The Prophecies (The Sentinel Series Book 2) (16 page)

I pushed back the door and walked out onto the grass; the castle loomed over me. A tall, thin man was waiting for me. His blond hair was swept back from his face and hung long down his back. He had a pinched look as he viewed me with distaste.

‘I am Sebastian of the Oraculum,’ he said, and then turned and walked towards the great metal portcullis. I guessed I was supposed to follow him so I hurried on to catch up with him. As we walked under the portcullis, I half expected it to come crashing down on me; its sharp points gleamed menacingly as I went under.

I caught up with Sebastian and fell in at his side, which clearly displeased him. By the look he gave me he expected me to follow him not stand equal to him.

I had promised I wouldn’t go in there defiant, but I wasn’t going to be submissive either. Sebastian walked at my side, not saying a word, not even looking at me. So this was how they wanted to play it then? They were going to be the over-stern headmaster and I was the naughty student, about to be expelled or put into detention for life.

I sighed heavily as we walked up the steps.

Sebastian slowed and stopped. Turning towards me, he surveyed me through narrowed eyes.

I looked back at him. I had to learn to trust these guys; my future depended on their support.

‘Sebastian, I kind of get the feeling that you guys aren’t behind me, that you are regretting the little experiment you made. I kind of feel I’m facing the end of the world alone.’

He frowned. ‘I suppose it does feel that way. We’re not happy that you would risk your life so readily when we have spent the last seventeen years protecting you so fiercely.’ He looked away. ‘There are those on the council who would die for you,’ he mumbled, so quietly I could barely hear him. ‘And those who wouldn’t.’

I stared at him, his mouth clenched angrily. ‘And where do you stand?’

His eyes flashed. ‘The prophecies are never wrong, despite what you have heard, and some on the council seem to have forgotten that. Even if we don’t agree with the prophecies, they can never be changed, they never alter, even if we try and run away from them, they always come true.’

I sighed again. ‘Talk about sidestepping the question.’

‘Come on, the rest of the council will want to see you,’ he said, gruffly, touching my elbow as he turned away.

As he touched me I was suddenly filled with an image, so clear, so vivid, like a film played in my head. It was almost like a memory but it wasn’t mine. It was an image of Sebastian kneeling before me, pledging to me, swearing to protect me, to die for me. It was obviously an image that Sebastian had just given me. And by the way he had covertly given it to me; it was obviously something he didn’t want anyone else to know about.

‘A prophecy?’ I whispered.

Sebastian nodded his head the tiniest of fractions, as he pushed open the great oak doors.

‘Oh,’ I said, quietly. ‘Thanks.’

As we stepped through into the dark corridor, my eyes adjusted. I was standing on a marble floor that stretched, dark and gleaming down a long corridor, to a set of great, gold patterned doors. The corridor was lined with burning torches, set in gold brackets.

I followed Sebastian down the corridor, his fists clenched angrily at his side. I looked at him warily. Everything about him was screaming a furious rage and I was right, he suddenly whirled round to face me, his eyes livid in the light of the torches.

‘
Don’t misunderstand me,’
he growled in my head. ‘
If it comes down to a fight for your life, if it comes to a choice between you living and dying, I will fight to the death for you. But I will not turn against the Oraculum so easily, and I hope, with every fibre of my soul, that the day I pledge to you never comes. I will do everything in my power to serve the Oraculum, to keep it together, united. A world without the Oraculum doesn’t bear thinking about. As far as I am concerned, we have let you have your way for far too long and it is time we reined you in. You belong to us, we created you and we will control you,’
he seethed
.

He turned and stormed down the corridor ahead of me, leaving me feeling confused and cold. He pushed open the gold patterned doors, and they echoed loudly down the corridor as they slammed open.

I walked slowly into a great room and the door slammed behind me. The room had great ceilings, adorned with gold leaves, twisting and climbing over every surface. The black marble floor continued in here as well, as did the burning torches. There were several doors leading off the chamber, each protected with two huge Guardians. But the thing that held my attention was the nine towering plinths in an arc around the room in front of me. The plinths seemed to be made of a dark, shiny mahogany, and towered at least ten feet above me. At each plinth sat a man, each of them dressed in a blue cloak, each of them sharing the same look of distaste that Sebastian had reserved for me. Sebastian went up some steps on my left which led to a higher balcony that wound round behind the plinths. He followed the balcony round to the empty plinth near to the end, swept his blue cloak round his shoulders, and then sat down on his plinth, joining in with the staring and looks of distaste. I looked up at all the men, wondering if they all hated me as much as Sebastian did.

