A Discovery of Secrets and Fate (Chronicles of the Stone Veil #2) - Sawyer Bennett Page 0,5
out.
“You don’t know?” I hiss, leaning forward in my chair. “And yet, you know there is a prophecy and I have to wonder how long you’ve known this. And why am I just hearing about it now?”
“I’ve known for about a month,” he replies, not an ounce of shame whatsoever.
My head starts spinning as anger turns to fury burning in my veins. That he would keep this from me for an entire month.
He’s been playing me, using me for some purpose I’ve yet to figure out, and drawn me deeper into a dangerous world when I might have had the opportunity to get out of it a long time ago if I’d known about this.
Reeling from what happened to my sister and the overload of information, I find myself at the end of my rope. I rise quickly from my chair. “Well, thank you very much for that information. But I’m going to have to decline participation. I’m leaving, and I want you to stay the hell away from me.”
Before I can even turn around, Carrick’s voice bursts inside my head again without him even opening his mouth. It’s stronger this time, actually making my bones rattle. Sit down.
My ass is hitting the chair before I can even comprehend what he just told me to do. I try to stand up, but I’m held immobile. I can feel my emotions getting ready to spiral out of control, but Carrick holds up a hand and I feel a calming peace wash through me.
Oh, the powers this man is just now showing me are strong, and I have to wonder what other tricks he has up his sleeve.
“Please just listen to me, Finley,” he says in a somewhat supplicating tone. “Let me tell you everything, because now not only your life depends on it, so do billions of others.”
Those words alone are enough to keep me seated. Carrick must sense this because I can feel the force that was keeping me pinned to the chair dissipate.
“Fine,” I mutter. “But I want to know everything. No holding back.”
Carrick inclines his head in an agreement to my demand.
“How do you even know there’s a prophecy?” It’s the most important question I can think of at this moment.
“To understand that,” Carrick begins in a professor-like manner, “you need to know about The Council.”
“The Council?” Sounds officious, like maybe a secret governmental faction. Maybe they’re based out of Area 51.
“The Council is made up of five gods. There’s Veda, the god of Humanity. Circe, the god of—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,” I drawl while holding a hand up. “Gods? What does that even mean? Isn’t there just one God?”
“Did the ancient Romans worship just one god?” he inquires softly. “The Greeks? The Egyptians? The Native Americans?”
I’m a bit flummoxed by his point. I guess I’d just assumed all that was a myth we learned in history and classic literature class, but, truly, those cultures had faith in who they worshipped much the same way I suppose Christians do.
Meekly, I say, “I get your point. Continue.”
Carrick doesn’t seem put out by my interruption, which is a far cry from when I sat in his office a month ago and he lectured me on fae, daemons, and angels. I wonder if he’s just more tolerant or perhaps he’s going easy on me tonight in light of what happened to Fallon.
“There’s Circe, the god of Fate. Onyx, the god of Conflict. Cato, the god of Nature, and Rune, the god of Life and, consequently, death.”
“And these are rooted in some sort of mythology?” I query.
“They are as real as you and I are,” he intones.
“And you know this how?” I ask suspiciously. Because I’ve not yet been able to glean how Carrick knows so much of this supernatural stuff.
“I know this because I have met them many times,” he replies and I just gape. “In particular, I saw them on the night I discovered you could see beneath glamours.”
“Holy shit,” I wheeze, because I didn’t think things could get weirder than angelic rebellions and such.
“The Council has been around since the beginning of time—almost fourteen billion years ago—and they control the way in which the universe works. Or at least that was what they were originally created to do.”
“And who created them?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he replies flatly. “They always have just been.”
That generates a million questions, but I instinctively know the answers to many won’t be important.
“And just where does one go to meet this council?” I ask