Free Burning to Ashes by Evi Asher

things to sort out.
    “I’ve never seen you before, so how could I possibly know who you are?”
    “Tut tut, Scarlet. I know you aren’t this lacking in intelligence. You were given a hint. Sadly, I can’t help you until you answer the riddle that was posed.”
    Sofia seemed to shake of her trance. “You are the Unnamed Oracle.” Her voice was a breathless whisper, but in the quiet of the room, it rang clear.
    The woman clapped her hands in delight. “Oh, very good, but it’s not enough.” She turned her smile on Scarlet.
    “You have to tell me what my name is. Only then can I help you.”
    “Your name?” Scarlet felt as if she’d been dropped into the middle of the world’s highest paying game show, and she couldn’t call a friend.
    All she got from the oracle was a serene smile.
    Scarlet felt a hand on her shoulder and looked around right into Heath’s eyes. He was fighting his trance to tell her something.
    Yes of course!
    He’d said that when he spaced out, that what he had said was important, was something she needed to memories. Scarlet pulled the words from her memory.
    I see pink, the darkest shade of pink is a name, the lightest is a color. Without pink, you will find no answers and answers will provide more questions, questions will give no answers. I see turbulence, I see fire, lots of fire, I see ash.
    Scarlet took a breath, trying to focus on the riddle, and not the woman standing in front of her waiting for her answer.
    She was sure that the fire and ash wasn’t what she needed right then. For some reason, the first part of what Heath had said was resonating with her.
    Her eyes roamed the room and it hit her—everything was in pale shades of pink. The lightest is a color the darkest is a name.
    What was the darkest shade of pink called?
    Scarlet felt like she was on the edge of panic. She needed to think, and she was struggling to focus. He mind searched with a frantic intensity for the word.
    For God sake! Suck it up. Breath, you can do this.
    “Cerise!” Scarlet shouted the word as it popped into her mind.
    The smile on the oracle’s face widened. “Well done, Scarlet. I would have been disappointed if you’d gotten it wrong, since we are both named for a color.”
    “You mean I’m right, that your name is Cerise?”
    “Yes.” Cerise held out her hands, and Scarlet reached out and took them.
    Scarlet turned her head to beam at the others, happy that she’d gotten the answer, but she saw that only Archer was grinning back at her while the rest had fallen into their strange waking sleep again.
    Cerise let go of Scarlet’s hands and prompted, “You came to ask me a question, Scarlet, but be careful. I will only answer one question, so chose your question carefully.”
    A million questions raced through Scarlet’s mind, but she didn’t know which to ask. How could she gain control of her powers? How could she stop from burning in her own flame. How could she have the Kalick removed from her?
    Archer spoke before Scarlet could formulate a question.
    “How do we get the Kalick removed from Scarlet?”
    The Oracle looked at Archer with a small indulgent smile. “Naughty, naughty, Archer. It wasn’t your question to ask. But since you’ve asked, I have to answer.”
    She paused as if making them wait in suspense was fun for her. “The only way for Scarlet to remove the Kalick hanging over her head is for her to suffer death.”
    The words fell like broken glass, shattering all of Scarlet’s hopes. She was going to die, whether in her own flames, or by the hand of Geo and his terrifying sidekick.
    Scarlet’s stomach clenched in a knot.
    “I will grant you a boon, a question you have not asked, Archer. I will say this…the creature that lives inside you is in the right, and you are correct not to fight him on this. What he says is true.”
    Scarlet watched Archer frown for a moment, then pale, his whole body tense, his jaw muscles bulging as if he were fighting himself.