had given way to a sub-passage carved beneath the main passage Jaz and Yuri had been following. A pile of stones, mud, and bricks formed a squirming pile as half-buried skeletons with glowing eyes pulled themselves from the wreckage. The walls of this chamber were stacked with bones and artifacts belonging to the entombed. Jaz had the distinct feeling that she had tumbled into the middle of a nest of sleeping hornets.

The first skeleton pulled itself free. Dry cartilage creaked as the animated corpse pounced.

Jaz snapped to the side in a practiced dodge. The skeleton collided with the wall, dislodging several bones in its arms and chest. Its head lolled in Jaz’s direction, and it reoriented itself.

Jaz inhaled, reaching for a familiar well of energy somewhere inside her chest. For smaller spells, like the flame she had conjured, she barely need think to cast and maintain them. She needed something stronger to deal with these foes.

“Ignibus,” Jaz muttered, clapping her hands together. The small flame between her fingers flared out, enveloping both of her hands as though they were coated in an accelerant. Jaz could feel heat on her skin, but no pain.

The skeleton facing her lunged again, but Jaz ducked beneath its swinging arms and struck its hollow rib cage in the sternum. A small eruption of green fire burst apart the center of the skeleton, flinging pieces of its upper body across the opposite side of the chamber. The lower body toppled and wriggled on the ground, and the skull cracked against the stones at her feet.

Jaz turned her attention to two more skeletons that had already crawled free of the rubble. One held an unlit torch like it was wielding a club. The other still wore a golden necklace that dangled from its spine and collar bones. Behind them, the five remaining skeletons were making fast progress.

The two newcomers charged together, the torchbearer a few steps behind its counterpart. Jaz clenched her teeth and fell into a defensive stance.

The necklaced skeleton swung first, but Jaz raised her hand and caught its forearm near the wrist. “Thank you,” she growled, raising her other fist in a hammer-swing that met the skeleton’s shoulder. A small explosion disconnected the arm from its body, and Jaz jumped back just before the second skeleton’s torch wooshed through the air where her head had been.

The now single-armed, necklace-wearing skeleton looked startled, and stood perplexed for a moment. Jaz felt the boney fingers of her makeshift weapon open and close repeatedly.

The second skeleton kept on the offensive. It advanced one foot at a time, accompanied with a swing of the torch each time that kept Jaz dancing backwards. Her back foot felt the wall, and she planted it, dropping lower. At the next swing, Jaz held the skeleton arm up between flaming hands. It blocked the torch with a loud click, and Jaz swung the arm like a club at the skeleton’s head.

Vertebrae cracked, and the skeleton’s head snapped backwards, held on by dry tendons that hadn’t fully rotted away. It was enough to make the skeleton stumbled back, and Jaz pushed forward. She blocked a couple blind swings, then swept the skeleton’s legs. It clattered to the ground, torch flying from its grip.

The one-armed skeleton rushed to fill the space, but Jaz swung downward and overhead, knocking the skeleton to the ground with its own arm. It landed on top of the other, and the two piles of bones became entangled.

Jaz raised the arm to take another swing. But an arrow zipped through the air, piercing Jaz’s upper arm. She screamed in pain, and fell to her knees. Across the chamber, four more skeletons stood, all of them armed. One of them knocked another arrow in its ancient bow and aimed at Jaz.

There was a twang as the skeleton released, and Jaz threw herself to the ground. But the arrow collided with an invisible barrier just a meter or so before reaching Jaz. A shower of sparks fell from the point it made contact, and the arrow fizzled on the ground.

“Jaz!” came Yuri’s voice, and the sound of falling stones from the right. In a moment, Yuri slid to a stop at the bottom of the pit. One hand was pointed at Jaz and the other brandished a small, triangular dagger. He pointed it at the other skeletons, who didn’t seem to know what to make of the boy. They pointed their weapons in return, and made cautious advances as Yuri moved towards Jaz.

“Stay back!” Yuri shouted. His face was stoney, but Jaz could see the fear behind his expression. She started pushing herself back into a standing position, but suddenly felt cold hands tighten around her arms legs.

Jaz yelped. She turned to see a three-armed, four-legged knot of bones holding her down. Two skulls with red, glowing eyes stared out from entangled torsos. The hands drew closer, climbing their way up her body.

