A Tip of Balance Read online

  Both Thorn and Rebel looked at me, visibly taken aback.

  “Who are you to tell us what we have and do not have time for?” Rebel asked sarcastically.

  “You must understand that time is running out,” Draven said. “Azazel is moving fast, and he’s captured one of our Oracles.”

  “You have Oracles?” Thorn’s interest peaked.

  “We had three. Now we only have two, and we’re looking to retrieve the one taken from us. What Draven isn’t mentioning is that these Oracles are my friends and family. The stakes are high for me, for us,” I added, my voice trembling. “Most importantly, the Oracle that Azazel captured can see the future. We can’t let him force her to tell him what is going to happen. I can’t let him hurt her.”

  I nearly broke down, swallowing back tears that burned my eyes. I inhaled deeply, willing myself back in control of my body.

  “My name is Serena,” I sighed. “I am not from Eritopia, and neither are the Oracles. We were brought here by unfortunate circumstance. We do not want to let Azazel destroy this world, and we know he will not rest until he captures all of us and destroys those he considers his enemies. We are ready to fight him to the death. I honestly don’t think you have any other choice.”

  Thorn and Rebel listened quietly, their gaze shifting from me to Draven and back, their expressions firm and difficult to read. I wasn’t sure whether it was a good time to attempt reading their emotions. I feared they might sense me and consider it suspicious behavior. I’d seen enough sharp fangs. I did not want to get on their bad side.

  “Azazel knows about our alliance,” Draven said. “He’s mobilizing his troops across Antara to stifle any rebellion and to kill all those who have pledged their allegiance. The time to strike him is now before he gets any stronger.”

  “What about your abducted Oracle?” Thorn asked. “Why aren’t you trying to rescue her?”

  “Believe me, it was the first thing I wanted to do,” I replied, “but we have someone already on his way to Azazel’s castle, better prepared and equipped for the task. I chose to come here and support Draven because with or without the Oracles, the alliance must move forward. We were due to meet at Mount Agrith, but there was a traitor in our midst. We would like to hold the meeting here, instead. I’m told Stonewall is well cloaked and safe from Destroyers.”

  “Is that all you want from us? To use our citadel for your alliance meeting?” Rebel raised an eyebrow again. I was beginning to think it was a pleasure for her to throw skepticism at anything we threw her way.

  “We want you to join the alliance, as well,” Draven said. “You are all strong and fierce, and you would be a tremendous advantage in a siege on Luceria. Your time here is running out. Azazel’s spies are bound to find you soon enough. If not today or tomorrow, in a few months or years. There is no hiding from him.”

  “What is it that your alliance holds?” Thorn cocked his head to one side. “What advantages do you have against him? Who has joined you so far?”

  Draven and I looked at each other before he gave Thorn a confident smirk.

  “Oh, you mean besides the two Oracles?”

  “Granted, they’re an excellent strategic advantage, but I doubt they’ll be able to bring an entire castle down,” Thorn replied.

  “We have a Daughter of Eritopia on our side,” I said, the last ounce of my patience slipping away from me. I went all-in, perfectly aware of the risk. Draven shot me a glance, but I didn’t budge. I played my cards with great confidence even though it was all I had left, given the circumstances.

  Both Thorn and Rebel stared at me in disbelief, then grins slit both their faces as their eyes glimmered with excitement.

  “You’re joking,” Rebel gasped.

  “Nope,” I shook my head. “We have a Daughter. However, we recently discovered that Azazel has one, too. She is much younger and weaker than her sisters, but he’s keeping her as leverage against them, to stop them from intervening. We also suspect that he’s drawing some power from her, although we’re not sure to what extent.”

  “No wonder he’s been able to do this much damage,” Thorn scoffed. “The snake’s been cheating!”

