Et tú, Clarissa?

Chapter thirty-two

1431 AD (Rouen, Normandie)

I looked around in the crowd whiles I always felt Maze's breath close to my neck. Anyone other than me would be terrified having a vampire this close to the blood flooding through the visible veins along the neck, but after the incident in Italy, I trust her with my life.

"You sure about this other warlock?" Sindre asked with his Scandinavian accent and I looked up at the big Viking that saved Maze and I from a village raid in year 1104.

The sun made it look like his blonde, bushy hair shone like a sun of its own and his icy eyes searched the crowd which he with his 6 feet and 11 inches easily could oversee.

"Yes. I have heard words of her and I can feel her magic. She has to be close."

Sindre stopped with his gaze locked on something before us.

"I think I have found her." he said, but I could tell something was wrong.

Just as I was about to ask him about it, I heard a voice over the square. The tone in his voice made me shiver by bad memories.

How come all these idiots have the same tone in their voice?

"This woman, Jeanne d'Arc, is a friend of the Devil! A peasant girl has been leading the French army against us. The power she has been given is not from Our lord; it's from the evil himself. Therefore, she is sentenced to be burned at the stake for witchcraft and sorcery. By this clenching of evil from the world, we honour Our lord almighty!"

I tuned out from the mad man's speech thanks to his stupidity before I turned to Sindre and Maze.

"We have to figure out a way to get her away from the stake. We cannot let them kill a child for being a fierce woman."

They nodded and we started to make a plan.

"... and hence, witch, you are here by sentenced to death into the same hell fires that you came from." the priest says and they lit the fire from beneath the young, blonde woman.

The fear in her eyes shone right at me and I could not fail to feel her pain through me. I looked over at Sindre who were standing a couple of feet away from me to my left. He nodded to show me he was ready before I moved my gaze to Maze who stood a few feet to my right and repeated the gesture. As the flames took to the girl's skin, she forced her jaw tightly closed, but not a word left her lips even though the excruciating pain spread through her body. In synchronised movements, Sindre rase the flames towards the sky, enough for me to teleport the young woman away from the stakes and Maze replacing her with an old corpse. Before anyone notice a thing, we have all turned back to the barn where to the portal took Jeanne. As we appear through the big portals, I can sense her fear even stronger than before. Like she would have preferred to be burned than saved by us.

"These Christians always takes the demon part of it so literally." I mumble and Sindre laughs quietly. "Lucia were just the same."

Jeanne d'Arc looked up at me with big eyes as the name 'Lucia'. After that she seemed to find it as a good idea to really look at her rescuers and her gaze imminently stopped at Sindre. With dilated eyes locked on the handsome stranger in front of her, she slowly stood up and tore her gaze from him to look back at me and give Maze a look.

"What do you want?" she asked, her French weak by the exhaustion of the simple movement of getting up on her feet.

"Right now? Heal those terrible wounds of yours." I answer in a steady French without a trace of my English origin.

Something small changed in her eyes and I suddenly found her calmer, more trusting then when I had spoken English with Sindre. Slowly, without sudden movements, I moved closer to her and helped her back down in the hay laying on the ground.