The False Oracle

The floorboards groaned beneath your feet, a sound you'd learned to imitate with your own voice—low and creaking, like an old man's sigh. You'd been in this town three days, long enough to learn that the oracle's tent was the only game worth playing. Outside, the crowd had swelled to a dozen desperate faces, their coins warm in your palm, their prayers colder than the night air.

"The beast will strike again tonight," you said, letting your voice drop to a whisper that carried. "I've seen it in the smoke. It comes for the eastern gate first."

A woman clutched her child tighter. "The eastern gate? But that's—"

"Protected." You smiled, a practiced curve of reassurance. "I've already laid the salt and iron. You're safe, so long as you believe."

The lie tasted like copper. You'd never seen the monster. You'd only heard the screams last night, and that was enough to know the eastern gate was a death trap. But fear was a currency, and you were a merchant of hope.

Then the horn sounded—long, low, and final. The eastern gate. The crowd scattered, and you were left holding their coins and their terror, the weight of your own fabrication settling like a stone in your chest.