The Prophecies (The Sentinel Series Book 2) (22 page)

I sat on my beach for a while, watching the rhythmic pattern of the waves lapping onto the sand. I thought about killing Sophia, about what I had become. A few months ago, before I entered this weird world, I couldn’t even bring myself to kill a spider, even though I hated them. If I found one in my room, I would scoop it up in a mug or glass and throw it out the window. When I’d run over a rabbit in my Dad’s car, I’d cried for ages. But now, I had become a killer, a murderer, just as Helez had said. I couldn’t help thinking about Samuel’s prophecy, or what he claimed was his prophecy of me turning mad. Could I really have it in me to turn mad, to kill people, to destroy the world? Sophia’s death had been so easy, would the world be so easy to destroy too? That was a sickening thought. Destroying the world I had been created to save. Killing thousands or millions of people. And no one would be able to stop me, I’d be too strong.

I jerked awake. The room was in darkness, but Seth shifted next to me sensing I was awake. I rolled over away from his unending patient gaze.

Would he stand loyal to me? Would he stand by my side as I destroyed the earth, as I murdered innocent people? What if Samuel’s prophecy was true and with their hope, their single minded ferocity, that I would save the world, the Oraculum were steadfastly ignoring it and pretending it was never going to happen. With Samuel dead would anyone try and stop me? Would anyone kill me if I got out of hand, if I turned evil? Would anyone stop me before I got as far as destroying the world? When the insanity started to take hold, would any of them kill me?

Seth wouldn’t. He loved me. No matter what I did he would always love me. Just like Sophia and her daughter, Mia. Sophia said Mia was sick and twisted and fanatical, but she still loved her. That would be Seth, holding me in his arms, kissing me as I tortured and murdered innocent people.

I needed someone to promise they would kill me if I got that far. Cain had side stepped it when I asked him earlier. I needed someone who would be capable of killing me, who wouldn’t be tied by a pledge to protect me.

Eli, Lucas, Quinn, Persia, Alexandria, Mason? They wouldn’t stop me either, they cared about me too much. Mason. That was a glimmer of hope. He was the only one of my personal guard to be pledged to the Oraculum instead of me. Maybe he could stop me if the others couldn’t.

I lay there for a moment but sleep was very far away right now. I got up, pulled on a hoodie and some shoes.

‘I need to talk to Mason,’ I said to the shadow of my fiancé.

‘Ok.’

Knowing that I was about to ask Mason to kill me I didn’t think it was a good idea if he came with me.

Thankfully Mason and Alexandria were stationed outside my room. I motioned for him to follow me and without batting an eye he fell in at my side as I walked down the corridor. Alexandria followed me too but I didn’t mind. If Mason was to agree to kill me then my personal guard would have to know too.

I was soon walking through the main doors and going down the steps towards the woods. Mason took his jacket off and wrapped it round me. They didn’t even ask why or where I was going. The trees swallowed me as I walked into the darkness.

As I reached a clearing I stopped and started pacing back and forth. I quickly realised that this was where I had asked Seth to marry me.

I eyed Mason; he looked back at me with confusion.

‘How is your pledge different to that of Alexandria’s?’

Mason shifted awkwardly. ‘I pledge to do what the Oraculum orders, to obey without question. Alexandria pledged to protect you at all costs and to obey you without question. At the moment the Oraculum’s orders are to protect you, to obey you, so it is the same thing.’

‘So if the Oraculum orders you to kill me, you would have to do it?’

‘Yes,’ Mason said, honestly. ‘But I would kill myself before I ever got close enough to you to carry out that order.’

I tutted angrily. ‘What if the Oraculum orders me killed for a very good reason? What if killing me saves the world, would you kill me then?’

Mason looked shocked at this. ‘No I couldn’t.’

I resumed my angry pacing.

‘Seth’s coming,’ Alexandria said, simply.

Seth appeared out of the air, eyed me with confusion and then went to sit down on a broken tree stump. They all watched me silently as I wore a path on the forest floor. After a few minutes, Seth stood and forcibly stopped me, his hands on my shoulders. ‘Do you want to tell me what’s going on?’ he asked me gently.

I sighed and Seth led me to the tree stump, where I sat with my head in my hands. Seth put his arm round me. Eli and Lucas needed to hear this as well, I called them to me. They appeared looking at me in confusion.