  “Our alliance is much stronger now,” I added. “We have Dearghs, the Red Tribe succubi, the Lamias, the Maras, and the Tritones on our side, along with a group of incubi led by Grezzi. With the Bajangs as well, our siege on Luceria will be one worthy of the history books. We need as much strength in numbers and sheer force as we can get to leave Azazel without his army of incubi and Destroyers. Once he’s left on his own, it’ll be up to a few of us to take the little Daughter away from him and then take him down. I’m also banking on a few Druids I know of that are still alive somewhere on Marton. They’ve been cut off from the world but will surely come into the fold if we reach out to them.”

  The Bajangs whispered to each other all around us. Thorn and Rebel looked at each other and nodded slowly as if processing the information. Rebel winked at me.

  “You’ve made a compelling case, to say the least,” she said, then turned around.

  The Bajangs cleared a path for her and Thorn, who motioned for us to follow them.

  “You’ve placed your trust in us by revealing your most precious secrets,” Thorn said. “I can imagine it wasn’t easy to tell us about the Daughter and Oracles’ existence during our first meeting. The least we can do is return the favor and welcome you into our home beyond the cloaking spell.”

  We walked across the courtyard and through another large archway. It led us through a wide corridor draped in cobwebs and glazed with layers of dust.

  Draven walked closely by my side, his knuckles gently brushing against mine.

  “I know it’s hard,” he whispered, “but, please, have a little bit of patience. We are halfway through. Given our security breach with Sverik, I’m sure you understand why anyone would be reluctant to work with us.”

  “I can’t get Vita out of my head, Draven. If there was pressure before, it’s gotten much worse now. I’ve never dealt with anything like this before,” I replied.

  He took my hand and held it tight as we followed the Bajangs to the end of the dark hallway where a flat stone wall awaited.

  “Bijarki will get her out of there. You’ll see her again soon. In the meantime, let’s get the most out of this moment here with the Bajangs. They’ll bring us closer to our objective,” he said, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

  “We’re here,” Thorn announced as we stopped in front of the wall.

  I looked over my shoulder to find a sea of Bajangs waiting behind us. I glanced at the wall and pursed my lips.

  “Swamp witch magic?” I asked rhetorically.

  Thorn nodded with a grin, then bit into his thumb, drawing blood. He smeared it across the wall, which began to ripple, reminding me of the cloaking magic used by the Red Tribe to protect their camp. He was the first to walk through, followed by Rebel.

  Draven and I went in next, passing through it and feeling its cool and fluid texture against our skin.

  We found ourselves standing in what looked like an entirely different world. A huge hall stretched out in a dome with hundreds of living quarters carved into the stone walls. Further ahead was another archway framed with dark brown wood.

  We followed Thorn and Rebel across the hall, looking around and noticing the architectural details. There were a plethora of rectangular entrances to various bedrooms with hundreds of sculptures emerging from the walls, Greek-like representations of Eritopia’s many species. The Bajangs returned to their quarters quietly, the children glancing at us before disappearing into their rooms.

  Thorn and Rebel led us further into the next hall, a massive library of dark wood with bookshelves covering all the walls from top to bottom. It had a high ceiling adorned with old paintings and gold leaf molding details. It was home to thousands upon thousands of books, from what I could see.

  I inhaled sharply as I took it all in. There were hundreds of wood
en chests stored at the bottom of each set of the shelves, and a large round reading table in the middle with oil lamps, parchment rolls, charcoal sticks, quills and ink bottles.

  “What is this?” I managed to ask, my mouth still gaping.

  “This was all left here by your father,” Thorn raised his arms as he addressed Draven, whose expression shifted from innocent wonder to absolute shock. His eyes flickered black, and I could feel his excitement beaming out of him.

  “Draven?” I felt the need to ask him, positive he knew what Thorn was talking about.

  “This is unbelievable,” he managed to reply as he looked around, squinting as he caught a glimpse of several book titles.

  I waited patiently for him to explain. Thorn and Rebel seemed to enjoy his reaction genuinely.

