"You can't assume he is dead! Don't you dare tell me my husband is dead because of some omen!" A brown-haired lady yelled at the top of her voice.

"Lady Mira, please be calm," a bald, elderly man said, trying to calm her down, but she wasn't going to listen to him.

"Don't you dare tell me to calm down, Lord Brian," Lady Mira, the brown-haired lady, turned to the bald man with a frown. "I should be calm while these jokes called Oracles tell me that my husband, your Clan Master, is dead?" she thundered angrily and the clouds outside the palace began to grow darker as her eyes burned with anger.

"Lady Mira, please, calm your thoughts. You are starting up another thunderstorm outside. Someone might get hurt," the bald man, Lord Brian, pleaded.

The brown-haired Lady Mira turned to Lord Brian with a menacing look in her eyes and with slow, stalking steps, she made her way up to him, staring him dead in the eyes like she was going to devour him at any moment.

"If you ask me to calm down one more time, I will make sure you never mutter another word from that aged mouth of yours, do you understand?" Lady Mira threatened, and Lord Brian nodded quickly.

Lady Mira then turned her eyes to the Oracles.

"As for the three of you," she said as sparks of electricity began to burn around her hands. "If you mutter those words about my husband one more time, I will forget that you are servants of the gods, and I will send you to them. Do you understand me?" she threatened.

"But my Lady, this was the instruction from your husband, the Clan Master," one of the three Oracles said. "He connected his life force to this gemstone and gave it to us as an indicator of his life. He told us that once the light in the gem dies, it means he is dead. You were there as well my Lady," the Oracle tried to explain himself, but his words only served to anger the already raging woman.

In anger, she raised her hand and fired a bolt of lightning from her fingertips at the Oracles, but they dove out of the way, just in time. The bolt flew past them and blew up the large doors behind it.

Lady Mira was about to attack them when she heard a scream just outside the doors that she had just destroyed. She immediately recognized it to be her son's voice, Orion Thorne.

"By the gods, what have I done?" The woman muttered to herself and ran out of the palace hall only to find her son on the ground, unconscious, with a hole in his chest from her lightning bolt.

"GET THE HEALERS!" the woman yelled out and the guards quickly ran off to get help.

"Orion, please, please don't do this to me. Don't leave me all alone in this world," Lady Mira cried and hugged the boy's immobile body as tears streamed down her face.

"Lady Mira, please, permit me to bring him to the Chief Oracle," Lord Brian said from a safe distance. He knew that Lady Mira was a powerful Adept, but her gifts were controlled by her emotions. He wasn't willing to risk electrocution.

Lady Mira looked up at the bald Lord Brian through her teary eyes and nodded, stepping away from her son's body, giving the Lord space to pick the boy up.

Lord Brian moved swiftly and grabbed the boy, running straight for the Chief Oracle's chambers.

"Chief Ludwin! Where is the Chief?" Lord Brian ran in shouting as he quickly found a bed to lay the unconscious boy on.

"Be quiet! I have sleeping patients in here," Chief Oracle Ludwin came out running. He wore a monocle over his left eyes. His hair was gray, and he had no facial hair, not even eyebrows or lashes.

"It's the Clan Master's son, Ludwin," Lord Brian said and stepped back.

"By the gods and their wrath," Chief Ludwin exclaimed as he saw the boy's body, still sizzling. "What in the name of all the gods happened to him? Who did this? Does his mother know?" Chief Ludwin asked every question that popped in his head and turned to look at Lord Brian, and saw Lady Mira standing by the door with guilt and tears in her eyes.

Chief Ludwin instantly understood the situation and turned to face the boy.

"Family is our blessing and curse," he muttered under his breath as he signaled for the maids in his chambers to come and assist him.

Lady Mira sobbed as she watched the Chief Oracle, Ludwin, work on her son.

"Will… will he be alright?" Lady Mira turned to Lord Brian with tears rolling down her face.

