The Light of the Oracle

The third companion book that Victoria Hanley has matched with The Seer and the Sword and The Healer's Keep is called The Light of the Oracle.

This third book has very little to do with the other books in the trilogy. The deities have changed, from one God to multiple gods and goddesses. Many abilities have changed, from object-based to bird-based and prophetic.

This book's protagonist is Bryn, a girl who never fit in at home because her ability to see visions was misconstrued as laziness and daydreaming. Then she was relocated to the Temple to be with other prophets and prophetesses of the Oracle, but she also couldn't really fit in there.

It wasn't that she didn't make friends at the Temple - she did, eventually. Part of her problem was her lack of knowledge of propriety; she made several large blunders just in her first few weeks - or was it merely days?

And then when she finally got manners down, what happened then? She got cursed by the spiteful rich girl who had been chosen by a vulture.

Perhaps I should explain that. There's a certain day each year where people take turns just standing on a platform, waiting. They wait for a bird to come to them and choose them by plucking out one of their feathers for the waiting person. If they are chosen by a bird, the kind of bird determines the chosen one's powers.

Bryn was not chosen by a bird, which would have been an extreme disgrace had she not been chosen by something much more powerful: the wind.


Along with Bryn's personal problems are much bigger ones, problems that affect the entire kingdom. All is not as perfect as first presented in the Temple. Bryn and her new friends must do something before people die.