Chapter 63: Omens in the Night

Water dripped from Orion’s hair and he used a small towel to clean while he was dressed in a robe. He paused when he heard the knock at his door.

Except it was something important, pack members never knocked on his door and especially not in the middle of the night.

He crossed the little distance to the door and opened it, coming face to face with Eldric whose hands were raised like he was about to knock on the door again.

"Took you long enough." Eldric said as he adjusted his glasses.

"It took less than five minutes to open the door." Orion told him but Eldric ignored him staring across to the house a few distances from Orion’s.

"So it’s true what they say," Eldric said, his voice low, almost to himself. "The outsider’s got the place next to yours."

"She’s got a name, you know." Orion told him with hands folded across his chest.

Eldric observed him for a bit before giving him a nod.

"What are you doing here?" Orion asked him.

"I’d ask for your discretion and for you to let me in first before asking me what it is that has drawn me to your doorstep." Eldric told him.

"You’d ask or you are asking?" Orion asked him.

Eldric shrugged. "If the shoe fits. Are you going to let me in or make sure I freeze to death here?"

Orion sighed, stepping aside. "Get in."

Eldric entered, his braids swinging as he brushed past, his cloak brushing the tapestry. He paused by the window, staring out at the starlit compound, the frost on the glass catching the candle’s glow.

"Beautiful weather tonight," he murmured, his fingers tapping the sill. "It’s a clear sky and the stars are bright. It’s perfect for stargazing."

Orion shut the door, crossing his arms as he leaned against the table. "But we are not ones into stargazing."

"No, we are not but people are."

Orion sighed. "Why are you here?"

Eldric turned slowly, his glasses slipping slightly. "Have you ever thought about the weather changing? Like a bad omen or something? One day it’s calm, the next a storm rolls in, wiping out everything."

Orion frowned, his brow furrowing. "Omen? What the fuck are you on about? And besides everyone knows Nirvana has unpredictable weather."

Orion had to exercise patience because even though Eldric claimed that his mate, Jeffery, was the one with the attention span of a child, Eldric was similar. He had a way of speaking that had the tendency to irritate a person if they were not used to him. Eldric’s mind was always wandering, it never stayed in a place for too long and in a way, it reminded Orion of Sophia and her curious mind.

Maybe Sophia and Eldric were not so different after all.

Eldric smirked, his scruff catching the light. "But don’t you see it?" He asked Orion.

"I don’t see anything except the sky and the stars, oh, the moon also." Orion replied to him with a frown.

"But I see it. I sense a shift is coming, you know? A storm that’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen in Nirvana."

"You are not a priest."

"But I have a hunch about these things and I’m never wrong. You know that."

True. But Orion did not understand why Eldric was telling him all these. It made absolutely no sense to him at all.

Orion sighed, rubbing his neck. "I heard Sophia started working with you?" Orion asked him since Eldric wasn’t ready to get straight to the point.

Eldric frowned. "We are not talking about her working with me though, are we?" He asked Orion, his head tilted to the left.

"No. But you have still not gotten to the reason why you are here with me in the middle of the night, talking about the weather." Orion pointed out.

Eldric sighed loudly like Orion was the irritating one at the moment and not him who was taking hours to get to the point. "Patience is a virtue, my friend."

"Yeah, and getting straight to the point will save us this trouble."

Orion knew that most times, there was logic behind this roundabout way of speaking by Eldric but he was tired and he just wanted to sleep.

"Spit it out, Eldric. Why the late-night visit?"

Eldric’s expression sobered, his dark brown eyes locking on Orion’s. "We need to make sure Sophia recovers her memory."

Orion’s jaw tightened, his arms dropping. "Okay...I thought that was the plan before? Why are you talking about it now?"

Eldric pulled the scroll from his cloak, unfolding it. And Orion tried not to curse at him for it because if the scroll and the reason he was here was within arm’s length then why...Orion released a sigh to calm himself down. This was Eldric they were talking about. He should be used to it by now.

"She translated the language." Eldruc told him.

Orion took the parchment, his eyes scanning the scribbled lines. Eldric’s handwriting was neat, almost obsessive.

"Is this the writing from the shrine?" Orion asked him.

"Yes." Eldric said with a nod. "She translated the language, albeit with some difficulty but she was able to do so and I have every reason to believe that this is a lost language. We were never able to get anything that could even help us translate a single word but she did everything."

"What does it say?" Orion asked him.

"I was only able to copy some words but from what I copied, Sophia says it’s around the lines of, ’We worship her...’ then disjointed...’they came.’ She also says that she needs to see the original because the words don’t make sense." Eldric said.

Orion’s voice was low. "But the language is lost. So how? How did she do it?"

Eldric adjusted his glasses, his braids swaying as he paced the small room. "That’s what I’m asking you. She’s the only one who can read it. Who is she, Orion? Where’s she from? What mysteries does she hold?" He muttered the last part to himself, but the words carried, his excitement bleeding through the doubt.

"You ask me like I hold the answers to the questions you seek."

"I know you don’t but what if we’ve brought danger to our home? What if the sky as we see now soon becomes exactly like the one we saw twenty years ago just because we brought her here?" Eldric asked him.

Orion set the scroll down, "She’s not dangerous," he said, his voice firm. "She hasn’t done anything to hurt us."

Eldric stopped pacing, his eyes intense. "Not yet. But it’s just a matter of time. You can’t ignore this. She’s tied to the altar, to that script. If she remembers, it could be a good omen, answers we’ve sought for years. Or a bad one, something that endangers us all. We need to know."

"You believe the altar is tied to her past or her knowing the language signifies something? What if she just came across the language in a book then?" Orion asked him.

"What book, Orion? What book could she have found it in that we weren’t able to get?"

Orion leaned against the table, "You really don’t believe that there are books out there that we possibly don’t have?"

Eldric blinked in shock. "That’s unlikely. We have the biggest library. We have every book both forbidden and forgotten known to man."

The fact that Eldric believed this was highly laughable but Orion kept a poker face.

"I don’t want to be the one to burst your bubble but perhaps we don’t have everything like you think we do."

Eldric stared at Orion like he had grown two heads and Orion sighed.

"Do you have any idea how we can get Sophia to recover her memories then? Quickly?"

Eldric’s smirk returned, his green feather earring glinting. "Books. Research. The library’s full of forgotten knowledge. Being around familiar things might spark her memory. She mentioned books were familiar to her so that has to count for something. And I’ll keep an eye on her. Make sure she’s not... a threat."

Orion’s eyes narrowed. "You think she’s a threat?"

Eldric shrugged, his cloak rustling. "I think she’s a mystery. And mysteries can cut both ways. But that language...the fact that she knows it doesn’t sit well with me. It has to mean something, I’m sure of it."

Orion sighed, rubbing his temple. Eldric’s fixation on details, his roundabout way of speaking, was exhausting, but the man was right. Sophia’s ability to read that script could mean something.

"Fine. Keep an eye on her. But don’t push too hard. She’s been through enough."

Eldric nodded, his eyes glinting with that excited spark again. "Understood. I’ll report what I find."

With that, Eldric turned, his braids swinging as he left the room, the door clicking shut behind him. He made sure to pick the scroll with him citing the fact that Orion wasn’t knowledgeable enough to be with it.

Orion sighed after Eldric left, remembering Brynhild’s words. ’Keep your friends close, and your enemies, closer.’

Could Sophia really be the enemy?