  “These are the Druid archives,” Draven finally said. “Thousands of years of knowledge and information. It was believed to be lost in one of the many fires that Azazel set throughout Eritopia. He was determined to destroy all trace of the Druid-led societies, to purge the world itself. I’d only heard rumors about archives still existing, but never gave them any credence. I wonder why my father never told me about them...This is a treasure trove, Serena. This might help us win the war.”

  He looked at me, his gray eyes wide and filled with hope, something I’d not seen shining so brightly in him before. Never with such intensity. It made my heart skip a beat, removing the pressure I’d felt gather on top of my lungs over the past day.

  “You think?” I asked, still finding this a little bit hard to believe. Since when was the universe so generous with us?

  “These are all Druid registries, manuals with spells I never got the chance to learn, dark magic formulas reserved for top level Druids with over eighty rings. My father died before he could teach me the upper echelon. There are journals here, and castle blueprints of Eritopia’s citadels, from Calliope and the other kingdoms. This is the motherlode of information we need to plan the perfect campaign against Azazel.”

  It took me a while to fully process it all.

  “We weren’t sure you’d survived to this day,” Thorn said. “If we’d had the certainty that you were still alive, we would have found a way to reach out sooner. We didn’t want to risk it, otherwise. We’ve been hidden so well here, and our cubs needed us more.”

  “It’s… It’s fine,” Draven managed to say, partially absent. “How did you know about me? I thought my father kept me a secret from everyone.”

  “He only mentioned having a son,” Thorn replied. “He was quite adamant about keeping you a secret, hidden from all this darkness that has shrouded Eritopia.”

  “Can’t say I blame him, but I wound up in the middle of it anyway.”

  “This is all useless to us. We can’t harness the Druid magic, but we promised your father we’d look after it in hopes that one day someone might come along who would find it useful. We waited for someone strong and wise enough to take it and use it against Azazel,” Rebel said.

  “We believe it’s your chance to do exactly that,” Thorn added. “You’ve built up an impressive alliance, Druid, which is why we’ve decided to give you access to these archives. May they help you in your quest to rid this world of darkness.”

  Draven nodded slowly and smiled, his fingers intertwined with mine, squeezing gently and sending wave after wave of sheer warmth through my body. He was genuinely happy, and I couldn’t help but feel the same in return.

  “Will you join us?” he asked.

  Thorn and Rebel looked at each other, then shifted their focus back to us.

  “We will,” Thorn replied. “Your father died for this world. It would be cowardly of us to be beneath him in any way.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “You don’t know how much this means to us.”

  I was speaking the truth. My heart was tickled with new threads of hope. My entire experience in Eritopia had been a rollercoaster of grief, excitement, rage, fear, love, and affection. Each time it took me down, it pulled me back up with twice as much energy. In this case, this entire Druid archive was a surge of much needed good fortune.

  Thorn smiled as he waved.

  “You should get to work now. I believe you have a lot of reading to do.”

  Draven and I looked at each other. His mouth was curved into a playful smile, and he winked at me.

  “So, how do we do this? I take the left side, you take the right?” he jokingly asked.

  It made me laugh lightly, something I hadn’t done in a while. I lost myself in his steely gaze, looking forward to digging through everything the archives had to offer.

  There was so much we had to go through, but we had a few days left until the alliance meeting. We could knock out as much as possible during that time, prioritizing by the importance of each piece of information we needed.

  Off the top of my head alone, I knew we would need information on the identities of the young Druids who’d escaped from the Grand Temple, Luceria’s blueprints, and the many dark magic spells that Draven hadn’t had the chance to learn.

  We were in for quite the scholarly treat.

  Aida

  I was determined to reach out to Vita through our Oracle connection. I had to let her know we were here for her, and Bijarki was on his way to rescue her from Azazel’s deceitful clutches.