Jaz railed at the conjoined skeletons with both of her flaming fists, but another hand grabbed her from behind. It was Yuri’s.

With a cry of terror or bravery, Yuri pulled the skeletons off of Jaz by their rib cages, and plunged the dagger first through the ear canal of the skeleton with the necklace, then through the crown of the remaining one. The blade slid through the skulls like it was carving nothing but air. Immediately the red lights in the skeletons’ eyes vanished.

The bones went limp, and Jaz pulled herself free of the two skeletons that had ensnared her. She stood and thrust her body between the remaining skeletons and Yuri.

“Stay back!” Jaz shouted. The skeletons obeyed, but didn’t stand down. The last one had gotten to its feet while Yuri had made his attack. They looked like wound automatons just waiting for the right tripwire to be spring before attacking.

“Yuri, we need to leave,” Jaz muttered. She heard Yuri’s breathing, fast and shallow, behind her. “We just need to climb up the other side of the pit, and then put as much distance between us and them as possible.”

“Okay,” Yuri said. As he spoke, Jaz heard the steadiness coming back into his voice. “Okay, okay. We’re going to be okay. Right?”

“Right.”

Jaz stepped towards the wall to their right. They had a few meters of rubble to scale, but above that, she could see the passage continuing into the darkness. Yuri stayed close behind Jaz, pointing his dagger in the direction of the skeletons. They were getting antsy, weapons swaying, shifting their weight from one foot to the other and back.

“We can’t climb out without letting our guard down,” Yuri whispered. “One of us has to stay behind.”

Jaz shook her head, and said, “I have one idea. It’s a spell I’ve been practicing, but I don’t quite have it down yet.”

As they reached the edge of the pit, the skeletons slowly spread out, forming a U shape around Jaz and Yuri.

“There’s always a first time, right?” Yuri said.
“You should duck,” Jaz said. “Now!”
All five of the remaining skeletons leapt forward. The fire on Jaz’s hands

vanished, and the chamber was plunged into darkness. In the fraction of a second that it took her to extend her hand, Jaz closed her eyes and pictured exactly where each creature and object in the room stood. She let it crystalize, then impressed that image onto the real world. But she couldn’t hold it. Her heart leapt, and the only image she could recall was Nidala, the look of shock and betrayal on her face.

Jaz snapped her fingers, and the air exploded. Tiny shards of ice and bone whizzed around them. Jaz was thrust to the ground. She felt the sting of a thousand tiny projectiles cutting her arms and legs as she cradled her head. A tinkling sound filled the entire chamber, echoed off the walls, and slowly receded until silence and darkness were all that remained.

“Are you okay?” Yuri whispered.
Jaz uncurled, propping herself upright. “I’m fine.”
Yuri lit a match, and the cavern was painted in shades of orange. The five

skeletons were gone. In their place, a fine mist hung in the air above piles of ice and

dust. Each was the epicenter of its own field of debris that stretched out to the edges of the room. It looked as though five ice sculptures had been violently destroyed and their remains left to melt.

Yuri picked up the fallen torch, and lit it with a second match after the first died.

Jaz started to lift herself off the ground, then she shrieked. Half an arrow was still lodged in her arm. On top of that, both her arms and lower legs were lacerated from the explosion. Adrenaline had numbed the pain, but now that the danger was past, the arrow and the criss-crossed cuts started to burn. A steady trickle of blood dripped from her fingers.

“Stay still,” Yuri said, “and drink this.”

He knelt beside her and extended a vial large enough for only a mouthful of liquid. It shimmered in the darkness, as though lit by something other than the torch.

Jaz shook her head. “What if Nidala needs it?”

“We won’t even be able to get to her with you bleeding like this.” Yuri uncorked the vial, placed it in Jaz’s hand. “Besides, the temple has its own apothecaries. I can steal anything we need when we get there.”

Jaz grimaced, but nodded as another jolt of pain shot up her arm.

Yuri gently touched, then gripped the arrowhead side of the arrow. Jaz winced. “This might sting a little,” Yuri said.

“I know. Just... be careful.”

