The Light Of My Death // The Oracle Series: Book 1

•Prologue•

Lagos, Nigeria - 503 AD

The air was silent except for the muffled sound of water trickling in the distance. Animals scurried away as Orána, a middle aged hand maiden, walked near their burrows. Her black hair whipped in the wind, it's curls straightening in the harshness of it.

Orána felt breathless as she shakily wiped her hair from her crystal blue eyes, glowing bright in the moonlight. Finally reaching the edge of the river, Orána sat down on her knees and clutched at the earth with her coffee-coloured hands. She looked up into the sky where the trees parted and stared in wonder at the moon, as bright and full as ever.
I know exactly where and who I am.. so why am I so lost?

"You're not lost, my sweet. You lack purpose." A voice behind Orána said, causing her to turn so fast she fell on her back.
"Wh-who are you!?" Orána screamed, backing up until she felt the base of a tree at her spine.

The mysterious creature walked forwards in a jolting and inhuman manner. A tongue snaked out of its mouth, long enough to curl around the side of its shadowed face and flicker back in its mouth like a whip.

The creature stopped its advance and seemed to think hard about what it wanted to say next. Perhaps it was thinking about what to do next. Orána was scared of both. It took a step forward and reached down into the water, pulling out a stone that caught the moonlight from a thousand angles and then some. Pink, purple, green, blue, each colour shining through a base of pale white and Orána new in her heart that that stone was the key to finding herself. Her home. Her purpose.

Orána glanced back up at the creature, immediately noticing that the light had fell on its face causing her to gasp, even more terrified than before. It's skin looked leathery and blood red in the moonlight although Orána had a feeling the red wasn't the pigment of its skin but the result of something else. Something terrible. Orána shivered.
It's elbows and knees seemed to jut out of the ends of the limbs, causing the creature to crouch even though it looked at least 7ft.

"You may not know who I am but you know what this is, don't you?" The creature turned the stone so it glinted another thousand shades of pink and green.
Orána nodded slightly and slowly began to stand. "It's t-the-"

"-The stone of Eliath." The creature finished as it walked to stand in front of the woman, taking Orána's left hand and placing the stone inside of it. "This stone is the answer to all of your wishes, Orána. It is the gateway to all of your dreams. It will deliver to you the gift of witchcraft.. and you will be the first of many, although you will be the strongest." Orána was too busy being pulled into the stones rays to wonder how the creature knew her name and before she knew it, the stone was taken from her grasp. She reached out for it without thinking but the creature pulled the stone back and shifted its body so that Orána couldn't see it, teasing her. "-but it comes at a price."

"Anything! Anything, what is it and I will do it. I will give it to you!" Orána pleaded, foolishly bargaining with her future.
The creature laughed an ancient sounding chuckle before looking her directly in the eyes.
"Each night when the moon is at its fullest, you will come to me by this river and you will dance with me.. willingly.

If you don't accept.. you will never get this stone and you will never find your way." The creature smiled.
Orána closed her eyes and nodded, That doesn't sound too hard.. right? She thought to herself anxiously.
"Yes, I-I accept." And with a swift flick of its wrist, the creature sliced open Orána's index finger and presented to her a leathery piece of sheepskin, imprinted with little black characters of an unknown language.
As blood oozed from her finger, Orána slowly reached out and wiped her finger across the bottom of the sheep skin where the writing ended.

The creature waved its hand in front of Orána's face and she fell to the floor, unconscious.
"It is done."
The air grew thick with the scent of blood and magick as the creature placed the stone beside the woman, stepped into the shadows and descended into the river, completing the journey into the underworld.

Little did Orána know, she would have to meet with the demon creature each and every full moon for eternity and though she wasn't given the gift of immortality, the demon had already predicted her reincarnation.. before the gods had even planned her death.

This is that story.

This is the beginning of an end.

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