Chapter 14 #2
Saer sneered, but the quiet alerted him to the attention their exchange had brought.
The villagers watched them, riveted.
Huffing, Saer rapped his knuckles on the table before stepping around it. “So be it. You’ll see the wounded guard, and then what?”
Ahraan offered no answer, but veered to the side of the stage with an elegant angle. Vexed, Saer cast his awareness through the man, hunting for any sliver of pride to snag and jerk on.
None. Not even a thread. Was there no pride in this man? Or did he shield it from Pride himself, somehow?
Where in the Hells had he come from?
An anguished moan cut into Saer’s musings.
Supported by two of the village guards, a third man limped between them, approaching the stage at an agonized pace.
Bandages wrapped around his burly gut, already seeping through with wet scarlet.
He kept all weight off one leg, the thigh bound with more crimson-stained dressings.
What must normally have been deeply tanned skin carried a faint sheen of sweat, its hue tinged a sickly yellow-green.
Saer’s heat sense told him the bulk of this man’s blood rested in his belly. The fine wisps of his soul stood out sharper, clinging to a physical body that deteriorated and lost purchase with every passing second. He’d be dead by the following morning.
Ahraan closed in on the guards, and Saer beckoned with a sharp hand motion. “Bring him on stage.”
When Ahraan moved to accompany them, Saer pointed at the hooded man. “I’ll call when I’m ready for you.”
For the first time, Ahraan lifted his head enough for Saer to catch sight of a thick brow cocking in subdued irony. The desert sunlight caught his eye for a fragment of a second, glinting gold.
Skin, brow, and iris. They all glimmered with the auric sheen of gold, reflecting the same way as the silver locks on either side of Saer’s face.
He did a second take, but Ahraan lifted his hands in a feigned gesture of surrender, the hood already consuming his features in shadow once more.
A trick of the light. It must have been.
Grunting, Saer motioned for the guards to lower their wounded comrade to the stage, accessible to him and viewable by those gathered. Murmurs rose as the crowd shifted nearer.
Saer cast his gaze at the lot, then lowered to his knees and focused on the dying guard. Lifting a hand, he cast it back and forth over the man’s body in a dramatic and pointless display. He paused over the leg wound, palm hovering above the dressing.
Droplets of sweat slid down the wounded guard’s face, his breaths coming too fast.
“Your torso fills with blood.” Saer kept his voice level, but caught the man’s gaze with his own. “I will heal your thigh to stave off death. If you dedicate yourself to me, you’ll ascend to godhood. Your stomach will be restored.”
More whispers spread and Saer managed to keep his face neutral. The man would die. He’d use this death to convince the others, showing them that a lack of dedication led to true death.
A figure shifted at the corner of his vision. Ahraan, arms crossing with one elbow in a palm, his other hand cupping his chin and mouth.
The pained guard nodded. “I dedicate myself to you,” he whispered, breathless.
Saer narrowed his gaze. “Do you mean it?”
The first inkling of fear invaded his gaze. “I do!” Though he choked on the declaration, he meant it. His soul would belong to Saer.
Despite this, Saer gauged the man with unfounded scrutiny, and doubting susurrations lifted from their audience.
When he died—and the guard would die—Saer needed an explanation as to why an ascension into godhood hadn’t occurred.
Showing the villagers he passed on without any elevation in status would only solidify their perceptions of him as their leader, and the guard’s soul would come to him anyway. A simple but ingenious ploy.
At the edge of the stage, a throat clearing cut through Saer’s inward plotting, and he jerked his attention to the source.
Ahraan leaned against the stage upon his forearms, fingers tapping against their opposite mates in quiet contemplation. Though Saer couldn’t see the man’s eyes, the hood pointed at the guard as though watching. Waiting.
Unbothered.
He was within punching distance. Saer resisted the urge to slam his fist into the stoic man’s nose.
Growl suppressed, he allowed only a hiss to escape as he bent over the guard’s leg and untied the dressing. The man stiffened under the sudden attention, but otherwise didn’t move.
Saer peeled the bandages back. A sharp cry erupted from between the guard’s clenched teeth when what blood had clotted, broke free. Saer didn’t indulge any instances to appreciate his quiet courage as he shoved two fingertips into the knife wound.
The guard’s cry turned into a howl, back bowing as Saer forced Hellsfire heat into the deep laceration.
