Page 70 of Inextricably Tied

Talk herself into what? But Omen waves to Flint and Agony as he disappears, leaving them to wait in stilted silence. When the door finally creaks open again, it’s Harbinger in the doorway.

Flint swallows roughly. “Are you ok?”

“Yeah.” She sets the cell phone on the dresser. “Updated the families on our progress. Had to drive for a bit to find a signal. The OID tried calling again.” She doesn’t look at either of them, pulling the keys from her pocket and tossing them as well.

“Is something wrong?” Agony tries.

“No.” But she pauses, fingertips pressed to the top of the dresser, like it’s holding all her weight. “…Yes.”

Flint rises from the bed. Uncertainty scrawls across her face when she looks at him.

She has to talk herself into it.

“It’s kind of…always been wrong,” she finishes. “I need to show you something.” Her gaze flicks to Agony. “Both of you.”

They follow her out of the guest chambers, sound echoing through the hallways and fading the deeper they go. Winding through tunnels embedded with skulls and bones, down hundreds of stone steps. Soon, trickling water blurs out the other sounds, leaving the corridors humid and cool.

Even this deep within the caverns, torches burn bright. The three approach a spider web of corridors, lined with wooden doors backlit by emanating colors. Harbinger keeps an eye on the rooms they pass. Never looking back at Flint and Agony, making turns until they’re far from the sound of anyone else.

The door she stops in front of looks exactly like the others. Wooden slats beneath a heavy metal handle, the faintest purple illuminating its edges. She looks like she wants to run. Flint reaches for her, but she pushes into the room.

Bioluminescence clings to the ceiling of the dark room, a stream weaving along the back wall. It flows into a larger pool, then back out the other side, past a stone slab standing in the deepest water. The slab seems to float above the surface, attached to the floor by stalagmites.

Harbinger doesn’t take her eyes off it. Flint looks at Agony, but he’s staring too, as if he’s seen a ghost. Harbinger’s chest rises and falls, bones pronounced as Flint pulls the door shut. All three of them breathe in time, as if their bodies are connected.

“You told us about your sister.” Harbinger’s teeth almost chatter. Flint’s never heard her so small. “About what happened to her.” In the dark, Flint can make out the murky white of Harbinger’s eyes, the shape of her lips as she speaks. “It’s time I tell you this.”

She turns to Agony. One look is enough to send a tremor through Flint at the openness in Harbinger’s gaze, the puzzled knit of Agony’s brow as he absorbs her emotions. There’s no denying the connection.

She turns back toward the pool. Her features are soft against the purple light: the slope of her nose, the pull of her lips, the angle of her jaw.

“You don’t have to share anything you don’t want to.” Flint doesn’t cast a shadow in the low light, no hulking reminder that he’s there. The stony gray of his skin and the darkness of Agony blend into the walls until Harbinger stands at the water’s edge, alone.

“I wasn’t always like this.” She gestures to her face, bones protruding through her skin, sunken hollows beneath her cheeks. “I looked human. I was human. I could touch whatever I wanted: any thing, any person…I was normal.”

A mocking smile twitches her lips. “The Diviners say we shouldn’t question when the Oracle calls, but that’s an excuse. They don’t know what provokes it. Can’t predict who or when it’ll happen. Once a banshee triggers, they bring you back to the Convent. They don’t tell you what happens after.”

Every line in Harbinger’s face hardens, eyes on the pool like it might boil under her gaze. “These powers can’t run on nothing.” Her tongue lashes over the words, ingrained countless times. “‘It’s an exchange. The Oracle has given you a beautiful gift. All she asks in return is your devotion.’ But there was no asking.”

Her gaze is distant, lost somewhere in time, somewhere that isn’t here. “But this gift takes everything: the way you look. The way the world sees you. Every memory from before the change… It eats them, one by one, cleansing the vessel for divine duty. A blessing you have to suffer for. I guess that’s how they justify it. Now that’s divine.”

Her voice is almost casual, so simple it breaks Flint’s heart. “I don’t remember my old name. That’s usually the first thing to go. It’s why we choose a new one, so we don’t forget our purpose. So we focus on the reason we were chosen, to share our gifts without getting bogged down with our old lives. With human ties. Why would you need your own name when you’re a mouthpiece for someone else?”

Agony steps closer, frantic energy through his body — the need to move, to do something to make this right. “Let’s go back upstairs. We’ll make the Diviners tell you.” Fingers clench below his cuffs. “I can make them tell you.”

Harbinger smiles, but it’s not right. Not happy. “I don’t want to know. Think it would be worse to hear my old name and feel…nothing. No connection. No memory. I don’t know if I could take that.”

Something in Flint strains to reach her, stretching to cover the gaping hole inside him. She inhales to keep her breath even. “The Convent sees it as the beginning of a beautiful new life: new body, new powers. But they don’t care about what’s ending.” Her eyes are glassy. “No one crosses the Veil for free. Do it once, and you won’t live to tell about it…unless you’re not alive.”

Flint’s pulse thuds. “Harbinger. Did they —”

“Once the Oracle chooses you, that’s it. Your bones protrude. Your skin sinks in, all that divine power eating away at your body. No living thing could handle it; it’s a matter of time. So the Diviners bring you to one of these rooms.” Harbinger’s voice barely rises above the sound of water. “Doesn’t matter how much you cry and plead. How you tell them it hurts. They lock you in, alone, and you wait for the sacred rite.”

Agony stares at the slab, eyes flaring with heat when Harbinger lifts her chin toward it.

“That’s where I died.”

Words spill from her like a flood. Unstoppable, held behind her teeth for so long. “They say it’s a gift for loyal service. You die, but the Oracle rewards you with eternal servitude. You’ll live forever — at least, until someone kills you. It has to be intentional. Your body decayed once; you can’t die naturally again. No accidents. No sudden illness. And you can’t kill yourself.” Harbinger’s smile sharpens, wet and bitter. “The Oracle doesn’t appreciate people returning her gifts.”