‘Samuel says he had a prophecy that I would turn mad, that the strength of my power would turn me evil, that it is me who destroys the world, not saves it.’

Alexandria gasped. ‘But the prophecies are never wrong.’

I sighed. I explained how there was a rift between the Oraculum and how there was a prophecy that Nereus would kill Samuel over something to do with me, that the members of the Oraculum met in secret now and no one was truthful with each other, how no one knew where or what anyone stood for, who was loyal to me or not. I explained how Cain, Nereus, Helez, Leon and probably Matthias and Sebastian were loyal to me, that they still believed I would save the world. I told them that Cain believed that Samuel had made this prophecy up to try to discredit me, to try to save his own skin.

I finished my explanation and the silence filled the woods.

‘Well that’s ok then, it’s just a load of rubbish. Samuel’s just making it up to save his butt. Eve, there isn’t an evil bone in you, you’re worrying over nothing.’ Seth squeezed my shoulder.

Eli took my hand and I looked up into his calm eyes. ‘Eve you are so compassionate, so caring, so loving, there is no way that prophecy could be true.’

‘But what if it is? What if one day I turn mad and evil? What if I start murdering people and destroying the world? Are any of you going to stop me? Are any of you going to kill me, to stop me?’

The silence stretched on, whether they were communicating silently with each other or whether they had no words, I wasn’t sure but it was deafening.

Eli knelt before me, still holding my hand. ‘We can’t kill you; we are pledged to protect you….’

‘I know, but what if I ordered you to, what if I ordered you to kill me if things go wrong? Do my orders supersede the protection?’ As I asked the question, I knew the answer. I had once ordered Seth not to protect me in an attempt to save him from dying for me, but Eli had told me that the pledge didn’t work like that.

Eli shook his head. ‘No your protection is more important than anything else.’

‘What then?’ I growled angrily. ‘Are you guys all just going to stand by and let me do it?’

‘No baby, it seems the Putarians have drugs to suppress your powers, they’re getting very good at that. We would be able to get hold of some of that very easily. Then we would tie you up, or knock you out if necessary. We couldn’t kill you, but we wouldn’t stand by and let you turn into a monster either.’

I looked at Seth hopefully. ‘You would stop me, promise me you would stop me?’

Seth nodded, solemnly. ‘I promise baby.’

I turned to the others. ‘Will you guys promise as well, that you will stop me, somehow, anyhow, if it comes to the worst?’ I stood up. ‘Will you pledge to me now that you will stop me in any way it takes?’

They looked at each other and back at me and nodded, all of them promising that they would.

I suddenly felt lighter, suddenly so much happier. I had a backup plan and a solid one at that. If I was to turn mad, they would stop me. I could sleep easy now.

‘Thank you,’ I said quietly.

They all nodded.

‘Now how about you slide us back to the castle, it’s freezing out here,’ Seth said.

I smiled and nodded. They all shuffled forward and took hold of me and I slid us all back to the corridor. Isaac was waiting, hovering impatiently at being kept out of the loop.

‘Shall I tell Isaac?’
Eli asked in my head.

I shook my head and he nodded.

I wanted to be stopped but knowing Isaac he would stop me if I so much as sneezed wrong.

I went back into my bedroom and Seth followed me in, closing the door behind him. I rubbed his arms, trying to get him warm and he put his arms around me.

‘This is the only warmth I need,’ he said.

I leant against him sleepily. I was so tired. Seth kissed my forehead and sighed. ‘When I said yes to marrying you, I thought it would be the traditional, ‘I promise to love, honour and obey’, I didn’t realise I would be promising to drug you and tie you up as well.’

I chuckled sleepily, then my heart leapt at his words.

I pulled back. ‘Did you arrange our wedding?’

His smile split his face. ‘Yes, just as you said, on that beach in Mexico.’

‘When?’

His grin was even wider. ‘Tomorrow.’

I shrieked throwing myself around him, all tiredness forgotten. As he fell back on the bed, my mouth was already on his. He rolled on top of me, pinning me with his delicious weight as the kiss continued but as my powers started to roll through me at his touch he pulled back. I realised from the look in his eyes the fact that he had pinned me to the bed was tactical. He didn’t want me storming off.

‘We need to talk about your protection.’

