Hidden (House of Night #10)(34)

I glanced down at Shaylin's clenched hands and saw that her fingers had gone white. I knew how she felt. I'd had to stand up to a powerful High Priestess shortly after I'd been Marked, too.

I moved closer to Shaylin. "Whatever you want to call what she sees, Shaylin has a gift. I agree with Damien. I think it's True Sight."

"We all do," Stevie Rae said.

"Can you help me?" Shaylin asked.

Thanatos surprised me then. She didn't say anything. She turned and walked over to her desk, gazing down at it as if the answer to Shaylin's question were written on the big daily calendar she used as a desk pad. She just stood there like that, with her head bowed, for what seemed like a super ridiculously long time. I'd decided that I needed to clench my hands behind me to keep from fidgeting, too, when the High Priestess finally turned around and faced the four of us.

"Shaylin, the answer I have for you is the same as the answer I have for Zoey and Stevie Rae and Aphrodite." I heard Aphrodite mutter something about not remembering asking her a damn question, but Thanatos spoke over her. "Each of you has been unusually gifted by our Goddess, and that is fortuitous for us because we will need all of the powers Light can gift us with if we are to battle Darkness."

"You mean beat Darkness, don't ya," Stevie Rae said.

I knew Thanatos's answer before she spoke it. "Darkness can never truly be beaten. It can only be battled and exposed by love and Light and truth."

"Losing side. Again," Aphrodite said under her breath.

"I am going to give each of you a task so that you may exercise your gifts. Prophetess, I give the first to you," Thanatos spoke to Aphrodite.

Aphrodite sighed heavily.

"You have been gifted by Nyx with visions that are warnings of dire things to come. Did you have a vision before Neferet's press conference?"

"No." Aphrodite looked surprised by Thanatos's question. "I haven't had a vision for about a week now."

"Then what good are you, Prophetess?" Her words were hard, cold. Thanatos almost sounded cruel.

Aphrodite's face got real pale, and then blazed with pink. "Who are you to question me? You're not Nyx. I don't answer to you. I answer to her!"

"Exactly." Thanatos's expression relaxed. "Then answer to her. Listen to her. Watch for her signs and signals. Your visions have become increasingly painful and difficult, have they not?"

Aphrodite nodded in a quick tight movement.

"Perhaps that is because our Goddess wishes for you to exercise your gift in other ways. You did so, briefly, before the High Council. Remember?"

"Of course I remember. It's how I knew Kalona and Zoey's souls had left their bodies."

"But you didn't need a vision to tell you that."

"No."

"My point has been made," Thanatos said. She turned to Stevie Rae. "You are the youngest High Priestess I have ever met, and I have lived a very long time. You are the first red vampyre High Priestess in the history of our people. You have a powerful affinity for earth."

"Yeaaah." Stevie Rae drew the word out as if she was waiting for Thanatos's punch line.

"It is your task to practice leadership. You defer to Zoey far too often. You are a High Priestess. Draw strength from the earth and begin behaving as a High Priestess should." Thanatos didn't give Stevie Rae a chance to respond. Her dark gaze skewered Shaylin. "If you have True Sight your gift is only as good as you are. Do not squander it on pettiness and jealousies."

"That's why I'm here," Shaylin spoke quickly. "I want to learn how to use it the right way."

"That, young fledgling, is something you must grow up and teach yourself. Your task is to study those around you. Come to your High Priestess with your results. Stevie Rae will use the power of her element, as well as her growing leadership power, to guide you."

"But I don't know-" Stevie Rae began and Thanatos cut her off. "And you never will know. Anything. Anything important at all. Unless you take on the responsibility of being a High Priestess. Learn to rely on yourself so that others may feel secure in relying on you."

Stevie Rae closed her mouth and nodded, looking like she was about twelve and the exact opposite of a High Priestess. But I didn't have time to say anything to her because Thanatos had finally turned her torpedo eyes on me.

"Use your Seer Stone."

"Huh?"

"It frightens you," she spoke as if I hadn't said anything. "The truth is the world should frighten you, should frighten all of you, right now. Fear is not a reason to avoid your responsibilities. You have a piece of old magick that responds to you. Use it."

"How? For what?" I blurted.

"A Seer Stone, a True Color gift, a Prophetess, a High Priestess-all of those powerful things are useless unless you all begin to answer those questions for yourself. You say you are not bickering children? Prove it. You are dismissed." She turned her back to us and strode to her desk.

My friends and I obviously had the same impulse at the same time. As one we began scurrying for the exit door.

"I will light Dragon Lankford's pyre at midnight. Be present for the ceremony. Immediately afterward I need you and the rest of your circle in the school lobby. I have called my own press conference."