A Storm of Flames and Deceit

34. There Was An Oracle

Eris

"What the hell is wrong with you, Tamlin?"

Nephele's fury cuts through the dank cell located deep in the forest of Spring. Tamlin had mentioned that he wanted to see us, and when we accepted his invitation, I suppose I didn't expect to meet him like this. I'm not quite sure what I'm looking at. At best, it seems to be some random haggard old woman with nails and teeth like knives, locked up in a cell, sitting sinisterly in a corner. At worst...

"Do you know this woman, Nephele?" I ask, shifting. Admittedly, it takes a good bit to scare me these days, but this woman was unsettling, terrifying. Though she's quite small and feeble, there was something horrifying in her cloudy eyes, her gray locks twirling down her back like a spider's silk.

"Know her," Nephele scoffs, shoving Tamlin with a closed fist. "This idiot kidnapped my fucking grandmother."

Tamlin rolls his eyes. "I do intend to let her go, for the record."

"I didn't know you're grandmother was still alive," I murmur to Neph, taking a step back from the cell. The woman's gaze had finally settled onto me, and it was making me sweat something fierce.

"I don't think that thing possesses the capability of dying," Tamlin shivers, and I nod in tremored agreement.

Nephele jabs us both in the ribs. "Thats still my grandmother, assholes," she scolds, probably looking disappointed in me. I wouldn't know considering I'm too afraid to look away the gremlin- like woman for fear that she might break through the bars. Neph hits me in the ribs again. "What the hell is wrong with you? She's not that scary."

"She was eating a live rat when we walked in," I retort, a frantic whisper. "Like it was a damn delicacy."

"I told you my mother came from powerful and sinister people, bred beyond the complexities of high fae, like the creatures of the bog," she responds, crossing her arms. "That is 25% of me right there, sitting in that cell."

I shiver. "It's a good thing the apple seemed to fall far from the tree, then."

Neph rolls her eyes, turning to Tamlin. "Why is she here?"

"The beast seeks prophecy, Granddaughter," the woman shrills from inside the cell, startling the life out of me.

Neph turns her wide gaze to her Grandmother. "Your prophecy is subjective. You don't choose the visions as they come," Nephele frowns. "Surely, you told him that."

"I certainly let him know," the woman tilts her head, creeping closer to the bars. Her shadow stretches into something truly sinister, Neph swatting me away as I attempt to pull her back. "But the beast seeks to hear more about a prophecy already given."

"Why did you lock her away?" Nephele turns to Tamlin, crossing her arms.

"I thought you wouldn't much mind," Tamlin frowns. "Considering how you feel about most of your family."

The woman cackles haggishly. "I'm no kin to this girl outside of blood."

"It's true," Nephele explains. "When a woman is sold into marriage like my mother was to my father, her familial identity is stripped from her. My grandmother holds no loyalty to my father. What has happened between them is a done deal, old business. Her people never make a deal with the same person twice." This woman is so feral, a slave to her own predatory instincts. I wonder how Neph's mother seems so tame in comparison- though she was still scary in her own way.

"You want to set her free?" I ask Neph quietly, eying the woman as she drags a yellowed nail down the bar of her cell.

"She didn't do anything," Neph says. "And trust me, she isn't working with my father. Her customs forbid it."