“Hey, umm,” Yuri blinked quickly and shook his head as though trying to recall something. “What’s the name of that spell you taught me? On our last date?”

Jaz was confused. “You mean the stunning—”
Yuri pulled out the arrow before she could finish. It stung more than a little.

Jaz’s wounds were healed, but her clothes were still grimy, shredded in places, and her arms and legs were stained with blood. Yuri led the way, torch in hand.

A mix of thoughts and emotions tumbled through Jaz’s head. Yuri could have left her to fend for herself, but he had charged to her aid instead. She had felt something in that moment, the same attraction she had felt when they met in secret weeks before. It wasn’t simple, but she wished it were. She wished she could either cut herself off from her emotions or give full control to them. Those feelings still existed, but they were tainted by Yuri’s actions. Jaz knew deep down that she could never fully trust him again.

They spent another forty minutes or so winding through the tunnels when they finally reached a gate. Bronze bars from floor to ceiling blocked the way forward. In the center, a square plate of metal bore the mold of a young man’s face, like a mask hung up on a wall. Beyond the gate, the halls were lit by lamps hanging from the ceiling. The

tunnels ahead were better maintained than those they had come through. The floors were clean, the walls freshly-painted. Yuri’s posture relaxed as he approached the gate, and Jaz knew they had arrived at the temple of Apollo.

“Te coma, te citharae, te pharetrae,” Yuri said. The eyes of the face glowed, and the bars raised into the ceiling, allowing them passage. The gate closed behind them once they were through.

Once inside the temple, the tunnels became smaller, but more numerous. Distant chants and sounds of string instruments echoed through the halls. At one moment, they seemed to come from one direction, and a few steps later they came from another. Yuri led the way, checking each door or hallway they passed and motioning Jaz along. The rooms they passed were furnished with candles, tables, shrines, and cubbies stuffed with books and scrolls.

“It’s so empty,” Jaz said.

“It must be sundown,” Yuri said. “The priests will be gathered aboveground saying their final rites and prayers for the day. Most of the acolytes will be dining or studying. We need to be fast.”

“Where do you even keep prisoners in a temple? Is there an ancient dungeon from a thousand years ago?”

Yuri shook his head. “No dungeons. We don’t have many reasons to keep prisoners. There is a room nobody, except high priests, is allowed to enter. It’s one of the oldest chambers in the temple. Your sister is there. It’s not far.”

“Sacrificing people must be uncommon if you don’t have someplace to put victims.”

“Don’t call them that,” Yuri said, grimacing. “Most sacrifices are volunteers. It’s an honor to be selected and to give your life to the gods.”

“Is that how you imagined dying?” Jaz asked. Yuri didn’t say anything. He shook his head, and pushed forward. They didn’t speak as they crept deeper into the temple.

“Here,” Yuri said at last. He pointed to an arched doorway with something similar to the emblem of Apollo painted on it — instead of a lyre, though, this sun had at its center a single eye staring out at the hallway.

Yuri opened the door and stepped inside.
“Hurry,” Yuri’s voice ushered from within.
Nidala followed him into the dark room, and Yuri shut the door behind them. She

heard a lock fall into place.
Candles flared to life along the walls and floor. They were standing in a circular

room with an arched ceiling. There were no bricks; the entire chamber had been carved out of the rock itself. The walls were honeycombed with square alcoves, each occupied by a severed head. The heads were predominantly human, though dwarves, elves, and

goblins occasionally joined their ranks. Each head ranged in appearance from mummified and rotten to newly dead. There were young and old faces alike.

Creeping up and into the alcoves, a web of thick laurel vines stretched out across the room, emerging from beneath a stone table in the center of the room. The table was covered in overgrown candles. Atop it sat a gnome child with her hands folded in her lap and legs dangling over the side.

Nidala smiled.
“My sister,” Nidala said.
“You’re alright!” Jaz shouted. She rushed forward, pulling Nidala down from the

table, into a hug. But Nidala didn’t return the embrace, remaining rigid in Jaz’s arms. Jaz stepped back.

“You took your time,” Nidala said, cocking her head to the side. “I was beginning to think Yuri had turned tail on us, maybe fled the city.”

A cold sensation rushed down Jaz’s body. She didn’t recognize the look in Nidala’s eyes or the tone in her voice.