I sighed. ‘Is it wrong of me to just want it to be us?’

Seth bit his lip, thoughtfully. Would he let me have that? Could my wedding really and truly be completely Guardian free? That was what I had wanted when we had gone to Cyprus, just a few days away from everyone. Behind my back Seth and Eli had organised for there to be a whole host of Guardians there. But it was this attempt to protect me, to ensure a Guardian presence that had flagged my arrival up to the Putarians in the first place. If me and Seth had truly gone alone, then no one would have been any the wiser.

‘If that’s what you want,’ Seth said, though I could see he was smiling about it.

It was what I wanted, so much. I cared deeply for my Guardians but my every move was followed by them and sometimes it was so oppressive I felt like I couldn’t breathe. They worried about me so much. If I so much as coughed, they were at my side. For once I didn’t want my wedding day to be about me or my protection, but about me and Seth promising ourselves to each other, and only that.

‘That’s what you said about my holiday to Cyprus, completely Guardian free you said, and Jacob, Noah and Isaac came along for the ride too plus ten or twelve others.’

‘That was a mistake, lying to you was a mistake too. If you want it to be just me and you then that’s fine, we’ll do it, though I do have a few conditions.’

I nodded, encouraged by the chance of a Guardian free wedding.

‘If I tell you to run you run. If I tell you to shield yourself you do it. If I tell you to slide home, to call your Guardians, you do it without question, without argument, you do it straight away.’

I nodded. I could certainly live with those conditions. I wasn’t stupid, I knew that the queue of people wanting to kill me was ridiculously long and going out there into that dangerous world with only one Guardian was very risky. If something happened then I had to be prepared to flee or fight. ‘I promise, whatever you say, I’ll do.’

Seth pressed on. ‘I never leave you for a second.’

I grinned. ‘That’s the general idea of a wedding, the promise to be with each other for the rest of our lives.’

‘Eve.’

‘I promise,’ I said, solemnly.

‘And we use fake names.’

I gasped. ‘No! No way. I want to be married to you legally, completely. I want to be Eve Hamilton. I’m not going to marry you as Sarah McKenzie marrying Daniel Stone. We won’t actually be properly married then, not officially.’

Seth sighed. ‘A lot of people know your name. The Putarians just have to get a whiff of Eve Jones and Seth Hamilton and they’ll be there like a shot, it’s too dangerous.’

‘I’m not marrying anyone else but Seth Hamilton and I refuse to let you marry anyone else, either.’

‘Ok, ok. I’ve booked it under fake names and we’ll keep it that way until the last possible moment. We’ll explain that we are celebrities back in England and didn’t want anyone to know.’

I thought about it for a moment then nodded. ‘Ok.’

Seth smiled. ‘Then we can get married alone, no Guardians, just you and me, I promise.’

I grinned and leaned up to kiss him.

‘Now get some rest. Mexico is twelve hours behind us here, so we actually have about twenty four hours before we wed.’

‘And then you’re mine, until death do us part.’

Seth frowned at this. ‘How about for forever, that’s much more cheerful.’

I smiled as he rolled over, pulling me onto his chest. Forever seemed very far away but right then I was going to take it.

I knew I had to keep myself distracted; the excitement of my forthcoming nuptials was too much to bear. Plus I had to make sure I didn’t think about it too much or Lucas would see it in his own head.

I’d been for a run but now needed something else to distract me and a good fight with Zach seemed like the very thing. Although as I grabbed Mason and headed down to the field behind the fort, I realised that Caleb had taken my secret sparring with him to the grave and Mason might not be so understanding.

As we neared the end of my corridor, Isaac appeared from one of the rooms. Great, he had moved up here now. He scowled at me as I walked past. I forced a smile onto my face; maybe if I was nice to him, he might grow to like me.

‘Where you going?’ he asked Mason gruffly. Why couldn’t he talk to me?

‘For a walk,’ replied Mason.

‘Shall I come? She should really have two Guardians protecting her.’

‘Its fine Isaac, we aren’t going far.’

Isaac’s scowl deepened as we walked off.

‘Thanks Mason,’ I muttered, as we walked down the stairs.

‘Where are we going?’

‘I erm… spar with the Guardlings sometimes.’ I didn’t look at him but I could tell he was taking this in. ‘Caleb used to come with me, he promised to keep it secret.’