nature of the Eternal Forest. Though I want to be free, I do not wish any harm to my home, or even true harm to you, brother.”
He barked out a hard, ugly laugh. “Seems unlikely as you allowed me to be preyed upon by that dryad for centuries.”
“Believe as you like,” she hissed, her tail striking at the water again. “I speak the truth when I say that as soon as I had a vision of what had befallen you, I alerted a silvanus traveling through the wood from the northern aelven kingdoms. He had a sorceress in his company as they headed for a portal that would take them to another part of the mortal world. I lured him through the cave systems until he arrived at my cavern, and told him what had befallen you. I wanted you to suffer humiliation, not harm,” she snarled. “As I said, this is different.”
He watched the oracle carefully. Her words answered questions that had gone unanswered for centuries as to his rescue from Alseida. He had been in no condition to be aware of much of anything. Cacus was a vicious creature that had taken the strength of Jove’s son to subdue. If Dorinda was worried enough to actually help him and go against centuries of redirection and confusion by her various riddles to vex him, he could not ignore the danger that he was facing.
“The huntress I discovered in the woods—is she part of this?”
His sister’s face became inscrutable, her pupils disappearing among the red irises as she began to sway once more. Water surged around her, her lips moving soundlessly as her scales took on a luminous cast. Her pupils expanded, engulfing her eyes in blackness as she stared at him, her body twining in an unending motion. The voice that came from her was raspy and multi-tonal as she connected to the weave of the Fates once more.
“She is, and she is not. She is caught in the web and has become a part of it. She can no longer be separated from the events that unfold.”
“Is she dangerous to me?” he growled as he attempted to control his patience. She had warned him that he had to be wise with his questions… or more accurately, he had to be precise.
“She is a danger to who you have become. She will threaten the order you have established since breaking free of Alseida. You will be vulnerable and weakened, or you will be strengthened. Be wise in the decisions that you make, brother. The weave is tangled and does not show me a clear path in either direction.”
Silvas’s jaw tightened. That was not the information he wanted to hear. He wanted to enjoy the human and return her to her world. But if she were a possible threat, it was just as likely that he would end up being forced to destroy her. If there were any possibility at all of her being a threat, he couldn’t risk letting her out of his sight.
“Is she a danger to Cacus?” he queried as he moved closer.
Dorinda cocked her head. “It is… uncertain. There are too many threads intersecting, too many possibilities. One thing is known: you will have to make whole your power to defeat him and retrieve that which you have cast aside.”
He recognized the undeniable weight of dread as he posed his question. “Do I retrieve the sword Nocis?”
The blade was a terrible creation. A gift from Artume, the lady of the night, it was created to be able to cut through anything and fragment light. He had wielded it during the battle of the gods and swore never to touch the blade again for the destruction that it brought to all things in its path in the effort to subdue a divine being. With each swipe, he had watched life wither and fall around him. The king of the forest, king of the eternal realm of light and life, even when thickened with shadow, was turned too easily to a king of death and sorrows.
The vegoia lasa looked at him knowingly, her red eyes staring through him. “There is no other to come to your aide,” she hissed softly. “Hercules long ago ascended, and no heroes remain. The safety of the Eternal Forest and the human world in the face of Cacu rests on you. You will have to retrieve Nocis from the pit where you left her. Above all, keep the huntress at your side. She