Chương 157: 148. Omens

There, at the edge of the light cast by the braziers, stood a figure dressed in tattered brown robes. It faced the wall, arms clamped around itself in a tight self-hug. Its head moved from side to side so quickly it was only a blur, as if stuck in a broken, sped-up animation. I also noticed a faint trace of mana around where the figure stood. It had no presence, no spark, no artificial soul. Even though it was very much physical, its existence to my senses felt as thin as the mana in the air.

The entire group froze at the sight. A few of the more informed people quickly stopped those around them from attacking. I didn't have to make a move—my friends knew what was going on. Only Ophelia looked more confused, but that was expected. Singularities were nowhere in the curriculum I had set for her. I hadn't thought I'd regret that decision so soon.

"What is that thing?" asked one of the nobles. To my surprise, quite a few people looked at me for the explanation, which earned a few chuckles from those who knew my attitude toward public speeches. I closed my eyes briefly and made sure that what I felt was a very thin presence of mana and not some other energy. Once I was sure, I answered, "An omen."

"That sounds bad," whined someone from the back, fear evident in their voice.

"It's not dangerous in itself—I think," I added after a second of consideration.

"You know that feeling in the pit of your stomach before something bad happens? It's that—but for magic."

"I don't suppose anyone here knows how to read omens?" Leo asked the crowd.

"Fuck reading," the noble shot back.

"Shouldn't we attack? Won't it come after us?"

"Don't," I said.

"This is just a projection of tension, a warning materialized. It's the aberrations we need to worry about. Omens are usually harmless."

"Usually?" I shrugged.

"I'm not a fortune-teller."

"They won't attack," I heard the oracle speak from behind us. Her voice was tired but certain.

"Omens won't attack unless they're very powerful. This one is as thin as the mana around it."

"Can you read it?" Leo asked. The old oracle looked at the creature with a grimace.

"I specialize in nature divinations, but I can try." We gave the woman some space. She closed her eyes and concentrated. After some twitching and groaning, she finally snapped her eyes back open. Her gaze swept over us as everyone waited in silence. She sighed, regretful, and shook her head.

"It was tough to read anything. All I got was the sound of a rooster's crow," she said.

"I can feel that whatever the omen is connected to is far too powerful." People looked to one another and began whispering. The Church group immediately started discussing the revelation. As everyone turned, the oracle touched Astrid's elbow and whispered something into the girl's ear.

"So what do you think?" William asked.

"Rooster's crow," I thought aloud.

"I'd say it's Peter's denial. But we'll see what the Church says."

"You mean when the rooster crowed after Peter denied Jesus?" Ophelia asked. I nodded.

"So what does that mean? And how does that even work?"

"It's like—" I began, but Clementus got our attention—or rather, Helga drew our attention to the man.

"After a quick deliberation, we think this refers to the rooster's crow after Peter's denial," Clementus said.

"Might symbolize fear-driven denial or failure of loyalty. Overall, not a good sign. We'd need something more concrete." He finished by looking toward the oracle. She met his eyes and shook her head.

"We didn't see the whole omen," Astrid proposed. She was right—there could be a sign on the figure itself. The problem was that it faced the wall, standing very close to it. To see the front, someone would have to lean in toward the figure. Once again, all eyes focused on me.

"Really?" I asked, raising my eyebrows.

"You don't feel fear, last time I checked," Darius said with a smile.

"So no problem, eh?" He patted me on the back hard enough to knock the breath out of me. I sighed and slid away from his friendly gesture. They were right: I was the best choice for approaching anything connected to mana and a massive presence in the center of it. The issue was my injuries from the fight, but I should still be able to handle it better than most here. After getting myself ready, I approached the figure. I didn't feel fear, but there was tension in me.

Our knowledge about omens was sorely lacking, and I didn't want to test it on my own skin. I moved closer, fixed my gaze on the creature, and connected to the mana around as much as I could without disturbing my spiritual wounds. Finally, I pressed my head against the wall to see the apparition's face. And realized there was none. All I could make out in the blur of movement was uniformity—no mouth, no eyes.

There were streaks of red in the motion, but no matter how hard I focused, I couldn't make out anything more, as if the blur itself actually was the face. I moved my eyes to the robe. There was something on it, over the heart—a symbol sewn into the fabric, but I could see only the upper part, a single line. The rest was covered by the self-hugging hands. I strengthened my connection to sense any change in the magic until I felt a dull ache—like stretching an injured muscle. And then I drew closer.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. No matter the angle, the symbol was covered. There was only one way to see it: pull on the fabric to drag it from beneath the arm.

"For fuck's sake," I groaned to myself and, ready to dodge, stretched out my hand.

"What are you doing?" someone hissed from the crowd. I ignored it. Heart thudding, I slid two fingertips into the fold of the robe and waited a second, checking for any change. Nothing happened—until I pulled the cloth. The head stopped its frantic motion and snapped to me. In that split second, I saw it: the entire face was covered by skin that had grown over every opening. The mouth moved, and I could see teeth scrape against flesh from the inside, trying to get something out.

The eyes jerked beneath permanently closed lids, red tears spilling from the corners. The figure tried to speak and, despite the nonexistent mouth, I heard it in my head.

"Weeee waaaait," a voice echoed—strange, deep, without tone or gender, a sound carrying only meaning. I jumped back and turned to the crowd while many went for their weapons. In the small crowd stood the Woman—the personification of my magic. She, too, had bloody tears in her eyes, but was smiling, and I realized it was in anticipation.

"What happened?" one of the paladins asked nervously.

"What do you—" I started, then noticed that the figure had returned to its previous state, its face a blur once more.