"He is receiving the best of help in the Clan, Lady Mira. Your son is a fighter, he will pull through," Lord Brian said and Lady Mira nodded as the maids asked the Lady and the Lord to exit the chamber so that Chief Ludwin could focus on saving her son's life.

Lady Mira remained outside Chief Ludwin's chamber all through the night, till the following morning. Sleep did not dare cross her path, afraid of her wrath.

At about thirty minutes to the middle of the day, Lord Brian returned to the Chief Oracle's chambers and asked about the young Orion's health, but there was no news.

He sat down with Lady Mira, consoling her and convincing her that Orion's state was not her fault.

At exactly twelve noon, the doors opened and Chief Ludwin walked out, shutting the doors behind his back.

Lady Mira quickly got up immediately she saw him.

"My son, how is he faring?" she asked.

Chief Ludwin exhaled and exchanged a silent conversation with Lord Brian before turning to Lady Mira.

"I have done the best my skills and my healing gifts can do, my Lady. I am afraid that at this point, Orion's survival is strictly in his own hands," Chief Ludwin said with a slightly apologetic tone.

"What… What do you mean by that?" Lady Mira asked, looking for clarification like she was an uneducated person.

"Your son has been physically healed to the best of my abilities, my Lady. But he has fallen into a coma. Whether he wakes up or not is in the strength of his mind and the hands of the gods," Chief Ludwin explained.

Lady Mira opened her mouth to speak, but Chief Ludwin shook his head, knowing what she wanted to ask.

"I am sorry Lady Mira, but Orion is in a very fragile state currently. Your presence and emotions might influence his recovery in ways we might not want," he said looking at her fingertips and she quickly hid them behind her back.

"I will advise that you go back to your chambers, take a proper bath, have something to eat and pray to all the gods for his full recovery. It'll be a shame that the young Lord wakes up to find his mother dead from starvation," the Chief Oracle said.

Lady Mira looked at him for a while. Chief Ludwin was one of her husband's most trusted council members. She knew he had her family's survival at heart, so she nodded and left for her chambers.

Lord Brian was about to go with her when the Chief Oracle called him back.

"What do you know about her husband and how he became the Master of our clan?" Chief Ludwin asked.

Lord Brian was confused. A moment ago, they were speaking of Orion, why was Chief Ludwin switching the discussion to the boy's father?

"What are you referring to?" Lord Brian asked.

"Why was Lord Alaric made our Clan Master?" The Chief rephrased his question.

"Um… Because of his gifts?" Lord Brian replied, a bit unsure of his response.

"Yes," Chief Ludwin nodded.

"All Adepts in our Clan have one gift. But Lord Alaric had two for some reason."

"And what does that have to do with the young Lord Orion?" Lord Brian asked.

"When Lord Alaric discovered his second gift, it was from a time of fatal injury, just like this. According to him, he had encountered the gods and one of them had blessed him and given him an extra gift."

Lord Brian looked confused for a while.

"Are you… Are you suggesting that the Young Lord is about to experience the same thing?" he asked and the old Chief Oracle nodded in affirmation.

"When Orion's father told me of his encounter, he told me that the being that gave him the extra gift was called 'Asterion', and last night, while operating on the boy, he kept muttering his father's name and the name 'Asterion'. If I am not mistaken, the young Lord might be having a conversation with his father and that Asterion entity. And if that is the case, he might inherit his father's gifts as well as find his own gift. If the young Lord wakes up, he might be the first Adept in all our history books to have more than two gifts," the Chief Oracle explained with a hint of excitement in his voice.

Lord Brian nodded as he slowly understood the situation.

"Let us hope for his sake that he wakes up a normal Adept though," Lord Brian said. "If he were to awaken with that much power, he could have more enemies than he can handle," he said and the Chief Oracle nodded in agreement.

"May the gods save his soul," the Chief Oracle sighed.

"May the gods save his soul," Lord Brian replied and left.