Saylor cut me off with a wave of her hand. “You have to kill it in order to bring forth the next one. But obviously Alaric wasn’t about to let himself be killed. Instead, he attempted a . . . well, a ritual on himself. One that would make his powers increase tenfold so that his visions would be clearer.”

“Did it work?” David’s hands were still wrapped tightly around the top of his chair, but his shoulders weren’t up around his ears anymore and some color had returned to his face.

Saylor patted at her hair, leaning back. “It did. But it worked too well. Alaric didn’t just improve his visions. He gained new powers. Alarmingly strong ones. At that time, Alaric . . . I suppose you could say he belonged to Charlemagne. And Charlemagne had set up a cadre of knights to protect Alaric that he called the Paladins. But until Alaric did his ritual, they were just ordinary men. After the ritual, Alaric was able to make them . . .” She trailed off, her eyes moving over me. “Well, you. Not just knights, but supernaturally gifted warriors, all of them loyal to Alaric to the point of death.”

I swallowed, not liking the sound of that.

Saylor sat forward in her chair a little, hands clenched in front of her. “But the ritual had an unintended side effect. That much power, it’s . . . it’s more than a human brain can handle. It more or less burned Alaric up from the inside, twisting him into something evil. Charlemagne eventually ordered him executed.”

“But he had a whole posse of bodyguards with superpowers,” David muttered, sinking into his chair.

Saylor nodded. “Exactly. Between Alaric’s powers and the dozens of Paladins guarding him, it took over a hundred men to kill the Oracle. An entire village was destroyed in the process, and there were only two Paladins left when it was all over.”

“So once Alaric was dead, what happened?” David asked. His mouth was still set in a hard line, but his eyes were curious.

“A group of powerful men met and decided that the Oracle should no longer belong to any one ruler. She—and they were only ever women after Alaric—should be kept safe somewhere, guarded. The two remaining Paladins volunteered for the task.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. I really wish I’d brought some paper and pens. This seemed like a situation where a chart could help. “So what are you then?”

The corners of her mouth turned up. “When Alaric took Charlemagne’s knights and turned them into Paladins, he also took Charlemagne’s two court magicians and gave them powers as well. Granted, they only got a fraction of the magic that Alaric possessed, but it was enough. They called themselves Mages. And that, Harper, is what I am.”