Safehaven

Chapter 31

For the beginning of the day, I was in a pretty good mood! My friends and I had a good conversation at breakfast, which concerned how many eggs Quinton could fit in his mouth, and I was excited about tonight. That would be the first Games for my team, and I was pretty confident in Us. But that was when He had to summon me, and things took a dive. I had just finished potions when Nathen came up to me in the halls, Antigone and Holly with their soul mates in his wake. Without a word, I gestured to Gwindol, and we followed the man and my friends to his office. He made us sit down in chairs surrounding a table, and offered us something to drink. After a couple minutes of uncomfortable silence, Nathen spoke. "Sorry to pull you out of class, but I really needed to have a word with you three." Antigone snorted. "Please. If you have to, take us out tomorrow too! We don't care." The girl smiled and lay back in her chair. Being the most mature and polite, Holly cleared her throat and turned to Nathen. "What's wrong? What did we do this time?" Her shoulders were back and her blue eyes were fixed on Nathen's. She had the aura of authority. Nathen blinked a few times before regaining his composure. "I decided to take you 3 because you seemed the most level headed." I saw Antigone's shoulders shaking with humor out of the corner of my eye, but Nathen continued, oblivious. "It's about the prophesy." At that, Antigone stopped, and the room seemed to freeze over with caution and fear. Holly sat next to me, shaking slightly. Part of her face had started to disappear. Snowflakes were coming down around Antigone, but Kai was licking them off his master's face, which was sort of funny. Gwindol just sat besides me, stone still. But his ears stood attentively, and his posture exposed his interest. My fingers prickled in anticipation, and a little flame erupted. I quickly snuffed it out and lay my hands in my lap, so no more accidents might happed. At the head of the table, Nathen shivered, from fear or cold I will never know, then straightened ever so slightly. "I didn't want to have to talk to all of you at once, so I chose you 3, to tell the others when I'm done." The man paused. "Since Badon died, it's been on my mind a lot. Especially how it was phrased. I know for a fact that you haven't actually seen the original scroll, and I wanted to read it for yourselves." Still quivering, Nathen reached his hand into his robes and extracted an ancient paper cylinder, tied with a fraying red ribbon. The dude placed it on the table in front of us and pulled his hands back, clearly waiting. With trembling fingers, Holly reached for the scroll. Her fingers clenched around the paper, and there was a brittle crinkle as she drew it back to her. It took her a few moments to open it, but Holly succeeded without much effort. She sucked in a breath, and read. "In the time of desperate need, when life sees anguish, fear and greed. A hero shall rise in Galloren's mold, with hope and faith and spirit bold. An old foe shall rise with life snuffed out, and hero and elders stand with no doubt. Against one another the two sides fight, until fate has decided and taken flight. A single command uttered in pride, shall be a saving grace or treacherous misguide." Holly's voice cracked. She lowered the scroll and stared uncertainly at Nathen. His head was down in thought. Holly placed the scroll in the center of the table. I looked over at Antigone. With eyes wide and lips parted, she resembled a fish out of water. Then again, we all did. There we sat, the 4 of us around the table, in absolute silence. I pondered the words that had just been read. I knew that I was the hero. There was no doubt. And my friends were the elders. But what the heck did it mean when it said that foe had its life snuffed out? The foe was Morian, but he seemed pretty alive to me, doing well too! And what about the prideful command? Whose was it? I wanted to think about the prophesy more, but just then the lunch bell rang. Had it been an entire class period already? Maybe it was the messed up time thing here in Safehaven. But whatever it was, I was mighty happy to leave Nathen's office, even if it was nice. Antigone, Holly, and I rose from our seats and started towards the door, animals at our sides. I glanced back at Nathen, who was still at the table. His head was bowed. "Thank you." I whispered, and he looked up for a moment and smiled weakly. Had he always been so pale? Had he always had bags under his eyes? It was quite possible that Badon's death had impacted him more than he let on. But I followed my friends out into the hallway towards the mess hall. The whole way there, the 3 of us were quite and solemn. Even when a small kid accidently bumped into Antigone on his way down the stairs, which would have made the girl furious, she made no noise, as if she hadn't even noticed. Eventually, we all made it to lunch. The other 3 members of our posse plus soul mates were already sitting at our table. I took a seat next to Sage and Dash, still silent. The others noticed our mood and asked why. Holly looked like she was on the verge of tears, and she shook her head when Jada asked what had happened. They weren't going to get a word out of Holly. I cleared my throat swallowed a lump of fear. "We read the prophesy. Our fate is decided."