Cain had said that Nereus and Helez were loyal to me, but loyal in the same way that Sebastian was? That was the kind of loyalty I could do without. I wondered which ones were Nereus and Helez. My eyes scanned the men closely, looking for any glimmer of friendliness, a glimmer of hope. Samuel I had seen briefly at the church when I had just started my training a few months before. Matthias had come to me after I’d saved the plane crash and Jonah and Nathaniel I recognised as the ones I had inadvertently spied on. Cain was sitting on the central plinth and I wondered if there was a reason why he occupied that plinth. There wasn’t a glimmer of warmth from him either. I looked at the three I had not yet met. Leon, Nereus and Helez, all of which were supposedly loyal to me though I didn’t know which was which.

The moment of silence lasted what seemed like an eternity.

Was I supposed to say something? Because if I was, no one had handed me my cue. I continued to stare up at them, my neck beginning to ache with the height that they sat above me.

Samuel suddenly stood up in annoyance. ‘Enough of this,’ he roared, and sweeping his blue cloak round his shoulders he left the plinth and disappeared out the doors directly behind him. They slammed shut, the loud boom echoing round the great chamber.

Matthias stood with a heavy sigh. ‘Jonah, why don’t you show Eve to her room.’ He swept his cloak round his shoulders and he too disappeared out the double doors, but with less theatrics than Samuel.

Cain stood too. ‘I suggest we reconvene at two.’

The other remaining men nodded once and swept out of the room too. Cain hovered for a fraction of a second but left with them, leaving Jonah staring down at me thoughtfully. He gathered his cloak around him and swept gracefully down the stairs towards me.

‘I am Jonah of the Oraculum,’ he said, his voice deep and gravelly. The look of distaste was gone, but it had not been replaced by a look of warmth, more a look you would give a strange creature you had never seen before, a look of mild curiosity. ‘Follow me please.’ He swept towards the nearest set of double doors, which the Guardians moved to open. I quickly followed.

This corridor was dark and barely lit and immediately Jonah went down some stone steps that curved down and round, going so deep that I was sure that we were going into the depths of the mountain. As we followed the steps down, it got colder and colder, and my heart started beating faster.

‘How do you like your new personal guard, Caleb’s replacement?’

My step faltered, knowing instantly who he meant. I hadn’t made the connection before with his continued presence. ‘Isaac?’

‘Yes.’

I sighed. ‘He doesn’t like me.’

‘He doesn’t need to like you; in fact it’s better if he doesn’t. We don’t need any more Guardians indulging you.’ He paused. ‘He is pledged to you though.’ But I couldn’t tell whether Jonah thought this was a good thing or not.

Eventually we reached the bottom of the stairs and a Guardian opened up a big, thick set metal gate that led to a long stone corridor, only lit by the occasional torch. I followed Jonah and the Guardian followed me. My heart roared in my ears. At the very end, in the dim darkness, was another metal gate which the Guardian opened. I couldn’t see what was past the gate, there was just darkness.

‘Eve, please,’ Jonah motioned me to go in. I hesitated, swallowing nervously at what I couldn’t see. But the Guardian stood threateningly close behind me and I knew I would be made to go in, if I didn’t go through willingly. Checking my pocket for Quinn’s presence, I stepped into the darkness and the iron gate closed behind me, with an ominous clang.

I turned back to face Jonah as the Guardian locked the gate.

‘I’ll collect you in a few hours Eve, I suggest you use the time to think.’ Jonah turned and walked back up the corridor with the Guardian, disappearing into the gloom. A few seconds later, I heard the clang of the metal gate at the other end of the corridor. I was alone.

I turned back to my cell, trying to adjust my eyes to the darkness from the limited light that came from the corridor. But it was so dark down here I couldn’t even make out the walls. They could have been just in front of me or twenty metres away. I looked over my shoulder back up the corridor to check I wasn’t being watched, but there was no one out there and the silence from the cell suggested I was alone in here too.

