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.