  I locked myself in the attic again, this time with a bit more knowledge about how our bond worked. Though vague, it was a better starting point than my previous endeavor. The last thing I needed was to slip into another vision and bump into Azazel.

  I sat on the floor, my legs crossed in front of me as I faced the middle window, the afternoon sun pouring in shades of electric orange and pink. I took a few deep breaths and followed the Nevertide Oracle’s advice.

  Tuning everything out was a bit of a challenge. My mind constantly wandered. I thought of Vita trapped in Azazel’s castle. I worried about Serena, Draven, Jovi, Jax, Hansa, and Bijarki out there risking their lives to win a war and rescue our fire fae. My thoughts drifted to Phoenix and the Daughter’s dangerously tight bond, which could land them both in trouble if someone decided to use it as leverage against either of them. I wasn’t willing to put anything past that sleazebag Sverik and his loose mouth. Field in the Destroyers’ crosshairs was a particularly frightening distraction, not to mention our predicament here, stuck beneath the protective shield with monsters constantly lurking outside. I had a lot on my plate.

  As the hour went by and I channeled all the patience I could muster, I eventually let it all go, one layer at a time, until I was left with relative silence only disturbed by the trills of birds outside.

  I gradually removed that from my consciousness as well, until I closed my eyes and enjoyed the silent darkness for a while.

  Nothing happened for another hour, but I wasn’t ready to quit yet.

  I took a few deeper breaths and eventually heard a muffled hum in the back of my head.

  Soon enough, I felt my skin ripple gently as I realized that the hum belonged to the fabric of everything around me. Countless atoms interacting with one another, the building blocks of matter finely tuned to my being.

  I listened for a while and followed the rhythm until a heartbeat emerged.

  It was faded and distant, but I focused on it.

  I followed the trail it left until I got closer to the source. I could hear it better.

  My mind immediately went into overdrive, bringing Vita into focus as the heartbeat got louder.

  A bright red thread flickered in front of me in the pitch blackness.

  I reached out and allowed it to curl itself around my fingers. I tugged it gently, and it tugged back.

  I followed it until an image came into focus and the darkness dissipated. I held my breath for a moment, realizing I was in Vita’s chamber in Luceria. It felt different, though. I felt different. I was weightless, as if non-existent.

  I was there, looking at Vita as she sat by the barred window, crying.

 
This was not a vision.

  Vita

  I’d been on my own for several excruciatingly long hours, pacing around the chamber with a throbbing headache. The pain made thinking difficult, but I couldn’t help myself. I worried about Bijarki, about Serena, Aida, and the others. I didn’t know what damage the Destroyers had managed to do during their invasion, and I was constantly going over all possible scenarios regarding my presence here.

  I didn’t touch the food that Damion had left, either. I didn’t trust him or anyone in Luceria. Who knew what they’d put in it? Perhaps Azazel was trying to keep me docile and compliant with some special herb slipped into what looked like oats in a wooden bowl. I wasn’t going to risk it.

  The cuffs weighed heavy around my wrists, further adding to my distress. I couldn’t even use my fire power to break myself out of here. Whichever way I looked, I was utterly trapped, and it gave me a feeling of helplessness that I’d never dealt with before.

  I heard the lock twist, then the double doors opened. I turned around to see Damion slithering toward me with a water pitcher, which he placed on a table next to the untouched food. He noticed the tray, then looked at me.

  “You should eat, Vita,” he said slowly. “You need your strength.”

  “My strength is locked in these,” I shot back, raising my hands to draw his attention to my obsidian cuffs.

  “Vita,” he sighed. “I must urge you to be smart in this situation. Azazel will never let you leave, and you are better off on his good side than up there with the other Oracles.”

  Despite my increasing anger toward him and his evil overlord, I had to admit that there was some sense in what Damion was saying. I could make it easier for myself until I could figure out what was going on, or until I could find a way out. Once he’d put me in a glass bubble, any chance I had would vanish.