Forcefully, she turned her thoughts to Raffe. A good man, a gentle man, someone who always strove to do right. He loved her, even though she didn’t deserve it, and shouldn’t that be the kind of connection she wanted? Love unconditional, love she couldn’t tarnish, even with her hands so bloodstained?
But she could still hear Solmir’s voice, calling down that corridor into the cairn. Coming to save her, even if it was just because they needed each other.
Solmir wasn’t good, but he was… something. And that something made her have to fight to keep thinking of him as an enemy. Fight to keep her thoughts in simple dichotomies of right and wrong and good and bad, because the places between were treacherous.
The opening to the Oracle’s cave was on another jut of bone, this one made of what appeared to be a giant femur, rounded ends spearing into open space. Smaller bones cluttered the entrance, creating a low wall. At first, the bones puzzled Neve, ridiculously small against the vastness of the Old Ones’ remains. She took a step closer to the cave mouth to peer at them, wrinkling her nose against the fetid smell wafting from the opening.
The remains of lesser beasts, wings and claws, strangely shaped skulls, so many other bones that bore no resemblance to anything she could name. All of them were scored with teeth marks.
She backed up so quickly, she nearly tripped over her ripped hem.
Solmir stood near the rounded edge of the giant femur, like he didn’t want to be near the cave, either. “Don’t let its looks fool you,” he cautioned, voice pitched low. “The Oracle was one of the most dangerous Old Ones even before most of them died.”
“So how do we kill it?”
He didn’t answer at first. When Neve glanced at him, Solmir was twisting that silver ring around and around his thumb again, jaw held tight. The tension of it made the scars on his brow darken.
“You don’t worry about it,” he said finally. “You stay as far away from the Oracle as possible.”
No humor in his voice, just the flat tone of an order. Neve bristled against it—she resoundingly hated taking orders—but now, about to face a god he knew, didn’t seem like the time to argue. She could always bring it up as a point of contention later.
And it was bolstering, to think there would definitely be a later.
The piece of god-bone lay heavy against her hip. Wordlessly, Neve dug it out, held it in Solmir’s direction.
He shook his head. “You hold on to it for now.”
“Are you sure?”
“Just trust me.”
Their eyes met, dual realizations—both that the statement should have been totally ludicrous, and that, somehow, it no longer felt that way.
Neve slid the bone back into her pocket. Then she and Solmir walked into the cave.
It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, but not because of darkness—her pupils contracted against unexpected light, a soft glow from somewhere deeper in the cavern. On the floor, more rings of bones, stratified and grown higher than the one right at the cave’s opening, as if whatever had made the piles once had a greater range of movement than it did now.
Solmir nudged one of the bones with his toe, turning it over to reveal more teeth marks. “It kept loosening its restraints,” he said quietly. “I finally had to use god-bone to keep it lashed to the floor.”
“You imprisoned it?” He’d said as much before, but now, faced with concrete proof of the Oracle’s violence, the feat seemed nearly impossible. “How? And why?”
“Luck, mostly.” Gingerly, Solmir stepped over the first ring of bones. “As for the why, it’s a long story, and this timing is less than ideal.”
She couldn’t argue there. “But you’ll tell me after.”
He made a noise that wasn’t assent or disagreement. Circumstances being what they were, Neve didn’t push.
As they moved forward, the glow at the back of the cavern gradually grew brighter. It was soft, diffuse, like shafts of sunlight seen through morning mist. The gentleness of it sat strangely against the carnage of gnawed-on skulls.
The last ring of bones was high enough to obscure Neve’s view of whatever lay on the other side, though she could tell whatever it was emanated that glow. Solmir paused, twisting his ring again. Blue eyes slanted her way, then down to her pocket.
Neve read his meaning: Keep the bone hidden. She nodded.
Solmir went first, climbing over the bone-pile with more grace that the shifting shards should’ve allowed. Neve followed, her torn nightgown making the ascent fairly easy. The chill of the Shadowlands might make it less than ideal, but at least she could run with her skirt tattered to strips, and that seemed more prudent.
Then she topped the rise.
A circular stone dais sat beyond the wall, its color bleached white in the glow from the figure that stood on it.
A beautiful, almost human figure.
The god was dainty and feminine, delicately boned. White hair fell shimmering to the floor, almost indistinguishable from the long white robe that covered the figure from neck to ankle, leaving its arms bare. Its forehead and eyes were covered by a silver wire mask, attached to a crown of rotting roses. Chains bound thin wrists, stained dark and crusted with what might’ve been ink or dried blood, anchored to the stone floor in front of it with shards of ivory. More chains around its waist, similarly anchored, a bound deity in a palace of chewed bones.
The Oracle.
Solmir stood at the foot of the dais, glaring up at the Old One with undisguised hatred. The god didn’t acknowledge him at all, didn’t so much as twitch when Neve slid down the bone-pile, though a clatter of stirred vertebrae fell to the floor in her wake.
Solmir didn’t look at Neve when she stepped up next to him, but he did shoulder in front of her slightly, like he wanted to stay between her and the god he’d imprisoned.
Neve let him. Out of all the things she’d seen since coming to this strange, upside-down world, this slight, girlish figure in the decaying flower crown was the most unsettling.
For a handful of heartbeats, they stood in silence.
Then the Oracle: “Aren’t you going to cede your power, Solmir? That’s the polite thing to do. Or are you just going to stare at me all day?”
“I’d rather eat glass than cede power to you.” He didn’t snarl it. He said it measured and matter-of-fact, and the words were sharper for it.
The Oracle angled its head to look at them through its wire mask. Darkness stained the skin beneath it, as if the god’s eyes had rotted and dripped from the sockets like egg yolks. More black stains marred its gown, the remains of some bloody feast.
Neve thought of all those teeth marks and swallowed.
“I see,” the Oracle said slowly, voice gentle and smooth. “Still upset over centuries-old hurts. Not surprising, I suppose. Our kind have long memories, and the ages melt together eventually.”
“You and I are not remotely the same thing,” Solmir replied.