I closed my eyes and reached for my powers, hoping that I still had them and created a tiny flame in my hand. I was surprised how quickly and easily my powers came. Maybe the force field didn’t stretch this far down the mountain. I held the flame out and the flickering light caught the four walls. The cell was no more than a small bed, and a short metre of space between the bed and the other wall. I lay down on the bed and let my light wink out as I closed my eyes.

Despite the fact that I wasn’t trying to use my powers, I could still feel them tearing through my veins, pounding through my heart. It was only now as I lay in my cell that I realised that it wasn’t fear that had caused my heart to pound furiously as we descended the stairs, it was my power. I could only normally feel my powers when I reached out for them, ready to use them; at all other times I didn’t even know they were there. And the power that I could feel through me now was an inordinate amount of power. The kind I had only ever experienced once when I had fought the Reapers, and I wasn’t even trying to use them now. My heart raced, my head pounded with the power that was consuming me. I tried taking deep breaths but it didn’t relent. A huge part of me wanted to see what I could achieve with this power, it would be immense. I could literally turn this great castle to dust, and probably the mountain too. I grinned in the darkness, that would show the Oraculum who was in charge. Their precious castle turned to ash and me standing amongst the ruins. So powerful they couldn’t even touch me. But I had promised I would be good and not act like an idiot. I didn’t really want an execution on my hands.

I fished in my pocket and pulled Quinn out, sitting him carefully on my stomach. He eyed me angrily. It was surprising that even as a mouse I could still pick up on his moods.

‘It’s ok Quinn,’ I said quietly. ‘So they’ve locked me in a cell, they’re just trying to make me sweat; they’re coming back for me in a few hours.’

His whiskers twitched, and he hopped down from the bed, and scurried off into the darkness, presumably to explore the cell.

I rolled on my side, trying to ignore the power surging through me. No sooner had I got comfortable than I heard the sound of the metal gate clanging at the end of the corridor and the sound of footsteps on the stone floor getting louder as my visitor came towards me. I climbed off the bed and went to stand at the entrance to my cell.

The man who came to stand before me was one of the ones I hadn’t met. He was the youngest of the Oraculum, he looked to be about Quinn’s age. Though his hair, short at the back with a fashionably long fringe, swept over his eyes, was silvery white, indicating he was perhaps a lot older than he looked. His eyes too were of a silver colour. He stared at me through the bars, and the more he stared the more he smiled.

‘I’m Leon,’ he finally said.

‘Hi Leon,’ I said, quietly.

‘They can hear us, it’s best to speak like this,’
he said in my head, as he leaned back against the wall, looking at the floor.

‘Ok.’
I had to be careful what I said to them. There was so much double crossing going on, I wasn’t sure who I could trust anymore.

‘
So what’s your take on the Oraculum then? Pompous, arrogant, back stabbers?’

I looked down at my red converse trainers; he wasn’t going to get me to admit to any of that.

‘
They are though aren’t they?’
he pressed on. ‘
Sitting around on those great plinths, looking down on you, sitting in judgement, it makes me cringe. We’re not normally like that you know. We normally meet in much less formal situations. We sit, eat, share our prophecies, talk about what we intend to do about them. But you…..’
he shook his head with amusement. ‘
You have grabbed hold of the Oraculum and shook them up. Ripped out the foundations from underneath us. Now we meet in secret and only then with those we think that we can trust the most, and even then we are careful what we say. The prophecies are not shared anymore; we keep them to ourselves in case we are sharing them with someone who doesn’t feel the same as us. It’s sad really, we’ve sat on the council for close to four hundred years, watched many kings and queens come and go. Watched rulers try to destroy their own countries and then invade other countries. We’ve bore witness to so many changes, technological, territorial, philosophical and we’ve always shared what we see about the future. We have always agreed on the best course of action, even when that course of action meant we did nothing. There has never been a time to distrust each other, to doubt each other and now that has all changed.’
Leon slid down the wall and sat on the floor with his legs crossed, leaning his head back and closing his eyes, looking like he was deep in meditation or prayer.