The feeling of raw power surging through her veins flooded her body with pure pleasure. It felt like a first kiss of true love that sent shivers down her spine, the one that she remembered for all years to come… It felt like a sip of water after three days of thirst, like a first bite of food after weeks of starvation… She was on the edge, feeling on the verge of an almost sexual climax, tingling within all of her nerves, she was ready to release all the built up pressure out of her body…
Then, the release came, and the pleasure turned to torment. The orgasmic excitement turned into pure, raw pain, the power coursing through her body turned into caustic bile and she felt sick in her stomach, balancing on the verge of vomiting and losing consciousness. It hurt everywhere, her limbs felt like they bent and broke, her bones shattered into a million small pieces that dug deep into her flesh, her organs trying to claw their way out of her body, and her heart sent another fresh dose of acid to her veins… But the worst of all was the pain she felt in the projector.
It burned. There was no other way to describe it, just a feeling of wild, unquenchable flames engulfing the projector, and she felt it more than she felt anything else. It screamed, a tormenting scream of agony, that of a misused and abused soul, forced to do things it was never meant to do…
Although the blood-crazed refugees could not see it, the witch indeed burned. She stood, her limbs spread as if she was nailed to a cross, her mouth open wide and soul-shattering and ear-piercing screams of unbound agony filled the ears of every person around her in a wide radius.
Everything and everyone stopped, stunned by Auria’s scream. All the eyes turned towards her, thousands of hands covered the ears…
The witch opened her eyes and looked at the crowd. Where her eyes fell, the projector’s gaze followed and with it, burning death came.
The refugees were obliterated by scores as they fell where they stood. Auria's gaze burned through them like a torch flame through thin paper, leaving nothing but piled limbs and corpses cut into pieces by the intense scorch of the projector. She made but one sweep of her eyes through the crowd and hundreds died, soundlessly.
She collapsed, face down into bloody mud under her feet.
***
Crackling of fire woke her up. She looked around confused, until Suranihr’s worried gaze caught her attention. “What happened…” she whispered through dry mouth.
“Drink.” Suranihr said softly, pressing a leather flask against her lips. She drank, each swallow a handful of needles piercing and scratching her throat.
She thanked him and tried to pull herself up. Never in her life she felt so tired, her movements slowed down as if her limbs were lead. With Captain’s help, she managed to sit and take a proper look around. They were in a camp, and six Citadel-made white tents of heavy cloth were erected around them. “Where are we? Where is Naira?”
Feed.
“After you…” Words caught in his throat for a moment, as his eyes flickered over her face. He coughed, and continued. “Soon after you collapsed, another carriage of our convoy caught up with us. Refugees left us alone - they were too afraid of you - and so we were able to take you and Naira away…”
“Where is she?” Through pain and protests of her body, Auria stood up. “I need to see her.”
“She’s… resting.” Suranihr nodded towards the nearest tent. “Harian is with her.”
***
“I took the arrows out, cleaned her wounds, but the infection is spreading. First of all, the arrowheads were coated by some filth that inflamed her wounds. Second, her intestines were pierced. I did what I could, but…”
Auria held her friend’s cold arm. She was pale, cold and sweaty on the…
Feed.
… verge of death. “I am no medic, Auria, I did what I could but…” Hairan trailed off. “I don’t know how to save her. Luckily, you woke up and you can use your… power. “ Harian smiled reassuringly but refused to meet her eyes, trying to hide the terror he felt from the projector.
Auria knew he was right, but she…
Feed!
… also knew that she was depleted. She used everything, every last drop of energy that was stored in the projector, and she felt as if the projector even drained her a bit.
“I need to power it up first.” She said in a cold, emotionless voice, as if she described how to make a straight incision. “I need to feed on somebody, and quickly. She might not last much longer.”
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“Auria, there is no one to feed upon.” Suranihr said slowly. “No murderers, rapists, slavers here, just the rest of our convoy.”
“One of them then.” She said, mercilessly. Suranihr blinked in surprise. “You’d kill one of our own to …”
Feed!
“... yourself? What the fuck, Auria?”
“She is all that I have left.” Auria hissed. “My father is mad, running fuck knows where with three of these insane things sticking out of his body. Who else is there?” Auria looked at them both, but each refused to meet her gaze. “That’s right, nobody.” She said as she walked from the tent, rage fueling her body, pushing the pain away.
Out of the tent, she sighed. Of course she would not kill one from their convoy, she was not a…
FEED!
“SHUT UP!” She screamed at the voice inside her. She grabbed the projector into her hands, squeezing as if strangling it.“SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP! I KNOW!”