“Who are you?” Jaz said. She looked back at Yuri, who remained frozen at the door. “What did they do?”

Yuri’s lips moved, but his voice was gone. Jaz read, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” again and again.

“You’re brave,” Nidala said. Jaz returned her gaze to the person that was no longer her sister. She noticed vines creeping up and around Nidala’s legs, gripping them. “Coming here with only the boy for reinforcement. But I’ve met many heroes, and even I had difficulty telling the brave from the foolish. It is a narrow distinction.”

“Tell me who you are, and what you want,” Jaz said, backing up further into a defensive stance.

“I am an emissary to the gods,” said Nidala. As she spoke, the vines all around them began to squirm and rustle. Eyes blinked open among the heads on their perches, and one at a time, they alternated speaking. “I delegate and plead on your behalf. I see what has occurred. And what will occur. And what may occur with only a nudge. Apollo blessed me ages ago, and I have served him well ever since.” Nidala spoke last, “I am the oracle. I want what Apollo wants, and what is best for my temple.”

Jaz felt unnerved by the voices and vines all around her. Eyes shifted back and forth, each set taking in a different part of the room. She was being watched from every angle.

“Why do you— Why does Apollo want my sister?” Jaz asked.

Nidala laughed, and so did several of the heads. Then she said, “He doesn’t. She means nothing to us. But, she is valuable.”

“Why?” Jaz asked. Options were playing through her head as they spoke. Jaz needed a spell she could use without speaking, but also capable of setting Nidala free. If she was too slow, the oracle might kill her sister. Or worse.

“Apollo is powerful,” the oracle said, it’s voice jumping around the room. “But his power requires a vessel. A living vessel. I have collected many lives over the years, and with each my power — and knowledge — grows.”

“So, you took my sister to be your next vessel,” Jaz said.

“An opportunity I did not foresee.” Nidala shrugged. She started walking around the room, inspecting the alcoves. The vines trailed behind her. “She was supposed to die, and that would have been the end. But when Yuri failed, I caught a glimpse of a stronger, more powerful vessel.”

Another thought came into her head. Maybe she didn’t need a spell after all. If she could reach Nidala’s throwing knives inside her bag, maybe she could cut Nidala free. Jaz’s hand crept towards her pocket.

“Don’t bother,” said one of the heads behind Jaz. “You and your sister both die in that future.” Nidala chuckled, “Mere metal cannot cut these bonds.” Laurel vines crept closer to Jaz, swaying along the ground like tentacles. “Gods are not harmed by ungodly tools.”

Jaz moved her hand away from her pocket. She looked back at Yuri, whose eyes were wide and face was pale.

“So you want me?” Jaz asked, turning back to Nidala. “You want me to become your new vessel.”

“Yes,” Nidala said. Jaz caught a hungry look in her sister’s eyes. It passed in an instant, a polite grin settling across Nidala’s face. “Your sister’s body is fragile. Already, containing me is taking its toll. But it’s not too late for me to return her.”

“Done,” Jaz said.

“No!” Yuri said. It was the first time he’d spoken since they entered the oracle’s chamber. All eyes turned to him. “Take me. Let both of them go.”

Nidala’s face fell into a look of unrestrained annoyance. “What?” Jaz said. “After all you did?”
“I’m so sorry, but I can't,” Yuri stuttered. “I can’t let you.” “You lured us down here. This is all your fault.”

“Then let me pay for that,” Yuri’s eyes met Jaz’s. She shook her head.

“It’s not your sacrifice to make,” Jaz said. Yuri looked crestfallen, like Jaz had just robbed him of his life’s purpose. Maybe he hadn’t meant to doom them. Maybe somewhere inside, he still thought he could blaze a new path. Only now was he realizing that he couldn’t put off these consequences.

“I do not accept the boy,” said Nidala. She turned her gaze to Jaz. “Only you.” “I’ll do it,” Jaz said. Nidala smiled. Vines wove their way towards Jaz.

“Get my sister home safe,” Jaz said to Yuri. “You have all the right tools.” Yuri frowned at that.

“Your sister is free to go,” Nidala smirked. “If she wants to.”

A vine wrapped itself around Jaz’s ankle. She screamed.