Fire Angels

Chapter 20 Part 4 Face in the Mirror

He leaned close to the mirror's face.

"I have saved your life. I have saved your life because you are mine to save. Remember that."

A raven came sweeping round the corner and flew at the mirror, with great black wings and flapping claws outstretched as if the drive the demon off. But Bedazzer had gone already.

Shad was there, shouting and reaching out for me. He was lifting me up and now I could see everything - all the bodies in crumpled heaps strewn around like old clothes. Blood everywhere. Red blotches on my eyesight. All the men I had killed. I had killed them. I really did belong to Bedazzer.

There was blood on Shad's face and neck where I had touched him. It would always be like that. He would always be touched by my uncleanness.

Something snapped inside me. A tremendous rage came screaming out of it. I hadn't meant this. I didn't want this filthy blood staining me and staining Shad. I didn't want Bedazzer and his way. I wanted to smash those mirrors. I wanted to smash them so hard the shattered glass would blast back into the demon plane, blast so hard that it would shatter the foul beast behind them. Tear and rip and smash.

They had made me unclean?

Well I didn't want it and I wouldn't have it.

I don't remember much more. There was running and screaming and smashing; savage satisfying smashing. The air was full of shreds of glass and stone as I pulverized every piece of marble and glass I could see.

Then suddenly I was outside. Standing on grass. The whirling screaming mass of emotions was gone, leaving me bereft; leaving a terrible emptiness that began to fill up with chocking sobs.

Symon appeared at my side and took my arm in a firm grip. I tried to struggle but I was too busy fighting the sobs inside me.

"Come," he said. He marched me up to a big fountain in the centre of the courtyard and pushed me into it. Blood washed from my skin to stain the greenish water red.

Eventually Beg and a couple of Klementari healers managed to get all the shards of glass out of me. Evening was falling when I awoke from the pain killing sleep, they had put me under. My face, hands and arms stung.

"No permanent damage," said Beg sourly. "An outcome entirely undeserved by you, Enna. Such stupidity I have rarely seen. Could you not have shielded yourself? Well your admirers need not sigh. These little cuts all over you will be gone in a couple of days. If you don't forget to heal them."

Her remark reminded me of Shad and I asked her where he was.

"He is the Hierarch's audience chamber with the rest of them," she said, as if this was the sign of some great moral failing.

The fortress had been taken and the phalanxes of mages had cleansed it of all traces of necromancy. The surviving Burning Light men had been taken prisoner. All the statues and mirrors had been destroyed and the Red Dragon flag of the Madragas was now flying from the top tower. Lady Julia, who had come in to peer anxiously at me sometime during Beg's proceedings, had taken symbolic possession of the fortress, though she had returned to her camp on the plains outside until the fortress could be made ready for her.

I got up and put on the clean mages robes that had been laid out for me. I felt strangely relieved after my enraged dash through the fortress church and I wanted more than anything see Shad safe and to touch his skin.

In the Hierarch's audience chamber a small group of soldiers were playing dice in the middle of the floor with two mages. A barrel was sitting on a once elegant table, red wine in a puddle under its tap. Another group of fellows were sitting on the steps of the dais drunkenly singing bawdily modified hymns. Mark the young priest-mage I had worked with was curled up asleep on the Hierarch's throne with one of the Hierarch's headdresses lopsidedly balanced on his head.

One or two of the more sober and less intent let out a kind of muffled cheer as I came into the room. They seemed remarkably benign for drunks, though perhaps Shad's well known interest in me kept them polite.

"'E's in there Enna," yelled one of them pointing to an alcove.

Shad was sitting in a window embrasure, with his knees drawn up to his chest and his head back against the wall, eyes closed as if he were asleep. Golden evening light flooded warmly over him.

As soon as they saw me, one of the three men playing cards on the floor beneath him, turned and poked his leg with the hilt of a dagger.

"Hey Forest! Lady to see you."

Then with elaborate casualness, they picked up their cards and left the room.

Shad blinked awake.

"Thanks a lot fellas," he said ironically, as he watched his companions creep pointedly away.

Terrible conflicting emotions washed over me, the chief among them being fear. I had no defenses against this man. I was completely at his mercy. What if...?

"How are you then?" he said, holding out his hand. I was almost afraid to look in his eyes but I took his hand anyway

"Fine," I said. "Beg says I shall retain what beauty I have."

His eyes twinkled "Good."

He drew me into his arms, "You certainly feel all right."

"Oh Shad, how can you? After what I did. All those men...

"You killed them pretty thoroughly, didn't you," said Shad wryly. "But then they were set to harm you after all. They could not expect much better."

"I didn't have to kill... And afterwards I was so out of control. I didn't know what I was doing. Bedazzer appeared. He told me I belonged to him and I couldn't bear it anymore. Oh Shad! I could have done something awful. I was out of my mind with anger."

"Were you?" he said. "I knew you were angry but you didn't hurt anyone. In fact you seemed to be very careful to avoid doing so."

"You're not shocked?"

"Shocked? Why should I be shocked? I always knew what you were capable of." He smiled and put his arm round my shoulders. "And it's always seemed to me that you were the best person to have such power."

He squeezed me.

"You are a wonderful woman, you know that."

The look in his eyes made me acutely embarrassed, but I did not flinch away from him. I put my head on his shoulder and tried not to blush like a fool.

"What do you know? You're a lunatic," I said. "You jumped out of a window after me."

"I couldn't let you go into a trap alone," he said.

I put my arms around him and I kissed him and kissed him again and felt him hold and kiss me back. It seemed a wondrous thing to love and be so loved in return.