“Is everything alright, mistress?” A soft voice asked her. Young woman stood right next to her. Auria turned, her projector reaching out…
She took three steps away from the girl as she realized half her body was bandaged up with blood seeping through the cloth. “What happ…”
“I’m alright, mistress. The dinner will be ready soon. I’ve cooked from what we’ve been able to salvage, so don’t expect…”
“Why won’t you look at me?” Auria asked, irritated. Woman shrugged. “I’m just a camp’s cook, mistress. Come eat while it’s hot.”
For a brief time, Auria was standing alone in the dark. Night’s chill helped her to clear her mind a little bit, to focus. She realized her own stupidity, thinking about feeding upon someone’s life to heal Naira instead of doing what she did her whole life. She returned to the tent, before anything else, she asked them whether they needed any medical attention. After reassuring her that they were alright, Auria asked both men to fetch her chest with medical supplies that she packed. While they were gone, she spoke.
“I know you can hear me. Don’t act deaf.” Auria washed her hands with fresh water from the nearby bucket. “You’ve been through much worse than this, we both know that.”
She moved towards her wounded friend, observing her shallow breaths. “Remember how we met? I was young and alone, cast out… And children can be cruel, as we both know.” Auria chuckled. “I still remember the stone you threw at Navarr when he tried to pull down my dress in front of all the other children from the day school. Then, I never would have even imagined you two ending up together, wed, with a child on the way…”
Suranihr and Harian brought the chest and put it down on a table close to Auria. She nodded thankfully, and sent them away with a nod of her head.
“I am really sorry, Naira. For everything you must have endured… I’m sorry that we were too late to save Navarr. I… I’ve never been so close with someone to even say that I love him, you know. Other than you and my father, of course.” Auria sighed, a single tear running down her cheek. “I can’t even imagine how you must have felt that day, finding his mutilated, burnt… dissolved body…” Auria took a needle filled with potent narcotic designed specifically to help people function through tremendous pain. She pulled up her left sleeve, and when she went to inject herself, she noticed that her veins were unusually swollen and… black? She ran the fingers across her upper forearm, where the swelling ended, and she followed the bulged veins up her biceps towards her shoulder. There was no pain, no strange sensation. ‘I will deal with this later.’ She thought to herself as she injected the narcotic into her blackened vein. Chill spread through her body, slowly pushing the pain away with each beat of her heart.
“And then, right there, next to his corpse, your miscarriage…” Auria turned back towards Naira with three different syringes and vials of liquid, a set of scalpels and a sewing kit. “I’ve never wanted children, I can’t imagine myself in the role of a mother but you… then, I felt like you were the mother of us both. Both me and Navarr… Kind of twisted of you to let him fuck you now that I think about it.” Auria chuckled through tears. She injected the first syringe filled with bright light liquid into Naira’s left arm. “Usually, I would say to the victim that this will hurt, but you have endured much, much worse.”
As she slowly dropped the contents of one vial - a gray, oily liquid that sizzled where it hit Naira’s wounds - she talked more. “I know that you wish I left you to die, then and there, next to your husband and your child. You have lost Navarr, and you have lost all that he had left you, your child. The last piece of him, of your future, gone… But, I am selfish. You are all that I have left in this world, Naira, and I love you. Whatever may have happened, you never left me alone, and you always made me feel welcome.” Using one big, empty syringe, Auria sucked away the filth that gray liquid left in Naira’s wounds. “You’ve never left me, and I will never leave you. I’ll bleed for you, I’ll kill for you. Just fucking survive this, Naira.”
Wounded woman still did not react.
“I know that you can hear me.” Auria said again. “And I promise you this…” She leaned close to Naira’s ears, and whispered. “There is a way to speak to the dead, and with your help, I will find it. And then, you may speak to Navarr again.”
A weak shiver ran through Naira’s body, and Auria smiled, as she injected the second vial into her friend - now filled with clear liquid - and continued to thoroughly clean up Naira’s wounds. “Told you I knew you could hear me.”
***
Morro stood on the bridge of cruiser Luthra, indirectly overlooking the repairs of the ship. “I don’t know why you’ve allowed him to leave.” He growled towards Triarch Argyl.
“He made a good point that it would be very unwise to let Iarvahr run away with such a prized tools.”
Morro grunted. “You should have sent stalkers after him.”
“I did, don’t worry. There is at least one and although I did not give him a straight order, he protects the commander's daughter, and I feel that there will be a confrontation of sorts between them.”
“You seem to enjoy this machinations and intrigues much more than you admit.”
Agryl smiled for a moment, but his face turned serious. “You think those beasts you’ve met could really attack from the sea?”
Morro nodded. “I really deem it necessary to find a way of surveying not just above the water, but also below it. We need to be prepared.”
Argyl sighed. “I’ll move some orders and funds around. Right now, resources and manpower are rather tight… You owe me, Morro.”
“Everybody owes something to everybody these days.” Morro murmured, just out of the reach of Argyl’s ears.