22
Ember
The more I find out about what”s going on here, the more my anxiety grows and with it, the dull fear of losing Believ. Just thinking about it makes my chest feel painfully tight.
Leaving the clandestine conclave behind me, I follow the Sin Eater”s trail through the corridors, making no further attempt to conceal my presence.
I feel I”m getting closer to her. It”s as if her aura exerts a magnetic attraction that guides me without me even having to check. But when I arrive like a tornado in one of the corridors, it”s not her who appears to me, but a group of monks chatting with a man whose appearance reminds me of those in the amphitheater.
“I”m telling you, I got lost looking for the amenities!”
“But this isn”t your first meeting, Christy.”
Christy... The name rings a bell. Would I have known him in some unattainable past?
“Forgive me, but these corridors, really. Who wouldn”t get lost? It’s a veritable maze!”
“What were you looking for?”
“What was I... But you”re completely delirious; I just have to pee! And if you hold my leg like that, I”ll have to relieve myself against the wall...”
“Seriously? Hold on!”
“So, the latrines?” insists Christy before the stunned eyes of the monks, who are disconcerted to see him holding so firmly to his lies.
“Please follow me.”
“Then you”ll be accountable.”
“Anything, as long as I can empty my bladder without waiting another quarter of an hour!”
The small group moves away, revealing a passageway that their presence had hitherto concealed. Enclosed by a grate, it displays nothing but eternal night. Yet this is where my instincts tell me to go. And the longer I procrastinate, the more my intuition leads me to believe that whoever got pinched a few seconds ago pointed Believ in this direction.
Has he set a trap for her?
More than likely, for what obscure reason would he have wanted to fly to her rescue? And by what miracle would he have found himself face to face with her in this unlikely place?
I break through the bars and float as fast as I can. But as I advance, I feel the effects of the spell that had struck me down two floors up. Weakened, my progress becomes slower and more difficult. Impalpable, I have no means of holding on, no support other than my determination to find Believ, whose confusion and apprehension surround me even though she’s no longer present within these walls.
Believ, where are you?
I continue my levitation and pick up the pace. Suddenly, a thud sounds before bouncing down the corridor, followed by hysterical screams.
“Sound the alarm!”
“Don”t touch me!”
These are the protests of the one I”m looking for! Her voice—though wheezy—has never sounded so sweet to me. She”s all right.
For now.
Despite the pain, I rush down the corridor. After interminable seconds, I emerge under a luminescent dome, where the monks seem to have combined a morgue and a laboratory. It doesn”t take a great deal of thought to realize that they”ve been experimenting on the bodies of those they”ve suppressed. All in all, an irreproachable ethic and morality.
Suddenly, a folding screen collapses under the weight of a monk trying to escape Believ”s assault. Despite her small stature, she leaps at the monk”s throat without hesitation, punching him under the chin and in the ribs.
Hitherto content to carry out an invariable procedure, diligently reproducing the precepts she had been taught, she now indulges in majestic improvisation.
I can see the rage on her tired features. She deals out blows without even thinking about it, and she takes some too. But there”s nothing fair about the fight: there are two of them. Two well-built, well-trained churchmen against a young woman barely thicker than a toothpick.
“Reinforcements are on the way!”
Reinforcements?
It doesn”t help the situation. What does “reinforcements” mean? Two men? Ten men? Twenty?
She dodges a blow and, in one agile move, leaps over a body lying on an autopsy table.
My body.
It”s obvious. I know it. No, I feel it as surely as if I were looking in a mirror.
As the monk moves around the table, she slips her hands into her pockets, as if to taunt him. Her eyes sparkle with rage and provocation. Yet she doesn”t utter a word. She”s wild, she”s free. No god on Earth can impose his will on her, least of all one of his usurped representatives. That”s what I admire about her. What I love, in addition to her sumptuous curves.
She grabs an object from a nearby shelf and throws it with all her might. Her pursuer deflects it with his broad arm. It falls without causing any damage other than the anger of the cleric, who pounces on her without further ado.
She pushes the cart with vigor, before running in the opposite direction. But she didn”t count on the second monk, who intercepts her and holds her captive with his muscular arms.
“I”ve got her!”
“Ember!” she calls, her cry muffled by the grip that immobilizes her.
Fatal error.
He touched her.
He defiled Believ.
My Believ.
I”m going to kill him.