The Oracles were divine messengers, sent down to us lowly men from the heights of Olympus Mons. They transcribed the words of immortals, writ large upon the world, and gave them to us in a form we could understand. If their tongues were the thread, their words were the tangled weaves of destiny itself.

For time immemorial, the Oracles had guided the greatest Heroes on their paths to glory and prophesied the fall of the vilest Tyrants. It was not enough to say that these women were heaven-sent. Divinity was in their very blood. After all, how else could they understand the incomprehensible tongue of the pantheon?

Every champion’s journey began with the Oracle. Women of prophecy existed in every culture worth mentioning, but it was an intuitive truth that the Oracle was a reflection of her patron deity. And, of course, it went without saying that the Greek pantheon was superior to all others.

Our Oracles were simply the best in the world.

It was no coincidence that in the midst of the war for the Mediterranean, while the free city-states were fighting with all they had to expel his armies, the Conqueror had chosen to push through the bloody seas of hoplites and Heroes to speak to the Oracle. Alone, as vulnerable as he would ever be in his entire life, it was no act of madness that had driven him to the divine temple. It was a desire to know. The hunger.

When the Oracle had spat upon him and refused to ask the gods for a foreign Tyrant’s destiny, he’d dragged her out of her holy domain by the hair and beat her in the streets before her people and the heavens themselves. Citizens and soldiers alike had thrown themselves at the Conqueror in outrage and despair, and all of them were cut down by his fury. In the end, it wasn’t the people of Greece or the Oracle herself that broke.

Her patron deity cried out with the Oracle’s own mouth and gave the Conqueror what he had come for in exchange for her life.

It nearly cost him his life during the retreat back to his armies, and some said that the turning point of the war lay entirely on his shoulders, in that moment. While separated from his forces, the phalanxes were given their one and only chance to scour the enemy from our borders. And they took it. By the time the Conqueror rejoined with them, injured and near death, the Macedonian hordes were in full retreat. They never returned.

My father, though, in the one time he’d spoken of it, said that the Conqueror had hardly walked away from the incursion disappointed. And if the stories of what followed were true, he’d found more than enough success in other nations, on other battlefields. Perhaps the Oracle had been a part of that. Perhaps not. Regardless, the losses that he sustained that day were simply the price of admittance to the divine temple.

Immortal insight was a boon that needed no explanation. Yet we were cultivators, were we not? In the end, our ultimate goal was to spit in the face of heaven and throw off its threads, was it not? What did it matter what the immortals had to say? Why should the supreme Conqueror care for the words of a being too cowardly to show its face while he savaged its chosen messenger?

I was curious to see what the fuss was about, I had to admit. But I wasn’t looking for prophecy. I wanted to meet the women that had been touched by divinity.

Unfortunately, it turned out that gaining an audience with such a woman was easier said than done. Since the first kyrios of the Raging Heaven Cult had consolidated the great powers of the Mediterranean within Olympia’s walls, each of the Oracles now resided here at Kaukoso Mons. But this hadn’t turned out to be the convenience I’d thought it would be.

I watched another initiate of the Raging Heaven beg admittance to a temple of an Oracle, and once more I watched an initiate face cold rejection. The third in as many hours. The mystiko, a wild-eyed woman with streaks of gray in her hair that belied her apparent youth, fled the entry archway in hysterical tears. The guards didn’t even watch her go. The fires of Heroic cultivators burned dully in their eyes.

It was to be expected that not every mongrel off the streets would be granted an audience with a divine messenger, but I hadn’t expected things to be quite this strict. Thus far, only one initiate had been granted admittance to the temple, and they had been a Heroic cultivator themselves.

The Oracle’s word was the beginning and the end of nearly every great epic, the bane of Tyrants the world over. Why would they waste their breath on anything less than a Hero? I’d checked three of the nine temples since this morning, and the principle had held true for each one. The only question that remained was whether or not a Hero could bring a friend.

I waved gaily to the guard on the right as his influence crashed against me, white-backed waves and dangerous intent. Onto the next.

For every deity of the sublime pantheon, there was an Oracle to spread their word. One for each of the eight city-states, and two for the Coast. Their temples were spread out around the foot of the mountain, intermingling with the personal estates of the Raging Heaven’s elders. Should another conqueror ever come calling, from the wilds of Macedon or wherever else, they would have to contend with far more than their predecessor to reach their prize.

It was folly for a junior initiate to even walk along these hallowed paths, of course. Spanning the distance between elders, senior initiates, and the dwellings of honored guests such as the Oracles, these were the roads that only privileged members of the cult were permitted to travel. There were main trails—staircases cut from the mountain’s face so that initiates could come and go from the cult—but these glittering walkways of indigo mosaics were not for the likes of juniors and outsiders to tread. If they were, I would have surely seen some by now.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Instead, seniors alone trawled these roads.

