Silas took his spot at the end of the table and looked over the room. People spoke in hushed tones to each other as they guessed what would happen.

“She’s going to say our crops will be the rest in the area, and the town will prosper like never before!” one farmer rang out happily. The surrounding group chuckled and shook their heads hopefully.

Silas grinned and nodded along. He hoped nothing but the best for the farmers of the town and were some of the hardest working people he had ever met. He grinned and then looked over at Nanushi, who just frowned. Silas lost the smile and sobered up as he looked around.

He looked down the center alley between the benches to the large swinging doors. He gave a nod and a smile to the Clear Lake Monastery cultivators and they just nodded back. There was one on either side, and they wore their simple orange robes and held their staves at the ready. Besides those two, there were two more on either wall across from each other. The four of them were well into their body cultivation stages, and one by the door was nearly ready to condense the aura in his core into mana and become a spiritual cultivator.

Eventually, a boy came into the room and ran through the aisle in the middle and up to the head table. Silas recognized the boy as Nanushi’s own apprentice. He wore simple brown robes and when he walked up to the table. The apprentice gave a bow to the elders before he advanced.

“Master, I just saw them. The Mother Oracle has just entered the township and her and her guards shall be here momentarily,” he notified the table and gave another bow.

Nanushi gave a nod of his head and a swipe of his hand. The boy hustled along and around the table to sit in a small chair behind the Elders, along with Reiko and the other apprentices. Finally, the creaking of his chair as he pushed back from the table silenced the hushed whispers and low speaking of everyone in attendance.

“Alright then,” he started. The man wasn’t a cultivator, but he was practiced enough in public speaking to push on his diaphragm and carry his voice through the building. “I just got word The Oracle shall be here any moment with her guards,” Nanushi said with raised hands to make everyone stay silent.

A few people broke out in hushed conversations. Excitement and nervousness filled the air, but a firm glance and a clearing of the throat from the High Elder silenced those who spoke.

“Now…” the old man started while he held a single finger up to keep the room silenced.

Before he could get another word out, though, the double doors burst open with such force that it knocked the Clear Lake Monastery cultivators back. They were shoved into the walls near the walls and to their credit, before they were even done sliding back they readied their staves.

Silas, however, moved to his feet and held out a hand and with a command, the two didn’t advance towards the door. The master heard the apprentice gasp behind him, and to the boy’s credit, he even jumped to his feet to stop some sort of invasion.

Three figures advanced in the room. The crowd of townspeople was so silent you could probably hear a pin drop. Two men entered first, both of them clad in leather armor and holding negatas. The pole arm weapon was a staff that had a long curved blade on the end. Deadly even in untrained hands, let alone cultivators who were professional guards.

Besides the leather armor breastplates, they wore loose fitting black pants, and then a cloak over the armor. Silas squinted as he tried to look under the hoods they wore, but the bottom of their faces were covered with simple cloth masks and then they had black paint across their eyes. These were the Kyodai, the guards to the oracles.

Silas had run into them a few times in his history. They were powerful cultivators, but some would say they were bloated. They rushed to the spiritual stage of cultivation, which diminished their long-term progress. Without a stable foundation, the house will fall. They were more than able to protect their charges, though.

Finally, the old woman came in. The Mother. She looked exactly as Silas remembered. Old crouched over and walked with a cane. Her gray hair was mostly a tangled mess that went down past her shoulders. Silas met the old woman’s milky eyes. One white and one black, just like he remembered. He found it as creepy now as he did when he was a child. Then there was that eye painted or tattooed on her forehead. It was supposed to represent her third eye or something. The only eye that was allowed to read Daichi’s book? Silas didn’t know.

“Mother Oracle,” Nanushi spoke now and held out his hands. “Thank you for coming to our town,” he said and then bowed his head softly.

Silas looked over at the old man, thankful he wouldn’t be expected to do anything else, and took his seat. It wasn’t until then that he heard Reiko sit behind him. A curious glance back at his apprentice, and he watched the boy's gaze soften. Silas smiled and nodded at him, and Reiko nodded his head back. When Reiko looked like he was going to get up to see if his master needed anything, Silas just raised a palm and shook his head. He looked fondly at the boy, who jumped to action right behind his master when he thought the situation called for it and gave him a sideways grin and then another nod before Silas turned back around.

