Darkness Revealed (Guardians of Eternity #4)(106)

She gave a shake of her head. The Commission didn’t seem the sort to use nefarious ploys to trick people. And certainly they didn’t seem the sort to play practical jokes. She’d bet her last dime they didn’t even know what the hell a joke was.

On the other hand, she couldn’t believe for a minute that they were actually serious. It was insane to believe she was in any way Oracle material.

The demons would laugh themselves sick.

Christ, she would laugh herself sick.

“No.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Oh no. There has to be a mistake.”

“We do not make mistakes,” the hissing woman said, her voice cold.

Anna’s brows snapped together. Obviously people skills weren’t a necessary requirement to be on the Commission.

“There has to be a first time for everything,” she said tightly. “There’s no way in hell that I’m an Oracle.”

There was a brief stir in the air, as if she’d managed to shock the ancient demons.

“Why are you so certain?” Siljar at last demanded.

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Dammit, what was going on? No one could believe that she was suited to such an important position. Not even remotely.

“In the first place I’m not a demon,” she pointed out, her hands clenched tightly in her lap.

“Neither are you human,” a deep male voice retorted. “Your blood is that of the ancients.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“Your powers are elemental, the most pure of all powers,” the same demon answered. “They draw upon the energy of the nature that surrounds you without the corruption of lesser magic.”

They sounded great. A pity they only worked when they wanted to.

“They’re also unpredictable, randomly destructive, and occasionally missing in action.”

Siljar, or at least Anna assumed it was Siljar, gave a soft laugh. “You are very, very young, Anna Randal. With time you will learn control.”

“Even if by some miracle I do, they will never compare to the sort of power that the rest of you obviously possess.”

There was a deep, rumbling sigh. The sort of sigh that was usually reserved for annoying children.

“You are mistaken,” the gravelly male voice informed her, “but it does not matter. It is not your powers that mark you as an Oracle.”

“Then what does?”

“Your heart.”

Anna gave a choked cough, that numb disbelief threatening to return. She didn’t know squat about these Oracles, but they didn’t strike her as being touchy-feely types. More the do-as-we-say-or-we’ll-rip-your-throat-out types.

For God’s sake, they held Cezar captive for two centuries just because they had a vision he might keep her alive.

“If you truly know my heart then you must realize I can’t play hardball with the rest of you. It’s just not who I am.”

She thought she heard a muttered agreement from more than one of the Oracles, but it was Siljar’s comforting voice that floated through the shadows.

“You have proven a rare ability to fight for justice, even when you knew it was hopeless, even when you knew that all of your efforts would lead to nothing more than disappointment.”

She stiffened in surprise, disturbed by the thought that these demons had been watching her for so many years. Maybe from her very birth.

“You mean my career as a lawyer?”

“It was more than a career, was it not?”

She thought back to her years battling for those who had no voice. Those who were oppressed. Those who were taken advantage of simply because they were too old, too poor, or too frightened to fight back.

It had been more than a career.

It had been a foundation that had given her life meaning.

“I suppose.”

“And the manner in which you confronted Morgana reveals you are capable of overcoming your human emotions and battling an enemy without the desire to punish your opponent,” a deep male voice boomed.

Anna shuddered. Her fight with Morgana had been a nasty necessity that would give her nightmares for centuries to come, not a job reference.

“I trapped her in a chunk of stone.”

“Yes,” the hissing woman murmured. “Quite amusing.”

Right.

Enough was enough.

With a surge of emotion, Anna rose to her feet and glared at the shrouded forms.

“This is crazy.” She shook her head. “There have to be thousands of demons who would make far better Oracles than I ever would. I barely even know about your world.”

“You are young and immature, it is true,” the gravelly voice agreed. “But in a few centuries you will be suitably trained to take your place among us.”

“Why not just take someone who’s ready now?”

“We do not choose Oracles, they are foretold by prophecy. We have known for some time that if you managed to survive Morgana you were destined to join us.”

“Did it occur to you that I might have a better chance of surviving Morgana if you’d helped?”

“But we did,” Siljar reminded her. “We gave you the vampire.”

The tangled emotions oddly eased at the mere mention of Cezar. For all the trials and uncertainty she had endured over the years, not to mention the annoying attempts on her life, she wouldn’t change one damn thing.