I forced myself not to cower away from her and launch myself to the safer side of the leather couch. “You’re the … the …”
“The one you’re here to see,” she finished for me. “Yes, I am.”
“Sorry,” I managed. “I’m just surprised. You look so … uh …”
“Human?” Irena glanced at Rhys, who regarded my flabbergasted reaction with more than a little amusement. “It helps to look as human as possible when one wishes to fit in with other humans. I’ve maintained this form for so long that I barely remember my other one.” She ran her finger along the spine of one of the small gold dragons. “But I do keep reminders around so I don’t forget completely.”
Rhys sat down on the leather couch. “Irena’s lived in the human world for nearly twenty years. She even has a family here.”
“A family of dragons?” I asked, trying to wrap my head around the fact that an actual fire-breathing mythical creature had a doctor’s office thirty minutes from where I lived.
She shook her head. “I have a human husband and together we have a son.”
“And they know who you really are?” I couldn’t seem to stop myself from asking questions.
“My husband does. My son will be told when I feel he’s mature enough to deal with it. Dragons and humans rarely produce offspring that is anything other than one hundred percent human, so it’s not an immediate issue.”
I was talking to a fortune-telling, future-seeing dragon in human form with a human family, and she made her living as a shrink. Well, something had to pay the bills, didn’t it?
When I continued to stare at her in shock, she smiled. “But enough about me. Unfortunately, I only have a few minutes to spare today for you both before I must get back to my regular patients. I hope that will be enough time.”
“I’m sure it will,” Rhys said quickly.
Irena looked so totally and completely human. Then again, so did my father when he chose to have a human form. I’d seen him in demon form — coal black skin, expansive black leathery wings, large curved horns, and glowing red eyes. Same father on the inside,
“Let’s start with you, Princess.” She pulled out the top drawer on her desk and withdrew a crystal sphere about the size of a baseball. “News of the prophecy has already reached me. It’s a very serious one.” She sounded surprisingly calm about it.
“Yes, it is,” I said tightly. “So I’m here for a second opinion. It can’t be true. But I’m worried what might happen next if I can’t prove it’s false.”
She closed her eyes. “Let me see what I can find. I should be able to tell if the prophecy is clear or covered in a web of darkness and lies.”
“Uh, that would be good. Thank you.”
She held the crystal ball in the palm of her hand, and after a moment I saw a pulse of white light right in the very center of it.
“I have located the prophecy about the first Darkling in a thousand years,” she said with a nod, but she didn’t open her eyes yet.
The white light flickered to other colors — pink, green, orange. It was beautiful, really. But then it began to darken.
Irena shook her head, her forehead creasing. Her chest hitched. “It’s … it’s harder to see than I expected. I need to go deeper to gain clarity.”
Shade by shade it grew darker until it appeared as if the crystal contained a solid, dark purple core.
Suddenly the center flashed from the darkness to a light so bright I had to shield my eyes. Irena’s face grew strained and pale and a small gasp escaped her lips.
“Irena, is everything okay?” Rhys asked, concern in his voice.
“What’s going on?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “It shouldn’t be this difficult. She should already know the truth one way or the other.”
“Something’s blocking my vision. There’s a thick wall around the Darkling prophecy. I can’t see past it.” Irena’s eyelids fluttered and she cried out in pain. The crystal ball slipped from her grasp and I jumped as it shattered on the floor.
I didn’t need Rhys to tell me that this wasn’t normal. He’d moved from the couch and placed a hand on Irena’s shoulder to steady her as her eyes snapped open.
“What happened?” Rhys asked.
She shook her head. “I’m not sure. I could see something, but not clearly enough to confirm or deny the prophecy. I’m so sorry.”
Concern mixed with disappointment. While I wanted to know the truth, I didn’t want it to cause anyone pain, and it was obvious that searching out my prophecy in the metaphysical ether — or whatever she had just tried to do — had not been big fun for her. To say the very least.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yes, I’ll be fine.” She reached out to grab my wrist and drew me closer. She looked weary, and there was a thin sheen of perspiration on her forehead. “However, I did see something else — another prophecy. Princess, you are in danger. A darkness surrounds you and it is growing stronger.”
“A darkness?” I asked. My mouth felt dry.
“It watches you closely now and in the future. One day, unless you’re very careful, it will consume you entirely.”
“The darkness,” Rhys repeated. “Is that what might take her over so she will fulfill the Darkling prophecy?”
I gave him a look, thinking he was being sarcastic, but by his expression I could tell he wasn’t. It was a legitimate question. After all, he’d taken me along with him today so he could learn the truth as well.
“No,” Irena replied. “This has nothing to do with the first prophecy — it’s a separate thing altogether. And the darkness comes from a source apart from the princess. I’m sorry, but my vision was unclear, so I can’t give more specifics. There is very little about you that is clear, Princess Nikki. Perhaps your human side is what blocks my magic. That may explain why the first prophecy was shielded from me.”
So this darkness thing was a
I just nodded, trying to take it all in and make some kind of sense of it. Being consumed by an outer darkness struck me as something straight out of a horror movie. Something that had the potential to keep me up at night worried about what was lurking under my bed or behind my closet doors.
“Did you see anything else?” I asked shakily. “Anything good?”
Irena squeezed my wrist. “I did see that there is a possibility the princess’s light may, with effort, be enough to quell this darkness.”
“Her light?” Rhys asked, confused. “But she’s half demon. How is that even possible?”
“It’s possible because her soul is pure.” Irena’s voice had gotten steadily stronger as she spoke. “I saw no evil here you should be concerned with, King Rhys.”
“Really?” Rhys sounded skeptical.
“Yes, really.” Irena glanced at him. “You’re surprised?”
“I … don’t know. Maybe a little.” His eyes flicked to me before he looked away, his expression still clouded with confusion.
I almost smiled. Out of everything horrible that had just happened — not being able to prove or disprove the first prophecy, almost making Irena’s head explode, finding out that darkness stalks me in a shiny new second prophecy — the fact that she’d just confirmed to Rhys that I wasn’t completely demonically evil almost made it worthwhile.
“This is all I can do for you today, Princess,” Irena said. “I apologize for not having been more helpful.”
I nodded, twisting my bracelet nervously as I went over everything in my head. “Thank you. It’s a start.”
Her pleasant, caring expression faded, and I realized she was now staring down at my wrist. She suddenly grabbed hold of my arm so hard, I couldn’t pull away.
“You have a dragon’s tear.” The way she said it, her shock at noticing my piece of jewelry for the first time,