Smoke erupted immediately, pulling gasps of alarm and surprise from the gathered crowd. Blood sizzled and blackened, the acrid stench of cauterized tissue permeating the space.
Lucifer had healed one of Saer’s first injuries in almost the same fashion.
The brief and painful recollection brought a sharp tremble to Saer’s limb as he finished. With one final blast of Hellsfire heat, the skin charred around the guard’s wound, but otherwise closed. Healed. Or as healed as Saer could make it.
Quiet alarm and reverence hummed through the crowd.
A whine of residual pain left the guard, and Saer snapped his gaze not to him, but to the hooded man.
Ahraan’s tapping fingers had ceased their movements, and a worried crease pulled at his lips.
Long enough passed for Saer’s thin patience to crack. “Are you not satisfied?”
Once more, that faint and enraging tilt of his hood said so much and so little. “No,” Ahraan murmured.
“You think you can do better?” Saer sneered.
At last, without subterfuge or evasion, Ahraan lifted his gaze to meet Saer’s.
The hood cast his features in mild shadow, but the metallic glaze of the man’s features couldn’t be denied. Gold, gold, and gold: burnished bronze coating his brows, rose gold dusting his lips, and an orange-gold saffron reflecting from his irises.
All gold.
Saer’s nostrils flared, his frown hardening while Ahraan analyzed him with a stare that reminded him of a blaze’s core. Though he perched on a stage and above him, the hooded man didn’t shy from Saer’s fiery attention.
Ahraan’s eyes narrowed. “Stars, there’s not an inkling of humility in you, is there?”
Even though Saer’s teeth bared with his non-answer, Ahraan pressed his palms flat into the stage and flexed his forearms, pulling himself atop it.
The urge to shove him away flared, but Saer quelled it for the sake of their audience. Whatever Ahraan meant to do, surely he’d embarrass himself, and Saer’s station would be further solidified. He could only win from this point forward.
Positioning himself on the opposite side of the wounded guard—who now had too much white showing around his eyes—Ahraan lifted a palm and brushed it against the man’s cheek.
“You’ll be healed this day. I’ll show you the one Grandfather’s power where you’ll experience eternal life in the Heavens after death. I’ll ask for nothing in return.”
Ahraan’s chosen words stuttered through Saer’s heart. He froze.
Inclining his head, that sad smile of before bled into Ahraan’s words as his other hand floated over the guard’s mortal, abdominal wound. “May I?”
The guard offered a stiff nod.
Ahraan bowed over the injury while Saer’s mind whirred.
From under the hood, a brilliant wash of white light bloomed.
Ahraan’s fingertips lit with white ribbons of flame that snaked along the guard’s abdominal dressing.
Nothing smoked or sparked, defying Saer’s expectations.
How could this man create fire as a Daemoenic, yet not catch anything alight with it?
Saer squinted, angling his neck to see under Ahraan’s cowl—
The soldier gasped, a sharp and encompassing intake of breath, like he’d never used the entirety of his chest before. It startled the enraptured audience into further cries of surprise, unrest expanding through the villagers.
The luminosity from under Ahraan’s hood faded, his shoulders relaxing. Any remnant of magic flames dissipated from his fingers.
Blinking, the soldier flexed his stomach and pressed a hand to the front of the bandage. Cautious at first, he pressed harder with more incredulous blinks. “What…”
Ahraan rested back on his heels, casting his gaze upon the sea of villagers, and raised his voice. “One might ask themselves who is worth following.”
Saer rose to his feet while the guard unwrapped his bandage with hasty jerks.
Ahraan offered an indifferent gesture his way. “The arrogant tyrant who plays brilliant tricks and demands your loyalty in exchange for vague promises?”
A snarl erupted unbidden from Saer’s lips. Many of the villagers’ faces pinched, skeptical.
But too many nodded along with Ahraan’s words.
“Or the one who offers your lives as your own, without expectation beyond a stance against”—Ahraan offered a meaningful pause and skewed his glance towards Saer—“trickery?”
Saer’s lips parted to condemn the man who dared speak against him.
The wounded guard released a sudden whoop of joy, pulling everyone’s focus.
Bloodied bandage ripped free, the sunlight caught along the flesh of the soldier’s stomach, where no trace of injury—cauterized, scarred, or otherwise—shown.
Ahraan had healed him completely.