The next days were peaceful and calm. With some patience and contained enthusiasm, Tieve managed to become friends with the cat. She was often running around with ripped cloths to trigger the animal, which pointlessly tried to murder the swirling pieces of textile. When they both got tired, the furry little animal curled up near little Tieve on the velvet sofa while making a purring sound. In the meantime, Allana started to feel more comfortable around the awkward lady that was the Crimson Oracle. Judging by the thin lines around her painted lips, Allana guessed that she was certainly older than her, yet younger than her mother. The lady often disappeared behind the heavy wooden doors under the strange trees of the hall, where Allana and Tieve had been explicitly forbidden to enter.

  Even though the oracle never ate in their presence, Allana tried to make herself useful by providing breakfast, lunch and dinner. There was a large inventory of fruits, vegetables, herbs and even some dried meats. It made Allana wonder if the oracle would often travel to the city, or if she had an errand boy to bring her supplies. Even though the oracle had loosened up a little around Allana, she wouldn’t let anything slip about her personal business.

  The longer Allana resided in the living room behind the birch, the more she noticed that many of the beautiful decorations on the walls were damaged. Dark smudges of grime were often occurring on the carvings. There must have been a fire in this chamber. When Allana subtly tried to ask the oracle about it, she didn’t share much more than the words that it had been a pity. Her masked face would look down and mumble, “Yes, yes, a terrible shame.”

  What the crimson oracle finally did reveal to her guests, was the origin of the mountain castle. During the fourth evening, after having drunk some berry wine she had firmly forbidden Allana to drink, she started talking much more openly.

  “A god once lived here,” she had started. “In these chambers he dined, slept and worked. But he is no longer here, and so aren’t any others of the gods. They left us. For what? To comfortably observe us from afar? It angers me, even though I still miss them. You people need help every once in a while. It seems they forgot about that.” A brief, agitated silence had raced around the room before she added, “Anyone who is willing to defy the dangerous road to my hideout deserves the answers I can provide.” Then she had stopped talking and dozed off on the sofa.

  The light of the tunnel had gone from pale blue to warm white for some more times now, but the story of the oracle kept spooking around in Allana’s head. She had so many questions. Did it mean that the Crimson Oracle was related to the gods? And when she said that she missed them, did it mean that she had actually known them? If that were true, then how old was the oracle really? The gods had left the North hundreds of years ago… It allowed the brain of the young woman to remain vivid during the long hours of nervously waiting for the outcome of her blood trial.

  Also little Tieve wasn’t unaffected by the story of the Oracle. The day after hearing it, she was determined to seek out which treasures this god had left in the castle. Maybe he left more cats? Or instructions on how to make some? Or perhaps it had been a plant-maker and he left an eternal blooming flower, like the one in the story grandmother often told her.

  While her mother was in another dull conversation with the oracle, Tieve found the perfect moment to sneak off and search the mountain castle. She started walking along the walls of the large hall.

  She ignored the large shrub with low branches, inviting her to climb them, then shortly greeted the deer and patted the nose of the fox that stood next to it. She arrived by the next door. It was closed and the handle, just within her reach, was so stiff, she couldn’t pull it down. Up to the next door then. On the way there, she made a sport of patting all stone animals she could reach.

  “Tieve, what are you doing?” her mother suddenly shouted from the opening underneath the birch. She didn’t sound worried or angry. Tieve replied with an answer so brief and simple, it was not a lie.

  “I’m patting the animals.”

  Her mother nodded. “Be careful of the biting ones,” she amusedly said, then disappeared back into the room.

  Tieve giggled about her little victory and progressed to the next door. It’s handle was just as stuck as the previous one. She grumbled something too incomprehensible to upset the gods. Perhaps she was missing something. Perhaps she had to open the doors with some secret switch. She started inspecting the thick stone roots and searched for something that could function as button. To her own surprise, she actually found something. There were little stone insects, much like the ones on the fume hood in the room behind the birch, decorating the lowest veins of the trees. They didn’t look like buttons, but were really pretty. What if she took one with her? There were so many in here. The oracle would never miss one… Right? It could be a reminder of the time she spent in there for when she grew up.