“Good afternoon, fellow sophists,” I greeted the approaching trio. Three Philosophers, each noticeably younger than me and wearing the deep indigo robes of the cult’s privileged mystikos.

Young prodigies, each and every one.

The one that had called out to me, a young Philosopher of the eighth rank, stopped just short of colliding with me and drove a finger into the center of my chest.

“Where are your robes, mystiko?” he demanded. “And why aren’t you wearing them?”

“I haven’t received any,” I answered, lifting my palms. What can you do? The young cultivator’s expression darkened.

“No one passes through the gates of the Raging Heaven Cult without membership or a sponsor,” he said, a curious weight to the words that I felt in his influence. From one moment to the next it suddenly became heavier, more oppressive. Nothing compared to a Hero, however… “Where is your sponsor? Do you mean to tell me you’re accusing them of negligence, to leave you alone without even a set of proper robes to wear?”

The other two Philosophers with him, children of similar prestige and stylized robes, stepped threateningly towards me. Their lips moved silently—a habit I’d noticed in some of our own Sophic cultivators back in the Rosy Dawn. Preparing some virtue or another.

Best to defuse this situation before it came to that.

“Naturally, I’d never accuse the Raging Heaven of such a thing,” I said placatingly. “They were simply too drunk to handle the small details last night.”

Hmm. Perhaps that wasn’t the ideal way to put it.

The young Philosopher went from poking my chest to gripping the golden fabric of my tunic tight and yanking me down to his eye level. Admirable strength for his age. He glared at me, his eyes a furious terracotta brown.

“What are you playing at, cultivator?” he asked in a deadly tone of voice. He reminded me of Myron, during the preliminary trials of the initiation rites. “Walking the roads reserved for senior initiates and honored elders, wearing whatever this is—”

“What are you wearing, anyway?” the leaner of the three demanded. He was the tallest of the bunch, in the midst of filling out into his adult frame. “What sort of city wears those colors?”

“Oh, this?” I plucked the Philosopher’s hand off my tunic and rubbed the material between my fingers. He stared at his own hand and then at mine. “An old woman gave me this at the kyrios’ funeral. Said it was disrespectful for me to be walking around a dead man’s wake with a bare chest.”

They connected the dots quickly, looking to my cult attire that hung tattered and bloodstained around my waist. Disbelief, followed by derision passed through their eyes.

“The Rosy Dawn?” the third boy Philosopher asked incredulously. “You’re a new arrival from the Rosy Dawn.”

“Just sailed in the day before last.”

The lead boy broke into a slow chuckle, and soon that chuckle turned to laughter. His friends followed suit. It was an ugly sort of laugh, the kind that promised pain, but they were still too young and small to pull it off. So it just ended up making me laugh, too.

“Shut up!” the leader snapped. “Of all the stories you could have told, you chose the most flagrant! The Scarlet City has been shut off from the Mediterranean for nearly twenty years now. You think we wouldn’t have heard if that had changed? How naive do you think we are?”

What?

“A stranger wandering the same paths that seniors and honored elders tread,” the taller of the three said, his own influence rippling and expanding the same way the leader’s had earlier. Magnifying. “With no sponsor to claim him and false attire from a cult he couldn’t possibly belong to.”

“Are you calling me a liar?” I asked, thoughts racing. Instinct. “My virtuous heart won’t accept that.”

The lead Philosopher’s leaps peeled back from his teeth.

“I’m calling you a crow.”

The trio exploded into motion.

I realized instantly that these three weren’t the same breed of Philosopher that I’d become accustomed to back in the Rosy Dawn. They moved with speed and precision that spoke to long hours in the gymnasium, with coordination that spoke to a strong bond of shared trust, and with power that spoke to their natural talent at cultivation. They reminded me of Myron even more, and even Nikolas in the days before he’d left.

More than that, their influence sang. Their pneuma cried out to me, to a sense that I hadn’t had until two days ago, and I heard it in the crashing waves.

Death to deceivers! the tall and lean Philosopher’s influence cried accusingly, wrapping around his body and pooling in his clenched fists.

Root out the rats, the third Philosopher’s influence hissed, surging up his legs as he leapt into a spinning kick.

Cast the unworthy into the light, said the leader’s influence, clearest of the three. It seeped into the roots of his hair, making the deep brown curls billow as he rushed into the press of battle.

The trio assaulted me in utter silence, and it was deafening.

So that’s how it was.

This heart can’t lie! I declared in the voice of my soul and lunged forward to meet them.

Kyno opened the door to his chambers wearing nothing but his crocodile skin cloak. I raised an eyebrow at the sight, but he only grunted and tilted his head back.

“In.”