"Did you see something happen?" I asked the audience, and all I got was confusion.

"Well…" I said, "I think I saw something, though I'm not sure what." I edged forward again and checked the robe. The symbol hidden over the heart was revealed, so I didn't hallucinate the whole thing.

"That's an overturned cross on its heart," I announced.

"Satanists," Nathan said with a deep frown.

"Or referring to Saint Peter," Leo commented, shaking his head.

"Hard to tell which it is without reading the overall presence of the symbol." Before anyone could add more, the oracle shook her head.

"Not possible. I can't get any closer to this without an injury."

"Maybe your—""My apprentice won't be risking her mind for this," the oracle cut in.

"Any information we get will be broad and uncertain at best. We aren't getting anywhere without an oracle from your Church or an empath. I don't see either." I looked to the omen. A thought about reading it, like I once did the altar of Stjarnmosa, crossed my mind. I was attuned to mana well enough—but I dropped it just as fast. I wasn't an oracle. Omens were naturally attuned to divination, a field I had no expertise in.

We spent some more time around the omen, the Church group trying to squeeze out anything more, but all they managed was to confirm the rooster was connected to Saint Peter, so most likely a sign of failure to uphold trust. The overturned cross remained a mystery. I kept the words spoken to me to myself for now. Was that a good idea? I had no clue, but it felt strangely personal—like it was told to me and no one else. Whether it was a self-fulfilling prophecy or something else entirely, I didn't know.

After a few more minutes of discussion, we kept walking. Now we could feel mana in the air—but it wasn't normal. It carried an attunement, so complicated and deep that it was hard to describe. Strangely, we could still attune to parts of it or even use it—though only after considerable effort. It was like the mana wasn't ownerless, but for the moment, we were part of what it belonged to. The overall feeling was… strange.

We slowed our pace, lighting the sconces, and—now that we knew we could replenish our magic from the singularity—used spells to light the way farther ahead, hoping to avoid surprises.

"What are we going to see once we're there?" I heard Ophelia ask when we paused for a break before the last part of the journey.

"Impossible to tell," I replied.

"You remember what I told you about singularities?"

"They are memories in mana—renditions of how magic sees things."

"Yes. To be precise, they are memories of extremes. How to explain it… Before becoming a mage, did you ever witness an accident bad enough that it left you with a memory?"

"Yes," Ophelia said without hesitation.

"Right. When you think about it, does it play out as it was, or is it changed?"

"Changed… I think." I nodded.

"When people recall traumatic events, they're often exaggerated. After a car crash, someone later says the other car was going 90 mph and came 'out of nowhere,' even though a recording shows it was closer to 45 mph and visible. The threat you felt becomes the remembered one. That can be further exaggerated when retelling, with more and more nonexistent details added. This is also true for magic—but worse, and brought to extremes. Because, unlike you, mana can reshape the world around it.

Those memories actually manifest and worsen over time."

"So this one is an exaggerated memory of what happened during the war?"

"Yes."

"But why are intel and signs so important? If we just walk through the edge of it, why are we in danger? It's not like we're part of that trauma… right?" Ophelia asked, and I saw some people turn their heads in our direction.

"Because it's a world recreated only from what was remembered. And it doesn't happen only to trauma—it's everything that leaves extreme feelings. Masterpieces of art or world-changing events. If mana still lingered around the spot where Julius Caesar was stabbed to death, it would most likely become a singularity, especially if people add more and more myth around it."

"Myth?" Ophelia frowned, and I winced at the question.

"It's hard to grasp. It's like with symbols—many in magic are recognized by mortals. Whether it's magic influencing us or our unconscious influencing magic, we don't know. But our collective beliefs seem to mix with it, so if an event is believed to have reshaped history, it can turn into a singularity if you're not careful." Ophelia took a few seconds to process before returning to the initial question.

"So what is the danger?"

"They stop obeying the rules of the normal world. Some mana aberrations will try to help you, because they're renderings of someone who helped others in whatever caused it. Some will try to kill, betray, or otherwise trap you because of what they once were—exaggerated and viewed through the lens of magic itself. The only way to anticipate which is which is divination: reading omens, numerology, and so on."

"So if there was a singularity for Julius Caesar's death, then the number 23 would mean death because he was stabbed 23 times?"

"Yes!" I said, pleased.

"Exactly. Anything with that number would be bad news. If you saw a group of creatures and counted 23, you'd run the other way. They'd most likely try to stab you. The worlds inside singularities are ruled by strange rules: don't drink certain liquids, don't speak certain names, don't turn left at crossroads, only sleep in certain areas, and so on. Walking into them without information on those is usually suicide—unless you walk into one caused by something non-violent."

Ophelia sat in silence for a while, processing, her eyes darting more and more to the corridor's mouth. I also noticed some others listening attentively.

"So we should avoid rooster crows in this case?" Ophelia asked.

"Most likely," I said.

"And the jury is still out on the overturned cross, so we don't have much."

"Can't you read them?" I shook my head. Ophelia spent the time processing the information and asking a few further questions, but I only had the overall picture of singularities, not the specifics, so I couldn't tell her much more. We soon got up again, everyone making last-minute preparations and adjustments, ready for whatever was coming. As we walked farther in, conversations slowly died.

We passed four more omens—two the same, one of a beggar woman with half her body missing, and one of a burned corpse stumbling around the corridor, saying some unintelligible thing in a hoarse voice. The last one felt so wrong that even the oracle hesitated when asked if it was harmless. We ended up giving it a wide berth, making sure it didn't stumble into anyone. Finally, we came to the exit and, ready for whatever awaited us, we stepped out into the open space.