  She inspected the insects close to her and sought the prettiest one. That’s when she saw the little bumblebee. It was marvellous. It was made of a gold covered pebble, with black gemstones patterning it’s body and dozens of tiny diamonds forming wings. Her little fingers started trailing around it and tried reaching underneath the wings.

  Click.

  But it did not come from the bumblebee. It came from the door. It actually was a secret button! Her luck was growing beyond her own belief, nearly.

  She quickly ran towards the door and pushed it open. The weight of it was unsettling, but interesting too. This room looked nothing like the room where they had stayed for the past few days. The lights in there were different and were very clear, not just candles, but some sort of fancy gas lights. The room was larger too and had doors that didn’t just run to the large hall. The mountain castle was bigger than just the four rooms? There was so much to explore! But first, she’d start with the room itself. There were many copper instruments, holding weirdly shaped glass bottles. Some of the instruments were even moving – swirling and shaking the bottles. There was a desk too. Tieve noticed little frames standing on top of it, so she went closer to inspect them. That’s when she bounced back for a second. There weren’t any drawings or paintings in them. Instead, a collection of butterflies and other strange insects revealed itself from behind a thin layer of glass. Most of them were marvellous, but it saddened Tieve to see them pinned down and dead. Insects are better when they are alive and flying around, or remade with gemstones and gold, she decided for herself.

  One framework looked different from the others, although it stood far on the desk and was hard to see from where she was standing. Tieve crawled on the heavy wooden chair that was standing nearby and leaned over the little army of colourful wings. There was a drawing in there, composed of bizarre, faded colours. Tieve recognized four strangely dressed people in it, two adults and two children. The background showed weird furniture and windows of odd shapes. Those must be people from the East, Tieve thought, from where the cats live.

  Tieve continued exploring the room until she decided she was ready to progress to the rest of the castle. A strange excitement tickled her belly, curious for what she would find beyond the doors. The first door she tried was stuck, again, but Tieve knew not to give up. It was a different type of door compared to the large ones in the hall, and it held a keyhole, so she sought the room for keys. It almost seemed too simple when she found one in a drawer of the desk. She slid it into the door.

  Click.

  The door opened.

  Tieve, enthusiast beyond measure, pushed the door open with such force, she wasn’t able to stop her legs from moving forward when she saw the steep mountain wall plunging down right before her. Her feet slipped and immediately, her bum was grazed by hard rocks. Tieve yelled for her mother, for her father too, but it was too late. She was sliding down fast along the slope. Nothing she tried to grasp would meet the strength of her hands and fingers. She couldn’t stop herself from moving down. The dale below her started to come dangerously close, and she knew she’d collapse onto the ridge of the neighbouring mountain, rising before her like a wall that was placed at the end of a slide. She yelled for her mother one last time, when she saw a light coming from the ridge. Her mother answered. She carefully steered her sliding path towards the light by pressing one foot more strongly into the ground. Tieve started to recognize that the light was coming from a passageway. She neatly slid into it, entering a tunnel, and felt that sliding through it hurt less. The tunnel’s surface was covered with mirrors. After some seconds in the underpass, she suddenly plunged down in a dark room until she felt soft cushions underneath her. Then she felt her mother’s hand brushing through her hair.

  “Tieve, darling. Supper is ready.”

  She quickly raised herself and saw her mother’s peaceful face before her. They were both sitting on the old sofa in the large hall. Tieve was so confused, she didn’t know what to say, ask, or do, so she simply grabbed her mother’s waist and hugged her.

  Later, Tieve would think back of it as a fever dream, as something so strange, it could only have been formed in the haze of thoughts between wake and sleep. Perhaps it was so.

  Over a week after their arrival in the mountain castle, the lady told Allana that she was ready for the gemstone ritual. Again, it had to happen during the night, in the large hall underneath the tunnel of light. Allana reckoned that this explained the weirdly positioned chaise longue in the middle of the large hall. Tieve had been asleep for a couple of hours which gave them a good window to continue without any interruptions.

  Firstly, the oracle positioned all sorts of colourful gemstones on the pregnant belly and let them rest there for a few ten minutes. Then she rubbed some greasy substance with swirling movements around the gemstones and rolled a different kind of stone along the path she had just defined. After moving over the entire round belly, the oracle cleansed Allana’s stomach with a damp cloth. Her many hollow eyes then focussed on the young mother.

