We bring the unconscious oracle to an Inn in town because we have nowhere else to bring her. Vasteli and Mayelle heard what she said before passing out, but neither has said anything about it yet. Someone calls for my parents, as well as Herron, the town’s Medicinalist, but we’re all just standing around the woman as we wait. 

Mayelle is the first to break the silence, inching closer to me and looking up at me from beneath her curtain of bangs. “Do you know this woman, Nox?” 

I’m glad that this one is a question easily answered without a lie. “No, honestly, I don’t.”

I catch Mayelle chewing on her lip—a nervous habit of hers—and she looks back down at the woman whose head we badly bandaged until Herron arrives to redo our shotty handiwork. Vasteli is looking directly at her, a distant and vacant look in his eyes. Finally, he turned to look at me and Mayelle. “There’s—a prophecy,” he begins. 

“I gathered that much,” I respond, crossing my arms firmly over my chest. “But what does that have to do with me?” 

Vasteli glances at the door, and then away again. “It’s—complicated—”

The door bursts open, and a middle-aged woman with sandy hair pulled back in a hasty bun and equally sandy brown eyes comes rushing through. She shares the same birthmark with me—a mole just underneath her left eye—and she is small and stout in nature. She rushes to me and cups my face with her hands. 

“Nox! Oh, darling, what happened?” 

“Mother, please, I’m just fine,” I explain, cupping her rough, calloused hands gently with my own so I can pry them away. I’m nearly a grown man, and her doting is slightly embarrassing, even if it does warm my heart. 

A taller, lankier man appears behind her, his sage eyes filled with worry. His hair is a bright, brilliant blonde, some of the color seeping out to make room for white. While I take more after Mother with her sandy complexion, I have Father’s eyes. “What happened, Son?” 

The way he calls me son gives my heart a little flutter, and I turn to look at the mysterious woman on the cot before us. “There was an accident, and this woman got caught in it. I helped get her free, but she was injured, and now I guess she’s sleeping.” 

“We already called for Herron,” Mayelle hastily cuts in to explain. “She was speaking nonsense before she fell unconscious. Something about—about a chosen son?” 

She doesn’t mean anything by it, just a cautious venture into the meaning of things, but the air in the room sours instantly. Mother gasps, her hand flying to her mouth, and she turns to look at Father with an expression in her eyes that I don’t recognize. Vasteli noticeably flinches, turning his attention away from us. 

Father places a hand on Mother’s shoulder and looks firmly at me and Mayelle. “What exactly did the woman say?” 

I know that there is no escaping this explanation, so I step forward. I’m rubbing the back of my neck as if I’m in trouble, but I don’t know why. “She grabbed me by the arm, and she called me the Chosen Son.” 

Mother lets out a staggered breath as Father closes his eyes and steadies himself. 

A frown pulls down on my face. It’s not something I do often, anymore—my life on the farm has been a simple one, one I am grateful for. I find comfort in it. But now, I can sense them hiding. 

And here I have been thinking that I am the only one doing that. 

“What? What’s going on?” I look between my new parents and Vasteli, but none seem to have an answer for me. 

“There was a prophecy given right before you were born,” A new voice comes in, weathered and wild and familiar. I see his crazed curls and glinting goggles before I see him, but I know that it’s Harron. 

“What do you mean? What prophecy?” Mother—Queen Ceelia—never spoke of any prophecies, proclaiming oracle’s work as nothing more than smoke and mirrors. Not real magic, like what is carried by the Destined, or the Crooked.  

“On the eve of the day winter turns spring, a Chosen Son the night will bring, to free the Kingdom of the Crooked spare, the Chosen Son must find the heir.”  Herron recites, a single finger raised in the air. 

“Not very poetic,” I grumble, the words swarming my head without much sense. 

“No,” Harron agrees, “but very informative. The wheel of fortune thus will turn. The prophecy waits to be fulfilled.” Herron walks up to the woman with his truck, opens the bag of wonders, and pulls out an array of tools and medicines from it. It looks a lot smaller than it is, and can somehow always fit exactly what Harron needs, but nothing more. 

He re-wraps the woman’s head as his words finally process in mine. 

“Hold on, you all think I am supposed to act out this prophecy?” They don’t even know my previous name. “Are we talking about overthrowing the Queen, right now?” Also known as the woman who killed me last time, previously my mother. 

My current mother steps forward, a sad smile resting on her face. “You’ve always been destined for great things, Equinox.” 

Father gestures to the dilapidated Inn we’re all standing in. “More than this.” 

“I’m happy with this. This is all I’ve ever wanted. All I’ve ever asked for.” 

“We know, and we are so grateful,” Mother is putting up a valiant effort to hide her sniffling. “But we’ve always known this day would come.” 

“Always?” I ask, not believing it. “But I don’t even know what I have to do! Find some heir?” 

“Benjamin Hillweather.” 

Herron must have worked his magic because the woman coughs herself awake, that name falling from her lips before she’s even fully conscious. She manages to maneuver her body into an upright position, blinking open eyes that are now blue, and not the violet color I saw earlier. 

“I beg your pardon?” I blink a few times, trying to remember if that name means anything to me. 

“He is the boy you are looking for. The rightful heir to the throne.”

“There is no heir.” I remind, my head still spinning. “The Princess is dead.” 

The oracle shakes her head. “No, not Queen Ceelia’s child—poor soul. King Quentil’s rightful heir. He was reborn, and that boy is Benjamin Hillweather.” 

The color drains from my face. I knew King Quentil’s son—Maximus was his name, not Benjamin. He was a sickly boy, with a frail body and red hair, dotted with freckles. Brown, doe eyes. He took more after his late mother than his father and the whole kingdom mocked him for it. 

I knew Maximus. Before. In my body then. 

I knew Maximus because he had to be taken care of if I were to take his place.

Because I was given that task.