A Light in the Flame (Flesh and Fire #2)(3)

I fought the shudder, thinking over the prophecy Penellaphe had shared. The part about the desperation of golden crowns could be related to my ancestor King Roderick and the deal he’d made that’d started all of this. But prophecies were only possibilities, and they were… “Prophecies are fucking pointless,” I muttered aloud.

Penellaphe turned her head to me, raising a brow.

I grimaced. “I’m sorry. That came out worse than I intended.”

“I’m curious exactly how you intended that statement,” Nyktos wondered. I shot him an arch stare. “But I do not disagree.”

I stopped glaring at him like I wanted to stab him.

“I understand the sentiment,” Penellaphe said with a bemused expression. “Prophecies can often be confusing, even to those who receive them. And, sometimes, only bits and pieces of a prophecy are known by one—the beginning or the end—while the middle is known to another and vice versa. But some visions have come to pass, both in Iliseeum and in the mortal realm. It’s hard to see this since the destruction of the Gods of Divination and the passing of the last of the oracles.”

“Gods of Divination?” I’d heard of the oracles, rare mortals who had lived long before my birth and were able to communicate directly with the gods without having to summon them.

“They were gods able to see what was hidden to others—their truths—both past and future,” Penellaphe explained. “They called Mount Lotho home and served in Embris’s Court. The oracles would speak to them, and they were the only gods truly welcomed by the Arae.”

“Not the only gods welcomed,” Holland corrected softly.

Penellaphe’s rosy blush momentarily distracted me because there was definitely something going on there.

“Penellaphe’s mother was a God of Divination,” Holland continued. “That is why she was able to share a vision. Only those gods and the oracles could receive the visions the Ancients—the first Primals—dreamt.”

“I don’t have her other skills—the ability to see what is hidden or known,” Penellaphe added. “Nor have I received any other visions.”

“The consequences of what Kolis did when he stole the embers of life were far-reaching. Hundreds of gods were lost in the shockwave of energy,” Nyktos explained. “The Gods of Divination took the hardest hit. They were all but destroyed, and no other mortal was born an oracle.”

Sorrow crept into Penellaphe’s expression. “And with that, what other visions the Ancients dreamt, and may only be known to them, have now been lost.”

“Dreamt?” I lifted my brows.

“Prophecies are the dreams of the Ancients,” she explained.

I pressed my lips together. Most of the Ancients, being the oldest of the Primals, had passed on to Arcadia. “Uh. I did not know prophecies were dreams.”

“I don’t think that piece of knowledge will help change Sera’s opinion of them,” Holland said wryly.

Nyktos huffed out a dry laugh.

“No, I imagine not.” Penellaphe smiled, but it faded quickly. “Many gods and mortals have been born without hearing or seeing even one prophecy or vision, but they were far more common at one time.”

“The vision you had?” I asked. “Do you know which Ancient dreamt it?”

She shook her head. “That is not known to those who receive them.”

Well, of course not. But it didn’t matter since the Ancients had entered Arcadia ages ago. “Prophecies aside, I Ascended Bele when I brought her back to life.” Bele wasn’t a Primal—at least not technically. Her brown eyes had turned the silver of a Primal, and the gods here in the Shadowlands believed that she would now be more powerful, but none knew exactly what it all meant. “That was felt, right?”

“It was,” Penellaphe confirmed. “It wasn’t as strong as when a Primal enters Arcadia, and the Fates raise another to take their place, but every god and Primal would’ve felt the shift of energy that occurred. Especially Hanan.” Worry pinched her brow. As the Primal of the Hunt and Divine Justice, Hanan oversaw the Court that Bele had been born into. “He will know that another has risen to a power that could challenge his.”

“But there is nothing that can be done about that.” Nyktos crossed his arms over his chest.

“No,” Penellaphe agreed softly. “There is not.”

“Only those present when you brought her back know you Ascended Bele.” Nyktos looked at me. “Neither Hanan nor any other Primal knows the full extent of what my father did when he placed the embers of life in the Mierel bloodline.”

A whoosh went through my stomach at the reminder of the even bigger shock and blow that had been dealt. I didn’t know how to come to terms with learning that I’d lived countless lives that I couldn’t remember. That I had been Sotoria, the object of Kolis’s love—his obsession—and the very thing that had started all of this.

I’d thought the stories of the mortal girl who’d been so frightened upon seeing a being from Iliseeum that she had fallen from the Cliffs of Sorrow were just some bizarre legend. But she’d been real. And Kolis had been the one who’d scared her so badly.

How could I be her? I ran from no one and nothing—well, except serpents. But I was a fighter. A—