The Orphan of Saint Olette

Twenty

"I understand you must be confused," she said, earning duplicate nods in response. "You must forgive me that. The work of an Oracle is not as... direct as people assume. Visions are confusing, and our voices are not our own."

Aoife's mouth fell open to question what she meant by that, but the Oracle did not give her a chance to speak.

"There is one thing we know, though. We are taught it from birth, and you cannot understand what it means to have witnessed it for myself," she said, a grin spreading across her lips. "If I am right—if what I saw is right, I mean—you are three of the destined four, and your golden man will start the prophecy."

"Prophecy?" Aoife questioned, thinking back to the book she and Rin had been reading. "The one about the wildsmen overthrowing the king?"

The Oracle shook her head. "No, nothing like that. A long time ago, one of the grand matrons of our order—"

"There's an order of Oracles?" Shay said, incredulous, but the Oracle ignored him.

"—Told of a great catastrophe that she had seen in a vision. She said it would eliminate the entire species if it was not stopped, but there was hope. She had seen four brave heroes trying to stop it, and she believed that these four would save the world."

"What does that have to do with us?" Rin piped up.

"As far as I am able to see, which is not very far courtesy of your friend," the Oracle said, glancing at Shay. "You all have purpose in the North. There is nothing in the North."

Rin had to bite back a comment about there actually being plenty in the North. There was Mount Ormen, and the stronghold at its base, Ormens. There was Osova, the unofficial capital of the North, and her sister city Aniatova, where the monarchy owned another palace, though one far less used than their seat in Olmaea. And perhaps most importantly, there was the dense, sprawling Varilya Forest. Varilya, he had read, was the largest producer of timber for the entire world, and the forest still showed no sign of wear, or that it had ever been encroached upon in the first place. When he was younger, he had thought Varilya must be a place full of magic and mythical beings, but as he had grown he had realised how silly that sounded. The forest likely just grew fast. He'd never read much into the growing times of pine trees.

"I think you've misunderstood, we're only going North to look for an old legend," Aoife said, trying to put things straight.

She knew she wanted to see more of the world, and going East to find this golden man didn't bother her, but not at the cost of having to save the world. She couldn't even save Niamh, let alone the rest of mankind. Maker preserve her, she'd killed her mother just coming into this world, or at least that was what the mother superior had told her. She'd never had the courage to ask what became of her father, but given her place in the orphanage, she could only assume he had met a similar end. If she could ever go back to the Cathedral, she thought perhaps she might like to try and find out who her parents had been, but somehow she thought it highly unlikely she would ever be able to return.

"Yes, the volgkannen," the Oracle said with a nod of her head. Realisation flooded her features suddenly, actions suddenly more animated than before. "Yes, yes, you must find the volgkannen. You, and Rinian, and Shay, and the golden man. All of you must look for them, do you understand?"

Her urgency had them all worried. Her utterance of strange words had them equally as concerned. Volgkannen? What on Earth was that? Rin and Aoife could only assume she meant the Wolf-Children, but they had never heard such a strange term for them. That being said, prior to a few days ago they had not been privy to the Wolf-Children at all, but such thoughts do not cross one's head when faced with the unknown.