  “If there is anything you haven’t told me, this is your cue.” A shiver teased Allana’s shoulder blades. No, I don’t have anything to say.

  “Nothing.”

  The crimson oracle told Allana to remain on the sofa as she retreated to a chamber underneath one of the foreign trees. Allana stared at the magnificent ceiling and noticed that the light in the tunnel was slightly fluctuating in intensity.

  “Heavenly night lights,” Allana softly whispered to the centre of the dome. “Please, save my unborn child. It’s a child of love. It belongs on this earth. Let it help to warm this cold continent. Please, mighty gods, please be merciful.” Silent tears escaped her eyes as she was ending her prayer.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  A couple of minutes later, the oracle returned into hall. She told Allana to sit up straight on the sofa and kneeled on the floor before her. The oracle grabbed both of Allana’s hands while directing that emotionless, masked face towards her. Allana could only imagine a serious look in the eyes behind those dark voids. The oracle’s voice sounded heavier than before as she started her prophecy.

  “He’ll be born early and weak. Close to death. But he’ll be born as a prince and grow to change the future of the continent.”

  The message reached Allana slowly. Born a prince… Born a prince! That means that the rebels are winning the uprise and that a member of her family would become the new ruler of the Northern provinces! Could it be her husband? Upon hearing these words, she experienced a mixed feeling of happiness and relief she had never felt before.

  Then the oracle continued.

  “He however,” she started, building up tension, “will also be born a murderer, and for many years to come, he will atone for the crimes of his name.”

  Allana’s body froze. Born as a murderer? What could that even mean? As if a newborn child could ever cause death… She suddenly understood the prophecy. It came down on her as heavily and as crushingly as the ceiling of that large hall would have. A pressure rose in her eyes, drowning them with tears, while her upper lip pulled hard to tense her chin. She didn’t want to display these feelings of weakness, but overwhelmed by shock, she simply couldn’t help herself. The oracle pitifully pressed her lips together and clenched Allana’s hands tightly between hers.

  “I will write this in copper. Take the plate to the high temple and show it to the highest priest or priestess. They will announce the prophecy for everyone in the city and your child will be safe from harm.”

  Allana wasn’t really listening anymore. She kept staring down at her belly and intentionally let her wavy hair shield her tear-filled face from the oracle. Her thumbs were softly stroking her round belly underneath the velour dress.

  “My little child, I will love you as much and as long as I can. My little child of change, my little child of love…”

  The oracle stood up again and told Allana to go and rest with Tieve. The next morning, they would have to start their journey back to the city.

  During their hike through the long dark tunnel, both mother and child were painfully silent. Allana was still shaken by the prophecy from the night before, while little Tieve was moping about having to leave the cat behind. When they finally saw the bright light at the end of the tunnel, Allana resolved herself to change her mood. They paused shortly on the plateau and stared into the tunnel for a little while. Knowing what was at the end of it surely made the tunnel look a lot less threatening than the week before. Then, Allana kneeled before her little daughter and scanned every feature on her petite face, already showing clear signs of the beauty she would become.

  “My dearest daughter, how much I love you, beyond what any combination of words could ever describe.” Tearful eyes affectionately smiled at the child. For once, little Tieve sensed the tenderness of the moment. She smiled back at her mother before wrapping her arms around her.

  “Now let’s go and descend this mountain, carefully. Tonight we can sleep by the water again. Then I’ll try to catch another delicious fish for you. Soon, you will be able to sleep in your soft, warm bed again.”

  And so, mother and child travelled home.

  The following weeks passed by slowly while pitying eyes were staring at Allana from every corner in the city. Her mother, the impressive lady Finola Bokmal, and an army of servants and maids were hovering over her as if they would intervene with every move she made. It drove Allana mad not to have any moment for herself. She often woke up early, before sunrise, and walked the dark streets and stairs of Andalsund by herself. She knew it was a risk, especially with the baby being predicted to come any moment now, but these scarce moments of quietude lightened her soul.

  On this particular morning, while she was climbing the steep stairs on the south side of the city, she felt more peaceful than she ever felt during one of her walks. Good news had reached her just a day before: the rebels had managed to breach the walls of the capital. In this effort, they were led by two young prodigies: the Einarsun brothers. Victory seemed nearby, and even though the capital must have been ablaze at this exact moment, Andalsund had never slept more peacefully than this night.

