A Meet of Tribes (A Shade of Vampire #45)(24)

He cleared his throat, and I pulled myself from him, realizing I was digging too far into his soul. I felt invigorated all of a sudden. Strength returned to my legs. I took a deep breath and thanked him for his support.

Before he could respond, his gaze passed over Aida and froze. His eyes widened in shock. I looked down and gasped at the sight of ink black runes fluttering across her entire body, moving beneath her skin.

“Draven,” I managed to call out. “There’s something going on with Aida.”

“What’s wrong?” I heard him ask from behind.

“Runes… I can see runes on her skin… They’re moving across her body, but they are clear as day!”

“You need to draw as many of them as you can, Serena, in the succession in which they appear,” Draven replied. “Check the cabinet by the door. I keep writing tools in there for various observations during my experiments.”

Field immediately rummaged through a drawer and found an old notebook with off-white paper and a few pieces of charcoal. He brought them over and tore a few pages out for me. We started copying as many runes as we could.

“Experiments?” Field asked, an eyebrow raised as he followed the symbols flickering across Aida’s collarbones.

“This isn’t just a treatment room. It’s also where I study different plants and animals. I’ve had a lot of spare time on my hands,” Draven said bluntly.

“Of course you did,” came my sarcastic remark. “Doctor Frankenstein would be proud.”

“Who’s that?” he asked.

“Never mind,” I muttered, as I hurriedly sketched the runes.

“Are you writing everything down?” Draven asked.

“We’re trying to cover as much as we can,” Field replied. “But a lot of them vanish and re-emerge on different sides.”

“What are these runes anyway?” I frowned over Aida’s left arm, trying to make out the combinations of lines, points, and geometrical shapes forming each symbol. I wondered if she could feel them at all in her state.

“They’re the ancient language of the Oracles. It holds millennia of wisdom and knowledge of Eritopia. It often relates to what visions the Oracles are having in that precise moment and is usually more helpful than the visions themselves,” Draven explained. “One Oracle might just see a tree on a hill, for example, but the runes might talk about the bones of the Ancients buried beneath, bones which, if found, can be ground into a fine powder and used for extremely powerful magic, like my father found out during one of Elissa’s visions.”

I kept writing the sequences down. Aida’s chest moved slowly with each even breath.





Vita





I stood in front of a wide, open space on a terrace made of black limestone and marble. Tall arches rested on slim pillars that framed the circular plateau all around me. The sky above was a dark shade of pink as the sun drifted beneath the horizon to my left.

I turned around and found myself facing the large glass sphere where the Nevertide Oracle floated unconsciously. Her long fingers slid along the glass. Her white eyes opened wide, as if staring directly at me.

“Vita.”

Her voice echoed in my head. This was the second time that I was in a vision of the future and the Oracle could somehow feel me there. It was just as creepy as the first time. I heard noises behind me, grunts and gasps and familiar voices getting closer.

I froze when I watched Aida, Phoenix, and a future version of myself being dragged up to the terrace in iron shackles by three Destroyers. My heart jumped into my throat, and my stomach tightened. Azazel followed behind them wearing a satisfied grin on his face.

A serpent made of gold with small ruby eyes slithered in a figure eight hanging on a chain around his neck. The lower half of his body was massive. I stepped closer to him for a better look. He commanded the Destroyers to put all of us in three glass spheres filled with what looked like water. They were mounted beneath three nearby arches, waiting to be occupied by Oracles.

I wanted to shout, to shoot fire at them, to rip their eyes out with my bare hands. I felt consumed by the rage of feeling useless before this horrifying scene. Phoenix’s eyes were red and swollen, and most of his face was severely bruised. He must have fought the Destroyers. He must have tried to stop this from happening. Aida was passed out. Her feet dragged along the ground. One of the monsters pulled her up like she weighed less than a pillow.

Azazel muttered something, and one of the spheres opened up on one side without spilling over, enough for the Destroyer to shove her inside before it sealed itself back. I watched Aida’s body as it turned and twitched helplessly, the fluid filling her lungs until she stilled. I watched my future self cry and scream out, begging Azazel to stop. A Destroyer’s arm nearly crushed my torso with his grip.

“This is what you get for being naughty little children,” Azazel hissed at us.

I shivered as I watched the Destroyers put Phoenix and my future self into the other two spheres. The liquid filled our lungs until we stopped moving.

“Vita, there isn’t much time left,” I heard the Nevertide Oracle in my head.

I couldn’t face her again. My chest was about to explode from the grief of watching myself and my friends in those spheres, destined for an eternity of misery and imprisonment. Aida floated slowly on one side, enough for me to see her face. Her eyes opened wide—blank and white—and runes emerged and slid across her pale skin.