glowing with vitality. He appeared to be healing fast. Her actions had worked.
Would he recall what… happened… between them when he awoke? What would he be like when he regained consciousness? Would she see the colors of his soul reemerging or would his aura remain frozen like impenetrable black ice?
She loathed to leave him; she wanted to spend every moment, waking or sleeping, with him. But she needed answers.
Thus, with one last lingering glance, she left the healing enclosure in search of Eveline.
The Seer was where Sophia expected her to be—surrounded by ancient tomes and scrolls in the Pure Ones’ library. She was not alone. Seth, Jade, Inanna, Tal, and Benji appeared to be helping her sort through the various texts.
Well, the adults were helping. Benji was sitting in a corner by one of the floor-to-ceiling shelves reading.
“Oh good, you’re here,” Eveline said when she glanced up and saw Sophia’s approach. “I was about to have you fetched.”
“You’ve discovered a clue already?” Sophia queried with cautious optimism, coming to stand beside the large oak table where the others were gathered, every square inch of the polished top covered with books, loose parchment and scrolls.
“Not so much discovered as rediscovered,” Eveline said cryptically. “I feel like we’re coming full circle. Retracing steps that were taken before. The only difference is that this time, my interpretation is different.”
“Explain,” Sophia commanded.
Everyone looked at her with the same expression—a mix of, surprise, wryness and admiration.
“What?” she asked, impatient with their hesitation.
It was Seth who spoke. “You have finally come into your own, Sophia. You are you, and you are our queen.”
Sophia quirked her lips in acknowledgement. “Is that your way of telling me I’m being a bossy little shit, Seth?”
Jade chuckled a melodious laugh while the Consul’s eyes crinkled at the corners in a sheepish smile.
“Spoken like a badass queen,” Jade congratulated in her sultry contralto.
“I learn from the baddest of all,” Sophia returned, sharing a look with the ex-vampire queen.
After Queen Ashlu, Jade Cicada was widely known as the greatest Dark Queen of her time, though her tenure in the role had been only a few hundred years to Ashlu’s three millennia. And she’d had dominion over one of many Hives, the New England territories, while Ashlu reigned supreme over all living creatures on earth.
But Jade ruled during a much more complex, modern age, when the existence of Immortals was secret, and humans overran the world with machines, technology and the magic of science. As such, her ability to keep the Balance between races, diffuse civil strife among her own Kind, and maintain the secrecy of Immortals was downright remarkable.
Now, that honor (or headache, as Jade often smirked) belonged to Alend Ramses.
“All this mutual admiration is making me jealous,” Eveline broke in. “Let’s focus on the matter at hand, shall we?”
The placid librarian was probably never going to win any badass awards, but Sophia had always sensed that there was more to Eveline than met the eye. And since she became Ramses’…something, someone of utmost importance to the first-ever Dark King, that fiery spark blazed ever brighter within the tiny Seer.
“What have you got?”
Eveline unrolled one of the partially open rolls nearest to her and held it flat at the bottom while Seth pressed it down at the top.
“I don’t know if I told all of you about the prophecy I gleaned from the Orb years ago when the violence and chaos first started to escalate. Orion and I compared notes from the Zodiac Prophesies and Scrolls. I thought that the lines had been about Rain and Valerius, but now I wonder if they meant more.”
“Tell me,” Sophia urged.
Eveline began to read the words the late Scribe had recorded in ancient Sumerian symbols: “Upon her choice, the future rests. To welcome the Darkness or create a New Light, only her heart can show the rest.”
Involuntarily, Sophia’s heart began to pound. Harder and harder as Eveline spoke each syllable.
These words were meant for her, she was sure of it! But what did they mean? What choice must she make?
Just moments ago she wondered whether she made the wrong choice with Tal-Telal, when she’d been Ninti. She’d made many other choices since then. So many.
But the one other choice that plagued her—the only other lifetime that devastated her—was when she made the choice to marry the wrong Persian Prince as Kira.
“And here is the rest: With his surrender, the sacrifice is made. Death is near and Darkness surrounds, as the race’s Adversary raises its blade.”
Surrender?
Sophia’s