  After climbing dozens of stairs, Allana stopped to allow her swollen ankles some rest. She was standing by a balcony which displayed the most marvellous view over the ocean. A new moon provided the perfect black canvas for the heavenly lights to depict their colours. As they were reflected in the tranquil mirror of the water, the whole world before her seemed magical. Allana couldn’t help but smile and thank the gods for this beautiful sight. Then she whispered, softly, addressing both the distance and proximity in front of her.

  “You will adore this, my sweet little child.” She swallowed away a thick lump of grief. “I’ll never see the reflection of the heavenly lights in your eyes, or hear your voice form words, and see your lips form a smile. But you will smile. Life will be good to you, my little child of change.” Although her chest was crushed by sadness, she felt ready for what was to come.

  And there it was.

  A sudden convulsion in her belly made her flinch and grab the balustrade before her. She immediately realized what it meant and hurried home, swollen ankles and heavy legs objecting to every step, as if her limbs knew about the faith they were walking towards and desperately wanted to escape it. First thing after entering the mansion, Allana woke little Tieve. As the convulsions were rapidly following one another by now, she tried her very best to appear calm. She smiled and stroke the dark hair of the little girl.

  “Your brother is coming,” she said, breathing heavier than she’d like.

  Tieve’s sleepy eyes grew large and fearful. Despite her young age, she had heard the people talking and realized what the oracle had predicted about her mother.

  “Go fetch your grandmother, sweetheart. I believe I better stay here now.”

  Tieve hastily ran through the staired hallway of the mansion to her grandmothers bedroom and slammed the door open with a loud thud. Her grandmother jumped up, startled. The anxious face of Tieve must have said more than any words possibly could have, and the woman started running towards the other side of the large house. By the time they arrived at Tieve’s bedroom, Allana was bathing in sweat and groaning in pain. Finola walked in, not showing any visible distress, and started guiding her daughter through the process.

  Tieve had received the order to wait outside in the hallway, where she was now nervously walking around. The bright colours of the stained glass windows became visible. The sun must have been rising over the plains in the east. Tieve tried to phase out the painful screams of her mother in the background by remembering the heroic tales of the scenes that were depicted on the glass. Her favourite story was illustrated by a large blue whale and a beautiful, golden haired woman. The legend of Malia – star of the sea. She had been brave for her family. So now Tieve had to be brave as well, and ease things for her mother and baby brother. But how could she be brave? All hero’s in the old tales had such clear tasks, while little Tieve hadn’t the slightest idea on what to do…

  As if the gods received her thoughts, she suddenly heard her name being called out loudly by her grandmother. After hastily opening the door, Tieve stepped back from the shock of seeing her mother in such a horrible state. Her face was contorted in a painful grin and her legs achingly pressed into the mattress.

  “Mama!” she screamed and immediately ran towards her.

  “Later child, your mama is fine. She would be even better if you went to get a bucket of water and clean cloth from the bathroom.”

  Her grandmother waved a clammy hand towards Tieve to indicate her to hurry. The small child looked at her mother for one more second. Her sweaty hair was sticking on her forehead and the whites of her eyes looked reddish. But even though she looked as if she were in pain, she smiled at Tieve and winked an eye.

  While Tieve was running through the hallways again to fetch the supplies her grandmother had demanded, she felt some hope that her mother would be fine after all. She had smiled and winked, she wouldn’t do that if she really felt so horrible she would die, right?

  When the child returned to her bedroom, her mother was still painfully moaning. A troop of housemaids had joined them in the room, but everyone looked as helpless as Tieve. Luckily, her grandmother maintained control. She demanded Tieve to hold some of the wet cloth on her mother’s head, who smiled peacefully when feeling the cold touch on her forehead.

  “That’s wonderful sweetheart, thank you.”

  Then she cast a peaceful smile in her direction, and somehow, it told Tieve that everything was going to be alright. It made her so happy, a smile stretching from ear to ear appeared on her tiny face.

  All of a sudden, her mother frowned again and told Tieve to hold on a moment. She painfully groaned while grandmother Finola was encouraging her to push.

