“Phoenix?” I prompted him.
“Yeah, sorry,” he replied, moving to the fireplace and standing by the chair. I looked at the Druid. I was desperate to know what they’d seen—but I didn’t want to pressure them either, it had obviously been an ordeal. Bijarki stood in the corner of the room, looking over at the two girls on the armchair. He looked pale and worried. I wasn’t sure how I felt about his concern—was it directed at Vita? Or all three of them? If the latter, I would consider his concern more genuine…I caught the incubus’s eye, and he frowned, irritation flickering across his expression, and then moved across the room to stand by the Druid.
“Can you tell us about the visions?” the Druid asked. “It’s important we know what you saw.”
Vita nodded, standing up from the chair and moving closer to the fire.
“There’s a lot I don’t understand,” she whispered.
“I know,” the Druid replied. “That’s fine. Hopefully, we can piece together anything you don’t understand.”
“Okay,” Vita replied, taking a deep breath. “I had three visions—one was in an empty valley, it was huge and I was walking through it…” She paused, looking down at the floor. “And then I saw a figure up ahead, but I didn’t recognize who it was.”
Her glance swept the room, and then returned to the floor. I had known Vita since I was little, and I knew something wasn’t quite right…she was leaving something out, but I didn’t know why. I swiftly looked over at the Druid, to see if he’d noticed anything was amiss, but he was just looking at Vita with an inquisitive expression.
“Then the vision changed, and I was in a room with three Destroyers—one of them Azazel.”
I gasped at this—no wonder she’d woken up screaming.
“He was threatening me—with the life of someone else, but I didn’t know who. Then the vision changed again, and I saw the Nevertide Oracle. We were all trying to save her…but then the Destroyers came.” She shook her head, as if trying to shake away the vision. All of us fell silent, except the Druid, who continued to question her on the specifics. The conversation didn’t return to the valley though, and the figure she’d seen. When Vita had finished being interrogated, it was Aida’s turn. She told us, in a quavering voice I hardly recognized as belonging to my friend, what she’d seen.
“So there might be someone hunting us down, along with the Destroyers?” I asked when she’d finished.
Aida nodded. “I didn’t hear what the Destroyer’s decision was—the man he was torturing might be dead,” she replied.
“Can you describe the man?” the Druid asked.
Aida nodded, recalling the vision as best she could. When she had finished, the Druid ran a hand through his hair, his face twisted in an expression of disgust.
“Do you know who it might be?” I asked.
“Another Druid, who must have survived,” he replied shortly. “But I’m not entirely sure who. There are a few families…a few Druid families, that managed to escape the first sweep of Azazel’s annihilation of our kind, but that was a long time ago now. I’m not sure who’s left.”
“And the incubi?” I asked Bijarki. “Who are they?”
“An army. The last that we have. And by the sounds of it, they are not going to be around for much longer.” The incubus turned his attention to the Druid. “It sounds like Kristos’s father and brother. Without Kristos’s support, they won’t wait for us—they will attack Azazel’s Destroyers and be wiped out like all before them.”
I recalled that Kristos had been the incubus who had died in the jungle the day we came across Bijarki while attempting to flee the house. Bijarki had also mentioned that his own father had betrayed the incubi, siding with the Destroyers. If that was the case, then I doubted Bijarki could do much to persuade them not to fight. I suddenly felt a wave of pity for the incubi. It sounded like things were desperate for all the species of Eritopia.
“But these things are happening in the future, right?” I clarified. Maybe there was time to stop the incubus armies.
The Druid shook his head. “I’m not entirely sure of that. Phoenix, can you tell us what you saw?”
“This house,” my brother replied evenly. “I had three visions as well, but they were all here. I saw an Oracle named Elissa, first as a servant girl, surrounded by other servants, and then later, when she was sharing this house with someone called Almus and a young boy.”
I glanced quickly at my brother. He gave me a small, barely perceptible nod. He wouldn’t tell the Druid about the diary. I turned my attention back to the Druid, interested to see how he would react to this vision—I was convinced that Almus was his father.