A shiver runs down my spine from the unspoken implication behind those words.
“What were you placed on this earth to do, exactly?” I ask in a whisper.
“Protect the girl of prophecy. Protect the chosen one. Protect you.”
“It is why we locked ourselves in a vacuum outside of time,” Lorne adds. “The time was not right. We had come to this earth too early. You were not yet alive.”
“Come? What do you mean, come? You speak as if it were a conscious choice to be born here.”
“You could say that,” Sute murmurs. “We are all souls floating in the Great Cosmic Experience. It is only on this earth, and a few other places, where we may be made flesh. Where we are made to experience.”
“Experience what?” I wonder.
“Experience the majesty of creation. Experience the universe itself.”
“How do you know this?” I ask. “I mean, you are earths’ creatures. Are you not?”
“We are,” Allura confirms. Rebecca sits silent at my side, taking everything in. “And yet, with the knowledge gathered over our lifetimes, we are not.”
“What knowledge?” I ask. “How did you get it?”
“Through decades of searching and decades of experience,” she replies, emphasizing that word again. “All the secrets of the universe are yours for the taking, if only you know where to look.”
“And what to look for,” Lorne adds.
I shake my head quickly, trying to make sense of this. “Are you telling me you know what you were before?” I gesture at their bodies. “Before you were born in the flesh?”
“Of course, we know. As do you. We are all energy, born of the source.”
“Source? Source of what?”
“The source” Sute says reverently. “The source of all creation. All that ever was, all that is, all that ever will be, comes from the source.” She waves a hand through the air, tracing a beautiful line of magic with it. “It is what we call upon when we do this.”
She shrugs. “There are higher powers in this world, Eleira, and in all worlds. But they exist all as part of a common core, and in a manifestation that our minds simply cannot fathom. But the divinity is there. It always has been and always will be.”
“Fine,” I say, not wanting to get sidetracked by a theological discussion. “You believe that you were placed on this earth at the wrong time. But can you actually prove it? Do you remember what your lives were before?”
“The proof is in the prophecy,” Allura responds. “And we have no memory of the past. That is one requirement for all souls willing to be made to flesh. Past memories may not haunt them. We are each given a clean slate because our pasts are infinite.”
“Time is a loop,” Sute volunteers. “Much like the source, it always was, it always will be. Sentient beings have a beginning and an end. To assign the same values to the universe is to make a mistake of horrendous proportions. There was no start to things. Just like there will never be an end. We exist on the winds of time and the fabric of light itself. What is light? It is energy. What is time? It is a loop through space, simply the illusion of forward movement. The truth is, it’s a perpetual loop. The scale of what I speak of is impossible for creatures like us to imagine. So, we make up hundreds of fables, all trying to lead us to that which we can never know—” she raps her knuckles against the table, “—never, that is, until we are returned to our celestial form, when we take on the purity of our soul and achieve the perspective we had before we were made into blood and bone in this reality.
I exhale slowly. “That’s a lot to take in.”
“It is vital to have an understanding, and a respect for, your place in the universe,” Allura says. “It is especially important for someone like you, who was able to summon a demon before visiting the other realm.”
She angles her body closer. “But of course, that’s not true, is it? You are the girl of prophecy for one reason, and that reason defines you.”
My throat seizes up. Is this finally the answer I’ve been looking for?
When she simply looks at me, in expectation, I prompt, softly, “What reason?”
“Simple,” she says, after a long pause. “You were the first human child to be born in the Demon Realm.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Eleira
The Queen’s Apartments.
I stagger back, away from the table, in absolute shock.
My chair goes toppling over.
“No,” I breathe, feeling my chest constrict in apprehension. “No, it can’t be.”
“Why not?” the witches ask, speaking as one. “What else could have marked you as the girl spoken of in prophecy?”
“The stars…” I say vaguely, gesturing at the ceiling. “Something about the constellations…”
I trail off. The denial of what the witches have told me rings hollow in my ears.
“What constellations, Eleira?” the Forsaken Sisters ask. “Have they ever been shown to you? Have you been told how or why they are important? Come back to the table.” Allura stands to right my chair. She smiles gently at me. “Sit.”
Slowly, I do, feeling the creeping apprehension all over my body. It is not dissipating.
“The stars were aligned, here, on earth, from this perspective, the moment you were born. That much is true. But they simply heralded your coming. They did not imbue anything of importance on you themselves.”
The witches shift to speak one at a time. “They were a sign, Eleira, to those watching from earth. So that both witches and vampires knew you had come.”
“But that means… that means…” That means so many things, and I cannot find words to express them all. Rebecca looks at me with a wholly bemused expression. She must be thinking how foolish it is for me to let her listen in on all of this. But for what she’s done, for what she knows, she is tied tighter to me than she ever suspects.
So, for that reason alone I let her remain. I want her to know enough information for her to be unable to leave my side. I am sealing her to me, because if I don’t, I fear I’ll loosen my hold on her over time, and thus make her into an even bigger threat.
I take a deep breath, trying to make sense of my chaotic thoughts.
“Who were my parents?” I ask.
Lorne looks at me with a sad expression. “That is not for us to say.”
“Why?” I challenge. “Why not tell me? You were there, weren’t you? You were in the Demon Realm. You felt me when I arrived. You had control of that world. You protected me, even though you could have killed me.”
“We would not have killed you. However, knowing what you are, the demons would have.”
“Who are my parents?” I repeat.
Allura speaks. “We cannot say, Eleira—” she holds up a hand when she sees me about to interrupt, “—because we do not know.”
“How can you not know? You were there, you went there; it was your realm!” I scream.
“It is not our realm,” Sute responds, with no small amount of distaste. “We were cocooned there, forced into hiding there, in order to survive. To survive, so that we could see the child of prophecy make good on what the fates have decreed she must do.”
“And what if I don’t believe in fate?” I challenge. “What if I don’t like the idea that we do not have control?”
Lorne chuckles softly. “Fate is not about giving up control. Quite the opposite. It is about doing what you were put on this earth to do—to live up to your own greatest potential.”
“People cheat fate all the time,” Allura adds. “They do so by ignoring their true calling. By rejecting the miraculous gifts of life they have been given. Fate, Eleira, is simply the highest manifestation of achievement possible for your physical, spiritual, emotional self. Fate is what gives rise to all the marvels of the world. It is not something that constricts—it only frees. Your great benefit is that you know what fate has planned for you. You know the absolute pinnacle of what you might accomplish.”