  Push what? Tieve thought. Her mother’s hands were pulling the sheets of the bed, not pushing anything... Her grandmother suddenly made an enthusiastic shriek.

  “There he goes, my child! Another big push!”

  Tieve was no longer searching for whatever her mother was pushing, but excitedly ran towards her grandmother to meet her little brother.

  “Dry cloths!” Finola yelled at the child who quickly brought her what she demanded.

  As Tieve was running towards her grandmother, she heard the moaning of her mother suddenly being accompanied by a sharp cry. The crying continued. Her brother was born. Tieve witnessed her grandmother use some scissors and briefly worried she might be hurting him. He was crying so terribly loud…

  Finola wrapped the little baby into a clean blanket and carefully carried him towards Allana. Tieve had seen babies before, but they had never looked this slimy and purple. For a brief moment, she wondered if something was wrong with her baby brother. Her mother seemed quite content by the way he looked, though, so Tieve trusted he was fine.

  “Come here, love.”

  Her mother sounded tired but happy. Tieve crawled on the bed and curiously looked at the little baby.

  “He’s very tiny, mama” she said.

  Allana smiled. “Yes, sweetheart. As predicted, he was very excited to come and meet you, so he’s a little early, but he will grow soon enough. Don’t you worry.” Allana held on tightly to her newborn.

  Finola ordered one of the house maids to open the windows to allow some fresh air into the room. The brisk scent of the ocean entered the room and Allana breathed in heavily through her nose, absorbing every sensation. The morning bells just started to ring from the temple towers, but they continued for too long. Distant shouts could be heard. The elder woman panicky made way to windows by the landing and hung her upper body out of it, trying to catch some of the announced words. She briskly moved her body into the room again and intensely looked at Allana as a large grin appeared on her face.

  “It’s over! They won!”

  Allana smiled and looked down at her baby. “Little child of change.” She said lovingly at the newborn, wrapped in blankets. “How shall we call you?”

  “Child of victory seems more accurate at this hour, and of vigour of his father. Wouldn’t you think?” Finola cast back.

  Allana looked at her mother and nodded compliantly. She didn’t have the energy to argue with her, so she made up her mind about the name.

  “Viggo. Child of vigour, child of victory. You will be called Viggo Einarsun.”

  Allana heard her mother mutter Vígor, which is better suited to the Einarsun naming customs, but she ignored it. To her, he was Viggo.

  A maid called for Finola and spoke to her in a low voice. Allana heard hushed words, but couldn’t understand what they were saying until she recognized one word: ‘king’. Then something extra: ‘Einarsun King’.

  All of a sudden, Allana felt the same knot tying up her stomach as she experienced weeks ago on the steep mountain ridge. The oracle’s prophecy was coming true. Her mother started saying something to her, but she sounded as if she were trapped in a fish bowl. Allana called out for Tieve, whom she saw appearing next to her face. The little girl’s lips were moving up and down, saying ‘mama’, but everything seemed muted or coming from far away. She tried saying “I love you”, but wasn’t really sure if the words were coming out correctly. She leaned on her side and rolled Viggo towards the Tieve.

  “Stay together,” she mumbled.

  Little Tieve caught the baby just in time for him not to tumble of the bed. Allana noticed that both her children were crying and all she wanted to do was comfort them, but her body had started to shake uncontrollably. The room around Allana was spinning, which blurred out all furniture. She recognized the blue eyes of her mother in front of her and felt a moist cloth on her forehead. For a moment, she thought to witness panic from her mother’s side, but her vision was failing her, and so were her other senses. Then also the blue eyes blurred together with the rest of the room, forming a purple-brownish pallet in front of her eyes.

  She felt a little hand on her tensed lower arm. Then she felt something warm on her cheeks. She was crying. She had thought she was ready for this to happen, but the proximity of leaving everyone behind crushed her heart beyond anything she could have prepared herself for. It was the worst pain of all, even though every muscle in her body was hurting.

  After no more than minutes, seconds even perhaps, she felt a tinge. It started by her neck and spread along her back and sour belly towards her legs and feet – a warm wave foretelling salvation. Then her muscles went numb, and within the timespan of one deep breath, her body was at peace. Eternal peace.

  Time to travel west.