Noah Hope seems gone But we'll make it out alive Vi's lifted hand is not an invitation. It is a command. Noah's body lifted, following and coming to stand beside Vi. He could feel the celestial energy pulsing from the god on some frequency he knew he could never experience without having the god's touch on his own soul. Noah's body throbbed with the flowing of his blood, both ice and fire somehow beneath his skin, which he could too sense was burning cold to the touch. Glacier eyes moved from Vi to the basin before him. His eyes flicked momentarily to the image of the Voice, and he did know what that was. But the basin? Noah searched it as if the answer were painted all over it, as if he were to know what it was, before Vi's words cut off his own thoughts again. He didn't know what it was, and he hadn't been here to see it. Until he did know. Vi's mind pressed into his own and behind Noah's eyes flashed memories. Memories of a young man, so enthralled with his own bloodlust, attacked him -- and a similar basin was suddenly sharp behind the tiger's first lunge. Safrin had said that Dygra was not their enemy, but now standing beside his god and looking down at her shrine, he felt she was. Noah swallowed and the sweat that had formed on his head now dripped cold down his neck. He wanted to defend himself. He wanted to give a just answer to the god. He wanted to tell him of the skyport, of the cleaning of the town hall, of the conversations and seeking he had done with citizens, of the house his wife and children stayed at this very moment, of his conversation with Remi. His jaws couldn't open. His lips couldn't part. He could barely push breath through himself if only to stay conscious. But he didn't. He didn't have room to justify what he had done in light of what he hadn't. He knew, though, that he couldn't stay silent. He wouldn't open his jaws to defend himself like a petulant child. But he would ask, blinking several times to keep the tears from spilling past his eyelashes, "Would you have me take it?" |
