❝ DEATH IS COMING.
BUT SHE DOESN'T FEAR HIM. ❞
For the people of Khaya's little village living amidst the woods is quiet, and even more, so it became since the creatures lurking in its shadows turned into mere fairytales. Little does Khaya know that...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
WHAT DEATH CANNOT TOUCH xv. burn the witch
❆ ❆ ❆
Majda could almost hear Khaya's voice asking this question, looking into the mirror. Why are you doing this?
Her hands, which just decorated her hair with bands—signs of a young, proud bride-to-be—, sank to her lap, and her humming fell silent. In the mirror, her reflection felt strange. Wrong. Since it showed her alone in this chamber, where there should have been Khaya, mamotchka, and Ulyasha by her side.
But one of them had just left the house to light the fires. The other prayed with the priest, yet unaware of the secret vow that could forever bind her daughter to Davor Kazminov. To that fetching young soldier whose lips tasted of his iron blade and the jewels on his fingers, of wine and summer, and of whom she did not know if she desired him or solely what he promised.
Did her heart throb for him or the safety and freedom he could grant her?
Majda also did not question why a man like Davor Kazminov with his fine furs, sword, and jewels would agree to marry a woman like her or if the burning desire in his eyes when he called her "lastochka" had anything to do with love.
Instead, she wanted to think this a war she had won. The trophy, if not Davor's heart, was just as if not even more valuable. Hearts were given to others or stolen daily. What meaning was in that without having their hand in marriage?
If living in a cage was the destiny of women in this world anyway, she would at least choose and forge her own.
Majda closed her eyes, fingertips touching her LightofSvet.
"Because it is the only way," she whispered. "Because I am allowed to desire."
❆
It was then a figure slipped into the dark temple. His shadow, cast by a single candle, trembled like his old bones. Not because of the cold outside—that, his kaftan let not touch his skin—and not because of weakness, either.
It was rage that had manifested in him like a burning inferno. For the priest knew his soldier had disobeyed him. This time, he had not done as told.
However, it was fear, too. The fear of control slipping right through his fingers like sand. What if he had lost his power over the very man, he had formed to his will to be his soldier, his servant, his son? The one, who without him would have been nothing? The one, who after all had too much power over him, too?
Infuriated by the mere thought of this betrayal the priest slipped to his knees in the middle of the temple, and to its old, darkened arch, that looked to him condemning, he called out to his servant.
❆
"Time has come!" the priest's voice echoed from the temple's wooden walls, that creaked with distaste towards this false saint. The flames shivered. "Karachun is visiting us. I ask you to take your weapons now, them in hand and prayer on lips he cannot defeat you. Lay your lives in Svet's hands, and he will guide you."
