“Yeah,” Gabriel said, giving his wings a vigorous shake. “We need you to heat up the coffee.”
Roxil breathed a steam-filled sigh. “Very well. I can put up with a couple of humans for a while.”
Gabriel shook a finger at her. “Listen here. You might be a powerful, fire-breathing dragon, but to me you’re just my overgrown, scaly sister. I should ”
“Shhh!” Sapphira grabbed Gabriel’s wrist and whispered. “Just be patient. At least she didn’t go with Goliath, and we might have a long journey ahead of us, so we have to deal with what we’ve got. Besides, sister or not, you shouldn’t argue with a fire-breathing dragon.”
Gabriel firmed his chin and nodded. “Good point. Don’t stoke the dragon.”
Sapphira patted him on the back, and the two walked together to the dragon’s side. “Roxil,” she said, pointing back at the spinning portal, “are you ready to carry a couple of riders to another dimension? I’m not sure what Gabriel’s going to look like when we get there, but we’ll figure out a way to work together.”
“If I must.” Roxil lowered her head to their eye level. “Where will we begin?”
Sapphira pressed a palm against her chest. A fiery glow spread from her fingertips down to the heel of her hand and radiated pulsing white light in a soft elliptical aura. “We’ll begin wherever my dance partner leads me.”
Waving her hands around a spinning column of fire, Acacia guided the vortex down toward a book that lay open on a wooden table. Inside the column, a miniature boy and girl clung to a statue and descended with the flames. Acacia clapped her hands over the top of the column, and the vortex collapsed, setting the pair inside on fire. The two burning figures hovered above the book for a moment, then crumbled into glowing embers that fell onto the pages.
Another pair of hands, larger and wrinkled, closed the book. The hands belonged to a white-haired man who sat across from Acacia. His bushy eyebrows rose high on his broad forehead. “Well done, my child. You have saved the lives of your friends, and you have given a dragon a second chance, an opportunity not normally afforded anyone, whether human or dragon.”
Acacia took the hand of a little girl who sat on the bench next to her. The girl’s eyes gleamed in the dim light cast over the table by a flickering lantern. With only a stack of books piled against one of the stone walls, the stuffy chamber raised memories of her long, pain-filled days in the stark caverns of the underworld. “What happens now, Father Enoch? Will Paili and I go home?”
“I do not know for sure.” Enoch rubbed his hands across the weathered cover of the book. “Time is not like a story. You cannot turn to the back and discover the end of the tale. You have to suffer through life one page at a time.”
“But aren’t you a prophet? Can’t the Eye of the Oracle see the future?”
Enoch shook his head. “I speak only what Jehovah commands me to speak. Whether he writes the final page, reads every page from front to end at the same time, or perfectly predicts what we will write there ourselves, I do not know. It is a mystery far too great for me to comprehend.” He lifted the book’s cover and flipped to the back. “But this much I do know. No matter what happens, Jehovah-Jireh will provide for all your needs, Jehovah-Shammah will be there from the first to the last, and Jehovah-Yasha will deliver you to safety, whether at home with Sapphira or at home with him. You will never be forsaken.”
Paili slid closer and clutched Acacia’s arm. Acacia smiled and laid her hand on the book’s final page. “Then the Eye of the Oracle has spoken?”
Enoch laid his hand over Acacia’s. “Yes, my child. The Eye of the Oracle has spoken.”
EPILOGUE
I am now a daughter of light, and the path set before me is blazed by the glow of Jehovah-Yasha bloody footprints imbedded in a trail of tears, yet leading to a glorious kingdom set on a shining hill. Though trials stand in the way a search for lost friends, the awakening of sleeping giants, and the uncertainty of Mardon’s looming specter I know the path will never lead to a place of desolation. The shining city will always guide me home.
I now look forward to what lies ahead. New friends will mingle with those familiar. Ashley, the daughter of dragons, and Walter, the descendant of a king, will grace the path with their presence, riding on the wind atop the great warrior Thigocia.
My story continues. The joy of discovery awaits. And I hope that my path somehow, someday, crosses the path of another ageless seeker, the receiver of the only blessing I had to offer so many years ago a handful of stew that quelled a boiling hunger. Yet, it was more than simply a pottage of sustenance; it was my compassion, my humility, my submission. When I gave him the fruit of my hands, I also surrendered my heart.