Gods & Thieves ✔

54. Pray and Fight

༄༄༄

The doors close with a loud thud.

A wave of air blows into my face, bitter and angry at first. And then fresh, as if cleansed, as if in the forest after the rain. My thoughts, which had swum a minute ago, return to my body, forcing me to feel my own arms and legs again--and either from surprise, or from despair, open my eyes.

It's really dark in the hall.

But the dark does not obscure everything, as it seemed to me. With airy ink ribbons, aura snakes along the floor and the walls, around the councilors, Maricela and me. This aura is filled with such powerful magic that even the silver on my burned wrists does not stop it. I feel how natural magic breathes energy into me, and my hurt mind remembers that I need to fight for my life. It remembers that I want to live.

I believe...

Loretto stands at the door.

Our eyes meet in silence, and in Loretto's gaze, at the sight of my beaten body pinned to the wall, burns with such a familiar, affectionate longing that I feel it like a kiss on my lips. Caring, saddened, passionate kiss.

Trust your heart, Eli...

Maricela lied. Lo is here. I was not betrayed, I did not betray. We are together in spite of everything! I want to laugh with joy. Lo is here to protect me again.

But my euphoria lasts only a moment, and then my thoughts become sober. My eyes see what it cost Lo to get to me--the hem of faer robe torn, smeared with dirt and someone's blood. Scarlet splashes of the same blood on Lo's chest and face like a demonic war paint. Fae hair is tousled, as if someone yanked at it, tearing a lock out.

Without exaggeration, Tayen looks like a sinner who escaped from the sacrificial altar at the last moment. Like a half-finished convict who got out of a hopeless prison after hundreds of years, but miraculously did not lose the will to win.

And despite all this, Loretto doesn't seem to notice faer own hardships. Lo's gaze turns to stone to ferocious ice, when Mentor looks at Maricela, who is numb from shock next to me.

"Thirteen guards against me alone," Loretto says in a deliberately calm tone. Faer gaze runs along the hall as well as faer aura haze, exploring every inch with both eyes and feelings. "Should I be flattered that you value my life like a dozen others, Maricela? Or be upset that you're throwing people around like bones left after dinner?"

When Maricela doesn't answer, Lo looks at Tikhon.

"When people try to kill me, I get angry," fae adds, clutching faer dagger in faer right hand. "And I don't play nice.

"Impossible," is the only thing that comes out of Tikhon's mouth. And then, without hesitation, unlike his titled niece, he attacks.

My lungs burn with terror. With a wave of his shamanic hand, Tikhon cuts Loretto's auric ribbons winding through the hall, and a stream of air, trembling like over a bonfire, rushes toward Lo like an arrow. Maricela, glancing at me in disappointment, hisses something and rushes behind her councilors like behind shields. The other members of her Council also begin either to whisper some spells and weave charms, or pull knives out of the folds of their robes, or send their own ink black deadly aura sparks toward Lo.

And Loretto is alone.

I frantically jerk my chained hands, looking for a way to help, but even though Mentor has shared faer strength with me, even though my head is no longer spinning, and my body does not ache and does not feel wooden, I cannot break free from the shackles.