Just a few weeks since I left him. Days filled with lessons and discoveries about who I was, what I was meant to be. 

Some days, I'd find myself going back to that time, wishing I could return to that place that was no longer within my reach.

Never suspecting that I could be blind to the truth, I had missed all the signs.

The first time I'd left I did it because I was selfish, because I still hoped that I could have a future. This time, it was different. From the first moment, I'd known that I wasn't leaving to save myself. 

I didn't leave because of naive hope. I didn't leave because I could lie to myself and pretend that everything was going to okay.

I left because I couldn't.

The wildlings knew all along. Cole knew.

The reason why he did what he did. All along, I had been his reason. The ace up his sleeve he wanted to use to achieve his goal.

What was the thing that he had wanted? Why did he go to such lengths to have me on his side? What did he want from me?

Even lying about that letter from two years ago... he didn't send it. 

Reading Oracle's notes in her book it wasn't hard to recognize her penmanship. For days, I had known that it was her who sent me that letter. It was these people who reached out to me; they just waited too long.

Steps coming closer, the sound of bare feet against the wooden floor had me raising my head from the book I was reading. It was almost finished now. Only a few pages to go over and then I'd be done.

"Are you done, child?" her raspy voice said a few moments before she appeared on the doorstep of her own room.

As far as I knew I was the only one who had ever been allowed here by Oracle. Lucas insisted it was as close to a miracle as it was ever going to get, however, I didn't share his conviction.

Why would Oracle show me things she never showed anyone else? Was I different than everyone else? Was I special?

I didn't feel special as I lifted my head from the book and nearly winced from the pain that had settled into my body.

"I'm nearly finished, Oracle. Just a couple more pages to go through," I said, closing the book in my lap. My body felt stiff and tired from the long hours of sitting on the floor but I knew that my small sacrifice was probably nothing compared to how he felt now after I deserted him.

The life confined between the pages was, in a way, my own punishment for myself.

"Good. I guess we can now begin with the practical side of your studies. Come out with me." She spun back and went out. I knew she expected me to follow.

Rising from the floor, I trailed behind the woman who, so far, had been both a silent observer to my studies and an elder who told me her stories. 

Learning things about them, learning things about the world I lived in and never truly knew, I'd learned more than I ever wished to.

Knowledge about a war raging under a perfect icing, facts unknown to people who lived outside of the truth that only a dozen were private to... 

I was one of them now. Illuminated.

Closing the door behind me, I then trekked after her into the forest. Deeper and deeper she led me, until the path between the trees disappeared and only wilderness was left for us to walk on.

It was the first time she would choose the forest over that wooden bench outside her house.

"Where are we going, Oracle?" I called after her as the song of water crashing over small rocks and stones spilled out and grew louder the further we went down our way through the forest, the moss gentle underneath our feet. 

The nights were still chilly here but I could already see the first hints of the warm season breaking over these parts of my world.

Oracle's form disappeared through the trees and soon after, as I followed in her steps I entered a small clearing. However, there were just a few feet of grass before a rivulet traversed the earth. 

The water cascading down the smaller stones bubbled out through the small cracks on top of the rock and formed a small basin into the earth.

"Come," Oracle said to me, two feet in the water.

Taking my flats off, I came right after her, trying to keep my balance as I stepped over the slippery stones scattered beneath my feet while, even with her eyes closed forever to the light of the world, the older woman effortlessly made it to the other side of the basin.

I saw her disappear through a crack in the rock behind the waterfall that somehow I'd missed.

A place only she knows about, I had myself believing the moment I followed her through the water veil.

Shivering in my clothes, now drenched by the unexpected shower I had to take because of Oracle, I gaped at the cave's interior.

The main gallery led to several smaller ones, yet wherever my gaze stopped there they were. 

Boxes made of glass so you would know what was inside every step of the slippery way.

It didn't look like a cave at all. Oh, no. What laid before my eyes was a cemetery.

"W-why did you bring me here?" I whispered quietly as I followed the woman into one of the smaller passageways.

"Be quiet, girl. We don't want you to wake up the dead," Oracle shushed me without turning to glance my way.

Startled by her words, I halted in front of one of the boxes and I couldn't help but wonder, How is it possible for a person to fit into something so small?

Then again, I didn't think that anyone had asked them if they wanted to be placed inside their glass confinements. The dead didn't talk so why would anyone bother to ask them? 

And circling back to her last comment, I finally managed to unglue my lips and ask the question that had been on my mind from the moment she told me to keep quiet.

"What do you mean 'wake up the dead', Oracle?" I whispered.

This time, she turned to face me. Her eyes fixated on me, looking nearly white inside the scarcely lit up passage. 

"Don't be stupid, girl! How many wolves did you bring back from the other side that you think that waking them up" - she waved her hand at the box closer to her - "is out of the question? I believe after what you did, you can do much more."

"I'm sorry. I don't understand what you are trying to say, Oracle," I muttered, averting my eyes from hers even if I knew she couldn't see me. 

She had to speak in plain terms if she wanted me to understand, however, I couldn't deny that it wasn't just that I couldn't understand what she was trying to say; I didn't want to.

"Have you ever heard of necromancers, moon-kissed?" she asked. The sound of her feet inching closer to where I stood - rooted to the ground - accompanied her words.

Stopping in front of me, she placed her hand bellow my chin and tilted my head so I was looking at her unseeing eyes.

Eyes that didn't see the color of the world but underneath. It was like this woman who was blind could see right inside of me.

"Am I a necromancer?" I breathed out, a tremor racing down my spine as I anticipated her answer.

"No, Scarlet," she said softly. "You are so much more than that. You carry a life inside of you that you can share with others and no necromancer has that."

I didn't like the sound of that.

"Now, let's go. I have a lesson to teach you, child."