Chapter 10: The Oracle of Ash and Time
The morning broke not with sunlight, but with a sky the color of ash—pale, hollow, and unsettlingly quiet.
Birdsong had not returned to Darn Hollow.
The villagers had tried to go back to their lives, but the shrine's awakening had changed something in the earth itself. Livestock would not approach the temple grounds. Children whispered about shadows that moved against the wind. Elders kept to themselves, lighting herbs at every corner of the village, muttering prayers to distant, silent gods.
Kael stood at the edge of the village, cloak wrapped around his tall form, eyes on the horizon. The white of his sclera had gone faintly silver in the night, and his abyss-black irises gleamed like obsidian glass under the gray sky. Behind him, Lira tightened the straps of her satchel, her fingers trembling as she secured the last of their supplies.
They were leaving.
Not fleeing—but seeking.
"Are you sure she's still alive?" Lira asked, casting a final glance at the shrine behind them.
Kael didn't answer immediately. His mind drifted backward through echoes not entirely his own—memories stitched into his soul like forgotten scars. He remembered flames without heat. A voice like bells drowned in sand. And eyes… white as snow, older than mountains.
"She's alive," he said finally. "She always was. Even after death."
Lira swallowed, her breath fogging faintly in the morning chill. "The Oracle of Ash… she used to serve you?"
"In another age," Kael replied. "She saw the threads of fate before they were woven. The gods silenced her after my fall. I bound her soul to the Ash Vale so she could never truly die."
"Then why didn't she come to you before?" Lira asked.
Kael's jaw tensed.
"Because I wasn't… myself. Not fully. Until the Root Flame accepted me, I was only a shadow."
He turned to face her. "But now the past remembers me. And so does she."
They left Darn Hollow behind.
No one tried to stop them.
No one dared.
---
The journey to the Ash Vale was not measured in miles, but in memory.
It was a cursed region east of the known lands, where trees did not bloom, and the wind tasted of soot. Long ago, fire had consumed the entire forest—yet nothing ever regrew. Not even moss dared to cling to its petrified bones.
As Kael and Lira crossed the first veil of dead pines, the world seemed to hush.
Birds stopped flying overhead. Insects ceased their chittering. Even the distant hum of wind changed, now echoing with ghostly tones, like the haunting of a long-extinct choir.
Kael stopped beside a warped tree, its bark curled and twisted into unnatural spirals.
"She screamed here," he said softly.
Lira looked at him. "Who?"
He placed a hand against the bark. "The Oracle. When the gods tore her eyes from her skull. She would not stop seeing… so they tried to blind her."
Lira stared at the tree, and for a moment, she thought she heard a wail in the distance—raw, feminine, echoing down a thousand years.
"She still sees, even now," Kael said. "But she sees outside of time."
---
They descended deeper into the Vale.
And then they found it.
A circle of standing stones, scorched black. Each one bore a different divine symbol—now crossed out or cracked.
In the center, a single figure sat upon a stone throne, back straight, hands folded in her lap.
She was not breathing.
She did not need to.
Her hair fell around her like rivers of ash, drifting in an invisible wind. Her face was wrapped in silk strips, stained crimson. Yet when Kael approached, she smiled.
"My King." Her voice was dry—like old parchment kissed by flame. "You remembered."
Kael bowed his head. "Aenira. I'm sorry it took so long."
"You were lost," she said. "And now… you are found. Though not yet whole."
Lira stepped forward cautiously. "You're the Oracle?"
Aenira turned her head—though her eyes were long gone, the motion was precise, exact.
"I see you, child of whispers. You carry the scent of prophecy."
Kael crouched before her throne. "The gods stir. But they are not alone. The Forgotten stir beneath the world. They reach for me."
"They never stopped," Aenira whispered. "When they failed to tempt your god-self, they turned to waiting. And now… they smell your blood."
Kael's fingers dug into the black soil. "Can I resist them?"
Aenira reached out with one skeletal hand and cupped his cheek. Her touch was both warm and freezing—paradox made flesh.
"You are the blade. But every blade chooses what it cuts. They will offer you a crown forged from truth. The gods will offer you chains forged from fear. You must choose which binds you more."
Kael closed his eyes.
"I need to remember who I was."
"You will. But memory alone is not power. You must reclaim it." She leaned closer, her voice a breath against the wind. "Go to the temple that should not exist. The one they erased from time. The Throne of Dust. There lies the truth of your death… and the first lie that created the gods."
Lira's eyes widened. "The gods were created?"
Aenira nodded. "By belief. But belief is not always pure. Some gods were born from love. Others from fear. The first gods… were born from Kael."
He froze.
But deep within his soul, something shuddered in agreement.
"I made them…" Kael whispered. "And they betrayed me."
Aenira pulled back, settling into her throne once more. Her body shimmered faintly, beginning to fade.
"I am fading. My duty is done. But I leave you one final gift."
She raised a hand, and a silver flame emerged from her palm, coiling through the air before sinking into Kael's chest.
He gasped as images flooded his mind.
Flashes of golden halls. Of the Thirteenth Throne. Of gods kneeling, not out of fear, but reverence. Of a war where Kael stood alone, bleeding—but undefeated.
And of one face, always beside him.
Lira's.
Even in his godhood… she had followed him.
In every age.
Every time.
"Find the Throne of Dust," Aenira whispered.
And then her body turned to ash.
The wind took her.
Kael stood slowly.
Lira took his hand again. "Are you all right?"
He looked into her eyes, deeper than ever before.
"I don't know," he said honestly.
"But we're going to find out."
He looked toward the east, where the land grew jagged and lost.
Toward the temple the gods had erased.
And in the darkness far below, something smiled once more.