Natalie Yacobson - Rhianon-4. Secrets of the Celestials

“Where is she?” Conrad darted forward, catching the wizard by the shoulder before he could even look away from the multicolored, magnetic eyes, one dark and the other blue.

Douglas grinned faintly at the corners of his lips.

“She’s with someone else. Do you understand?”

The news struck like a sword. Only Conrad recovered quickly. Passion gave way to rage. He squeezed the wizard’s shoulder as if the man were his rival. He could kill now.

“I don’t believe that.”

“You just don’t want to believe it.”

For a moment Conrad looked away. He tried to calm himself, and he couldn’t. His fingers clutched frantically at the hilt of his sword trembled a few times.

“Very well,” the prince said, as he struggled to contain his outburst. “Now I have two questions for you: where is she, and who is he?”

“Well, he has blond hair and blue eyes…” Douglas didn’t know how to lay the whole truth beside him. “It began here.”

He led the prince to a map spread out on the table and pointed to the right place.

“You see this path, highlighted in red. I underlined it for you. This is the path she took, even though your warriors didn’t find anyone there, but she passed through here. At this point, right in the deep woods, she managed to find friends. I drew a campfire at the place where they first met, because they met at the campfire. And this dot, in the shape of a drop of blood, marks the spot where Rhianon met him.

“And then the line breaks off,” said Conrad judiciously. His eyes were suddenly unfamiliarly focused.

“Yes,” said Douglas. “That’s because she did not go further. She has a friend and she has nothing to run away for. She relies on his protection, and rightly so. She doesn’t even have to walk the earth anymore, because he carries her in his arms. You know, all lovers feel like they live in heaven.”

“I get it,” Conrad stepped away from the map and headed for the door without even saying goodbye. Obviously, he thought they were unnecessary.

“Where are you going?” Douglas guessed, but decided it was not unreasonable to ask the question.

“Where do you think?” Conrad turned around, showing a frantic look. Now there was no doubt that he had a demon inside him.

“You’re tired,” Douglas reminded me condescendingly, “you’re hungry and insomniac. You’d be better off taking care of yourself than running around the woods after some couple. I could give you an elixir to restore vigor and sound sleep.”

“You think I can’t kill in this condition?” The prince grumbled so angrily that there was no doubt of his certainty.

Douglas immediately gave up and took a step back. This was not the time to dictate terms yet.

“I think, Your Highness, that you can make that decision yourself without me,” he said, bowing in a courteous bow. Only the departing Conrad did not see his eyes flash insidiously. All he heard was the click of the lock opening unassisted. But the whirr of an owl, more like a chuckle, did not reach his ears.

Immediately after the battle, Madael took her to his tower. He said he had urgent work to do here. It seemed strange to Rhianon, but she was no longer afraid of being alone in his tower with the ifrites and crawling creatures. Maybe she was just used to the strange surroundings. She settled down on a gilded chair, more like a throne, and waited. The fire in the great yawning fireplace danced in tongues of black and orange. She had never seen flames like that before. It seemed to form into bizarre shapes, frightening facial expressions and even grimaces. Inside the fireplace, as if some sort of spectacle was unfolding, depicting a tournament or a battle, she could see everything in the glimpses of the scenes: fights, quarrels, crossed swords, rage, anger, and oddly enough, even an embrace. Passion and strife, it was as if they were one inseparable unit.

“First the embrace, then the battle, that’s how love always ends.”

Rhianon turned sharply away from the fire. She never understood who had said it, but she expected to see an evil charred creature crawling toward her on the marble slabs, but there was none.

She watched the flames again and listened to the echo of ghostly voices. With such interest she would not even look at the scene. The flames did not give clear visions or outlines, but the blurry scenes were suggestive of certain thoughts. The flames whispered and showed her something. And surprisingly, the heat from this fire did not awaken the flames in hers. Could it be that the fire here was unusual? In Madael’s tower, anything could happen. She no longer felt in danger here. Even the flames only showed her fascinating pictures and whispered something in a multitude of voices, but did not arouse unpleasant feelings.

She listened to the chorus, so quiet not even a whisper, but she could hear the screams, the threats, the clang of swords and groans of pain, and the terrifying cries of those who were struck.

“It is the echoes of war in the skies,” someone said above her ear.

Rhianon looked up and saw an ifrit in the high wall archway. She nodded at him, not knowing why.

“I see.”

“Yes?” the monster’s claws clawed at the archway, its leathery wings fluttering gently, fluttering against the flames of the candle in the nearest lamp.

“I can see them, bodies pierced by swords but still alive, wriggling on stakes or spears,” she frowned, the images fuzzy. “They were beating in agony, and their wings were blackening. Even blacker skin, burning angelic curls, eyes blazing from within, like shards of heaven, from now on they will be black as coals, and full of such hatred. I even understand the source of their anger. To endure such pain is no joke. Anyone gets angry. You live and feel like you’re burning alive.”

“Like you?”

“Yes,” she thought and nodded. He was right. That was how she often felt because of the fire living inside.

“What else do you see?” The ifrit flew a little lower and sat on the carved decoration of the fireplace, like a bird on a perch. His sharp claws circled the carved panel above the mantelpiece. It was so huge, but it hung on the thin rung with ease.

Rhianon stared at him and didn’t answer at once.

“I see you as you were before, translucent and delicate and so vulnerable. One call from your master made you follow him. You didn’t know you would lose your golden curls, blue eyes, and ethereal body. It was a loss of innocence. Innocence is what I call beauty, inner and outer, not something else,” she hesitated. “I look at ugly bodies, and I imagine you as you were before.”

He looked at her skeptically.

“What do you imagine me to be like?”

She squinted as if she was looking at the sun and it might burn her eyes. She struggled to see his essence beneath the standing blackness and ash and burns.

“The blond strands below his shoulders, that rare golden hue that no mortal had, the eyes slightly less bright than those of your brethren, and the lack of that angelic austerity on his face that was common to the others. It was not even innocence, but naivety. You followed the others, even though you didn’t always understand what they wanted. You were always a little simpler than the others, so you were cuter. You didn’t care why you were there or who was going to be the master. Thus others drew you into their circle. And now that circle has become black. When I see you in a pack of others, I may not even recognize you, but now, since I have managed to snatch your former appearance from the past, I can see that I like it.”

That’s all. She couldn’t detect any other noteworthy features. The acolyte, who had listened to her, was dejectedly silent. She seemed to have hit the nail on the head. She didn’t know how. She’d just spoken her impressions out loud, and they seemed to be the right ones.