The only real enemy would lie from within, I thought. Someone who knew the palace. But I kept that thought to myself as we passed a hallway I’d previously come down, and through a courtyard I recognized, up a level and then finally to the room. “There you are. In a day or two, finding your way back here will come easier.”
The light by the door was bright compared to the passageways, and as Pelos opened the door and stood aside, he gasped. “What happened to your face?”
I hadn’t forgotten about the fight with Leander, but I’d given little thought to my appearance. No wonder the guards had given me an odd look as I hurried inside the palace. “I ran into that statue of the griffin, the one we passed in the first courtyard. Or was it the second.” I touched a sore spot over my left eyebrow. “Hurts. That’s what I get for getting lost and turned around.”
He winced on my behalf. “We have excellent healers. If you’d like I could—”
“No. But thank you. I can take care of it.”
“As you will. There is food waiting in your room.”
I gave him a nod of thanks and entered a wonderful place filled with the smell of roasted fowl of some sort and breads, cheeses, and fish.
Bone tired, I shrugged off the cloak, filled a plate from the buffet, and then sat on the long couch to eat, wondering if Sandra had already gone to bed for the night. That notion was stifled when she walked in the front door.
“Oh, good, you’re back. I was doing a little recon and—”
I nearly choked. “Recon?”
She patted me hard on the back and then proceeded to the buffet. “Of course. The sooner we achieve whatever task fate has set out for us, the sooner I’ll be able to return to normal.”
I snorted at that. She glared over her shoulder, brought her plate to the opposite couch, and sat down, where she studied me for a long moment with those creepy earthy green eyes of hers. “Nice bruises. Fighting already, are we? We’re supposed to keep a low profile.”
“Believe me, no one saw the fight. And, for the record, I didn’t start it.”
“You never do, do you?” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “Did you go to the towers? Did you feel your siren in residence?”
My chest went tight. The food in my stomach turned heavy and Leander’s information swirled in the forefront of my mind. “No. I didn’t feel anything.” I pushed my food around the plate with my fork.
“That’s too bad. Maybe tomorrow you’ll have better luck. Everyone here is locked up tight, lips sealed, you know? I tried small talk with a few visiting dignitaries who have been here for two weeks—two weeks!—and they look at me like I am asking them to take a trip to the moon. No one wants to talk about the Circe. Like they’re the boogeyman or something . . .”
“Sandra.”
She shoved an olive in her mouth. “Hmm?”
“What is Sachâth exactly?”
Her chewing motion froze and we just stared at each other.
She wasn’t on her stage high on laurel smoke, and I wasn’t a paying customer. We’d gone beyond client and oracle to something different. Sitting here like this, more casual and intimate than we’d ever been . . . it smacked of the beginnings of, maybe not a friendship, but a relationship nonetheless.
She reached for her drink, took a few gulps, before setting her plate down beside her. “There are certain paths, certain decisions people must make for themselves. My job as oracle is not to change a person’s destiny, but give them foresight so they might fulfill the fate set out for them.”
“So what’s the point, then?”
“What do you mean?”
“If there’s no changing or altering this predetermined path we’re all supposedly on, then why bother living at all, why struggle, why get a job, and fight the good fight? If all of our decisions come around to one single end, no matter what we do . . .” I shook my head. “I don’t buy it.”
“You don’t have to. There are many paths, many decisions that alter one’s life. Fate does not have a life planned out to a tee. It’s the journey that makes life worth living, but there
I set my plate on the cushion beside me.
“And your daughter, Emma. There would’ve been nothing you could’ve done to prevent her from being conceived or from being born. She needed to be here and so she is. The Revenant coming into her life was also destiny, since he will impact her life in a way that shapes her and her future.”
“And Sachâth? You called it Death. Will it kill me, then?” She opened her mouth and then thought better of answering.
“Why the hell can’t you tell me?”
“Because I don’t know!” She got up and started pacing, wringing her hands together. “You have no idea how stressful my calling is. No idea. To have to make these decisions, to decide what to tell and what not to tell, what small bit of information might change a life or even end it.”
“Well, be confident in the knowledge that whatever you say, Fate has decreed that you would and should say exactly what you end up saying!”
She stopped and leveled a glare my way. “There are lives that don’t play a part in Fate’s bigger picture, Charlie. Lives that play supporting roles, sacrificial roles, roles to move things along to the endgame, lives that don’t seem to matter at all,” she said quietly.
Annoyed and yet feeling sorry for the burdens she obviously bore, I got up and carried my plate to the buffet, stopping to get hers. “Done?”
She nodded, handed me her plate, and then walked out onto the balcony.
I disposed of our dishes and then went into the bath chamber—it was too enormous to be called a simple bathroom. Normal bathrooms didn’t have columns and a sunken pool filled with steaming water. I washed my hands in the sink and noticed the yellow bruising around my left eye and the nice purple mark on my chin.
I just stood there, staring into the mirror, wondering how in the hell I was going to find Hank, and what Sandra’s inability to see him really meant. And all this fate craziness was mind-numbing; I could only imagine what it must be like for Sandra, day in day out, vision after vision. . . . I huffed at my reflection. “Go make peace.”
It had grown cooler since my earlier foray outside. The sky was dark and littered with stars. Waves crashed against rocks in the distance, the ever-present sound mingling with echoes from the harbor, the market, and the music and voices from the palace.
Sandra reclined on a white chaise lounge, her knees drawn up, head back, and eyes closed. She didn’t move when I sat down on the end of the lounge. “So this whole fate thing . . . it pretty much sucks.”
Her surprised laugh made me smile. She sat up, tucked a black curl behind her ear, and then wrapped her arms around her knees. “
“I like to say I know all, like to push people’s buttons, but the truth is,” she admitted, “I live a life of confusion, addiction . . . I gamble every time I open my mouth and relay my visions. What should I tell and not tell? There was a time when the gift of prophecy was relayed verbatim, but sometimes oracles see things too clearly, things which should not be shared. And sometimes we must interpret what we see and hope our interpretations are pure.”
She gave me a sidelong glance. “I’d think I knew what choices you’d make and then you’d surprise me. It’s not often I’m surprised.”
I stared out at the sea, the stars from above reflecting off its dark surface. “But nothing surprises All-knowing Fate, is that it?”
“For the most part, probably not. Sometimes I wonder if Fate gets a kick out of changing things, out of screwing with me, gathering information like some kind of super computer and then changing outcomes or courses to suit some end no one can see, not even me.”
