“Druj too went through the same trials I had at Stranger’s Peak—and failed. What were the gifts that mountain granted? Greater strength in the Dark—and the ability to look into the future. Perhaps Druj was better at prophecy than I am, with more years to hone her foretelling. Isn’t that right, Oracle?”

The figure removed her hood, revealing features only previously hinted at during my visits to the temple: long, flowing hair the color of corn silk, so light it was pale under the moonlight; bright-green eyes no longer hidden under a thick veil; pale, unblemished skin; a wide, lovely mouth. “I had hoped you would know me,” she said. Even out in the open air, a faint chorus of voices echoed her words.

“But how?” Likh stuttered. “I—we trusted you. Everyone in the Willows trusted you!”

“The trust has not been in vain, young Likh. My duty in the Willows was always to serve as a balance to the asha association. To ensure they did not go astray, did not go beyond their own selfish desires. It was a responsibility passed down to me from countless oracles who had served before, harkening back to the days of Vernasha herself.”

“Impossible!”

“Vernasha was our greatest asha, yet her greed was as deadly as her power. Many of her colleagues knew what she had tried to corrupt, the legends she tried to undo. But they too were weak. Magic was not a drug they could give up so easily, no matter their fear of damnation.

“But the strongest-willed of them, a Dark asha whose name had long since been lost to time, learned of the Gorvekai’s trial and sought to be worthy of shadowglass, only to fail as you and I had, Tea. But the trial imbued her with the powers of prophecy, and she knew one day there would be one worthy to fulfill Hollow Knife’s wish.

“And so she imposed a balance of sorts: by installing herself as an oracle, her precognition easily won Vernasha’s trust. But her purpose was different from the rest of the Willows; she would serve as a gatekeeper to shadowglass, to prevent the unworthy from attaining that knowledge, and to pass on these learnings to Dark asha brave enough to take her place as a new oracle. Bone witches died quickly even then, and it was simple enough to stage their deaths one day and resurface as a new incarnation of the oracle the next.

“Our veils and seclusion made for easy camouflage. We knew that one of us would eventually find favor at Stranger’s Peak, and it is she who shall remove the dishonor that all Little Tears’s descendants share.