Page 139 of Heir of Broken Souls

With everyone preoccupied, either drowning their sorrows or healing in bed, Delilah and I are the only ones to discuss what we now know. It took her hours to calm down, and even now, her eyes still fill with tears here and there.

The pain barreling through her heart is like no other and the bond is making me feel it all. It’s so consuming, she can’t control it.

“She already won.”

Her words are so soft and yet full of hurt.

“We’re not done yet, Delilah,” I answer honestly. “The prophecy speaks of answers, of change. We have to trust it.”

“A prophecy that just so happens to take the one thing that can kill demons away from the battle that Peter has almost conquered? What if this is all a ploy?”

This has been her new thought, the new direction her guilt is taking her. Doubting her vision and her intuition because in a moment where she couldn’t control the outcome, she feels as if she should have known, and if she didn’t know Hazel was fooling her, then what’s to say the prophecy isn’t as well?

I won’t admit this to her but she had me for the first ten minutes, but it’s been hours now. I go back to the memory of the vision and how she felt when she received it, Elysia and Naia too.

Three powerful seers—there’s no possibility this is a ploy. It can’t be.

“Humor me for a moment,” I try again, coming to sit adjacent to her on the sofa before the fire. “If the prophecy isn’t real, why did Hazel and a herd of demonic creatures come after us when we’re just shy from the supposed location with answers? Why would she try and stop us?”

She chews on her lips, that adorable little furrow in her brow appearing as she considers. “But she had ample opportunity to kill me and she didn’t. The demonic creatures tried, absolutely, but Hazel was toying with me.”

I wonder aloud, “Perhaps there’s something she needs where we’re going, something she doesn’t want Peter to have.”

Delilah frowns. “But that would mean the prophecy is real.”

I can’t help but smirk. “Itisreal.”

She groans, flopping back onto the bed as she rubs her temples. “My head is hurting from all these theories.”

Snorting, I lie beside her, wrapping my hand around her waist and sliding her into my warmth. I allow her scent to soothe me like a drug. “What we do know for certain is the prophecy. It’s been right thus far. This is how she wins, Delilah, by making you doubt.”

I can see my words slowly sinking into that beautiful mind of hers, so I go on.

“She’s had months to kill us, and now desperately she wants to make sure we don’t make it to the location of the prophecy. She wants something there, and she wants to get there first, I’m sure of it.”

Delilah bites her lower lip. “Perhaps she hasn’t won after all.” She straightens. “Maybe she knows Peter is done with her?”

I shake my head. “No, it feels like it’s more than that.”

“For the future lies within the golden hands, which will raise the once sacred land.”

My eyes lock on Delilah’s as she recites a part of the prophecy.

“Sacred land…” I murmur.

“The sunken island she mentioned?” she wonders. “She wants me to raise it, but why?”

We’re silent for a long moment, Delilah’s mind spinning. I can practically feel the whirlwind of her thoughts.

“We can’t let her get there before us.”

Turning to her, I soak up the sight of her, the way her nose slopes down before turning up at the end, her long lashes, the slight furrow of her brow as she concentrates.

She’s beautiful. Even in the midst of chaos, she is the only thing that can steal my breath away. The only thing that makes me want to stop what I’m doing and bask in her glow.

“She wants something on that island,” I say softly. “So I have no doubt that she will follow us there.”

Her head snaps up, teary gaze widening. Guilt blooms down the bond once more. “You think she’ll try and attack us again?”