I obliged, dragging my new friends behind me. They all groaned pitifully, nursing minor wounds as if they were on death’s door. I rolled my eyes and let them drop.

“Don't be like that,” I scolded. “I barely even hit you.”

I spat a mouthful of bloody saliva onto the tall one, probing a loose tooth gingerly with my tongue. They were good for their age, I’d give them that much. They’d done more damage to me three-on-one than the Rosy Dawn’s esteemed elders had done with five.

“What is this?” Kyno asked roughly, wrapping faded green robes around his waist to preserve some semblance of modesty. “What are you playing at, Griffon?”

“Nothing at all, friend,” I said, waving a hand at the three child Philosophers. “I needed to find you, and these three were kind enough to direct me.”

“And you returned that kindness, did you,” he rumbled, looking over the bruises and burns, and in the case of the tall one, the broken jaw.

“I held back when I could,” I said, shrugging. “They’re better than they look.”

“I’m sure they are,” Kyno said quietly. His dark eyes were piercing. “And I’m sure it’s only coincidence that they inflicted as much damage to you as Elissa did at the funeral.”

That was more to do with the fact that she’d hardly been trying at the time, and these three had given it their all. I smiled silently. Kyno grunted.

“I’m too hungover for this,” he said. “You. Get me food and water.” The leader of the three looked at his pointing finger and then at him with wide eyes.

“You truly know him, honored Hero?”

“What did I tell you?” I asked, crossing my arms. “My sponsor was drunk.”

Kyno’s influence roiled in displeasure, but there was little he could say. In a way, the new companions Sol and I found were our sponsors. They’d gotten us into the cult, for better and for worse. It had been drunk and unintentional, of course, but then all the best things generally were.

“Go,” Kyno commanded. All three dashed out of the room as fast as their legs could carry them, casting fearful glances back at me as they went.

“Nice boys,” I commented. “Bright for their age, too.”

“The Raging Heaven accepts nothing less,” Kyno said, sitting down on the edge of his bed and massaging his temples. When I tried to add my own pankration hands to help, he only slapped them away, glaring at me. “What do you want, Griffon?”

“I want to see the Oracle.”

“Then go see her.” He waved a hand vaguely east, towards the opposite side of the mountain. “The Scarlet Oracle is that way.”

“I tried that,” I admitted. “Unfortunately, Philosophers aren’t allowed audience with the Oracle on their own.” Kyno stared silently at me with bloodshot eyes, his crocodile’s eyes glaring right along with him.

“I told you at the funeral that I have no interest in the games of politicians and Tyrants,” he said, finally. “What makes you think I want to be a part of yours?”

Ho? “What do you mean?”

Kyno spat on the floor, lips twisting at the taste of something foul. “You want to pretend you’re a junior, be my guest. But I won’t be roped into whatever it is you and your master are planning.”

Hn. I was getting dangerously close to being in over my head. I’d approached Scythas with only a vague plan in mind at the funeral, and things had rapidly spiraled out of my control from there. This might be my only chance to withdraw before the situation was well and truly beyond my influence.

On the other hand.

“What makes you think you aren’t already implicated?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow. “Juniors they may be, but there are three young prodigies that can attest to you not denying me when I called you my sponsor. No matter what happens, you’ll be a part of what comes next. In the eyes of the elders and the heavens above.”

The Heroic giant went very still. The fine hairs on my arms and the back of my neck shivered and stood up. My pulse started to pound in mingled excitement and anticipation.

“We were all drunk.” Even as he said it, he knew it didn’t matter. “You dare blackmail a Hero?”

I rolled my eyes. So dramatic. “I’m not trying to kill the Oracle. I just want to see her. Will you help me or not?”

Kyno considered me. “Why?”

“Why do I want to see her?”

He nodded.

I leaned back against his door frame, mulling over the question. There were several answers to that question. But in the end, there was only one appropriate response.

“They say that the Oracles are the blood of the pantheon,” I said as if discussing the sun in the sky. “Even if it’s only the smallest fraction, they carry a piece of one of the divine existences that climbed Olympus Mons and made it their own, once upon a time.”

“The Oracles don’t deliver prophecies anymore,” Kyno said. I shrugged, smiling wryly.

“That’s fine. I don’t care much for them anyway, prophecies. The Oracle herself is the prize.”

His brow furrowed. “You can’t be planning to—”

I waved the thought off, disgusted. “Nothing like that. It’s far more profound than that.”

Kyno spread his hands expectantly.

“That fraction of divine blood is the end of the road that we’re all so perilously rushing down,” I said. “Sprinting with all that we have, careening hopelessly into the depths.” I leaned forward, and in his own eyes, I saw the fire. I smiled. “I want to see the end of the road, Kyno. Don’t you?”

The Hero groaned and stood.