The Oracles of Tomesh [ON HOLD]

4 | And What Else Did You Carve?

usha (u-sha) noun

Foreigner; someone from another land who comes to another not their own; an outsider; a stranger

***

They only met on four occasions: first when she was five and he was eight, second on their engagement day when she was ten and he was thirteen, and third on their wedding day when she was sixteen. And that day of the ritual when her father declared her as the next Oracle.

It was not a rare thing. It was only common for a woman to marry at sixteen and only get to know her husband on her twenty-first rain when they could finally be live together and build their own family. Nearly everyone in her village had gone through the same, but Nascha was not sure if they experienced the same strange feeling. She could not grasp the reality that she was tied to a man she barely knew. Much more so to someone like Kalesch Djozeh. He was too... high. He had always been. As scholars, their family was the most respected in their village. Kalesch mastered Tomera before the other children his age could even properly yell sateh—stop. He went wherever his father went, carried his scrolls, read them during formal ceremonies, and was writing his own before he turned ten. It was not a surprise when King Amatif personally selected him to be Prince Laku's advisor.

And being an advisor to the prince of the Umoji Empire placed him higher than anyone in Pareysha, even the other villages in Tomesh. So why was he married to the youngest daughter of a scribe?

But after that short and awkward meeting at the House of Djozeh, after Kalesch strongly suggested that they keep the Oracle discovery a secret until they came up with a plan, Nascha finally realized why Kairo Djozeh chose her to marry his son. And it was not because she was pretty (although in her mother's opinion she's a pretty girl, and she agreed to some extent). She looked like every other girl in the village, except for the times when she would sometimes sneak out and hide somewhere to do nothing during certain ceremonies, or even during normal days. She was normal.

So it sparked such a huge curiosity when she was told she'd be marrying the son of the Great Scholar. No, that was not what her father told her. He had said that Kairo Djozeh chose her. What did he see in her?

Now, many years later, she knew the answer. They believed she was the next Oracle. Kairo Djozeh had guessed that the next Oracle would be from the Yakine family. Nascha was actually disappointed that the Great Scholar would even make guesses. He was a scholar for a reason. So how did he make the guess? Had they, the scholars, come upon some ancient texts that said so? Did they have knowledge from the previous Oracle that they did not share with everyone? That must be it, she thought, because surely scholars did not just guess. Kairo Djozeh's guess must have been a calculative one. Otherwise, she would hate to disappoint them if she did not turn out to be what they guessed.

Her father forbade her to tell anyone, even her mother. He was elated, of course, but she couldn't even feel the same. She had her own internal problems to deal with. Karei, the woman accused of witchcraft, was undergoing trial and Nascha could not let the woman die. It would be too much for her conscience.

She had to do something to stop it. Stop everything. And as soon as she thought about everything, she began to panic again. She jumped out of bed, giving up on sleep. Through her open window, the moonlight was blue, slicing through her room. Her parents were next door, sound asleep. Looking out the window, she could see the silhouette of the butte—there, right in the center of the frame was the tall rock mountain that held the king's tomb.

She rubbed her face in frustration, froze with a thought, and hesitated for a tiny moment. Kalesch Djozeh told them to wait. But how could she? She was not sleeping tonight and she had nothing to do but fret over what she had done. And waiting was never her best talent. The children, Peru and her siblings, could tell anyone anytime. Turning, Nascha grabbed her thickest and darkest wrap and sneaked out of the house.