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The Mother’s guards took positions on either side of her. The negatas held with their bases in the ground. The men stood proud, firm and tall and ready to jump into action and not only defend the Mother Oracle but also to die for her if they so needed to. Silas could respect it, and he understood it. These men were trained since they were boys much like he had been. Trained to fight and cultivate. They had a forced path, though, one that might not fully suit them. They believed their place in the universe was to protect the oracles, at any cost, no matter what.

The Mother just stood there and looked over at the table of seated elders. She didn’t pay the townspeople any mind. Those milky eyes moved from elder to elder until she reached Silas. Silas noticed the lingering examination of her before her lips curled up in a small sneer. It only lasted a moment, though, before she centered on Nanushi.

Nanushi either didn’t, or pretended not to notice her examinations. Instead, the old man continued on with his welcome speech. “I am told that you bring news for us, Mother? We welcome any insight that you can give us into the fates of our small town, and thank you,” he said with a bow towards the woman.

She gave him a blank look in response before she finally looked around the room and took in all the townspeople for the first time. Everyone was silent and staring at her. Waiting for the news she brought, hoping it would be good news. Hoping their village would find good fortune. Some silently prayed that Minoru, the kami of rice and grain, would visit the village and bless them with exceptionally good crops. The Kami was one of the few who wandered the mortal plane disguised as a skeleton dressed like a scarecrow.

“No,” she said simply finally when she looked back up at the elder.

Nanushi paused and looked around at the other elders in confusion for a moment before he looked back at her. “No?” he asked.

“No. I have no news.” She lifted her cane and pointed it at him now. “I have no news about your village because it has been shrouded from the fates. Even in the book, the pages have been blacked over. They are as black as night,” she explained.

Nanushi blanched and stumbled for something to say. “... nothing?” is what he finally said, sounding defeated.

Silas frowned and then stood. “Mother, that doesn’t make sense. Why would the pages and our fates be covered in shadow?”

The oracle looked over at Silas and glared. “Did I say shadow? No. It’s not a shadow. I may not be a cultivator, but I know how to recognize the elements of the aether.”

Silas raised a placating hand. “I’m sorry, Mother, I mean no offense.”

“It’s darker than shadow,” she cut him off and she narrowed her eyes at him before she looked around the room once more. “As I said, it looks like the night sky. Little twinkles of starlight glittering on the pages,” she explained and looked to the ceiling of the building, her voice grew faint as she explained it.

“I’ve never seen anything like that. None of us have,” she said a moment later and her voice came back fully.

Her eyes grew wide then, as if she just realized something, and she looked at Silas once more with that glare. “No, I have seen it once before,” she said as she lifted her cane and pointed it at him.

“Almost thirty years ago when I was called by your father and met you,” she spat at him.

Silas’s eyes grew wide, and he took a step back and his hands once more came up. He was confused now, not sure what any of this really had to do with him. His father called her, she came, she said he would never become immortal and reach the heights of cultivation. His father raged, and then she left. Beyond that, he knew nothing.

“Your father wanted to know if you’d become a Celestial, hm? He didn’t like it when I told him you wouldn’t, but he didn’t listen to the complete story. Did you?” she jabbed her cane at him with the accusation.

Silas’s eyes grew wide, and now he stumbled for the words.

“When I read your pages, they blacked out as well. Your story seemed like it would be long. Many pages were written about the cultivator Silas Zhao. Then the darkness,” she spat on the ground. “I don’t know what it means. I don’t think I care to know. The Heavens are unwell, do you know that? Do you understand what that means?” She shook her head.

“Kami appearing as mortal men living as normal mortal men on the mortal plane,” she yelled now. Her voice cracked as she yelled. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way.”

Silas just looked at the other elders, who appeared to be just as dumbfounded as he was. He should have expected that he was the only one of them who was a cultivator. They might be good men, and wise in their own right, but Silas actively cultivated the power of the Heavens and the Aether.

The old woman seemed to fight with herself, and she regained her composure. She stamped the end of her cane back into the ground and looked back at Silas for a moment before returning her gaze to Nanushi. “That’s it. I’ve delivered what I’ve had to say,” she said and turned before she walked towards the door.

“Wait, Mother Oracle! You must tell us more. Are we in danger?” Nanushi called after her, an arm reaching out across towards her.

She just walked through the doors. The guards gave one look around the occupants of the hall before they looked up to the table of elders and gave a nod before they turned and followed her out.