but he could neither break free nor let out his last breath.
«Evil is as eternal as the god who created it,» the calm, angelic voice said. «You wonder that a divine being can be served by infernal creatures. But isn’t this world a mishmash of the sublime and the perverse. If anything were to be different, it would have been so from the creation of the earth, not only below, but also in heaven. All things are not as we would like them to be; all living things must suffer, and the chosen of the higher powers have suffered far more than lowly traitors like you. But in its time everything falls into its place, because one truth remains immutable. Do you realize what it is?»
He found the strength to shake his head in the negative. Dennitsa’s beautiful face compelled him to do so. Why did it seem so feminine to him, like his girlish voice and posture? Is it Dennitsa? Or is it someone who looks like him?
Her golden hair didn’t fan across her shoulders but slid gently down her back, her shoulders seemed too narrow even under the cloak, the gaudy fabric below her chest glowed like brocade. All this told him something. But of what is it? Or rather who is it? Someone he had forgotten, though he should have remembered, and now the angel reminded him.
There was still the princess he had sworn an oath to. He had never kept his promise to serve her. Bertrand raised his hands helplessly to his face. How could he have forgotten? Rhianon! He had never had a chance to examine her up close, but he knew she looked like that divine warrior. It was as if they were one.
Meanwhile the merciless voice continued melodiously:
«Touch an angel just once, you rulers of this world, and you will be ashes even before the one you have offended takes your throne.»
Now he recognized her. The maiden’s voice was so cold and vengeful. Rhianon was bent over him, oblivious of the leprechaun writhing on her sword, and she had never looked more dazzlingly beautiful to him. Her beauty was in itself the worst revenge. She killed just looking at her. A living person could not be so beautiful. Did that mean she was already dead? Or is she immortal? In her guise, a relentless, emotionless being, which is commonly called an angel, speaks to him.
«The Creator cruelly tests his favorites, but if you at his instigation, offend one of them, and your suffering will not end. You must be feeling it already,» she held out her hand, and the candlestick was already in her fingers as if she’d told it to go flying over the bed. Rhianon tilted it so that the hot wax flowed onto the bandaged stump.
Bertrand screamed in pain enough to startle not only the castle but the villages beneath it. But no one came.
«They have other things to worry about,» Rhianon glanced quickly out the window. «I must be going now, but they must see my seal on you.»
She pulled out a signet ring, the same one he had already seen on her father’s finger once when he was sworn in. Seeing such a seal on him, everyone would know that he supported Rhianon, not Manfred. He didn’t care anymore. He couldn’t even hear the screams and noise outside the windows. And there, in the darkness, there seemed to be dozens of torches blazing.
«The villagers aren’t happy,» Rhianon said, frowning. «They should have been, long ago and not now. Personally, I think it’s too much for Sky to bear with the terrible punishments it’s inflicted.
She straightened up, putting the candle back the way she had taken it, that is, in a completely untraceable way. In her presence, things seemed to move on their own, windows opened, water jugs disappeared and spilled, the flames in the fireplace flared.
Bertrand reacted too keenly to the heat to start a fire, and now the fire in his bedroom was even too much. How could that huge cloud of flame fit in a single fireplace yawn? There seemed to be a whole elemental raging there.
«I must go now!» Now Rhianon was looking only at the sword-wielding leprechaun, as if Bertrand were gone or would soon be. «There will be others after you. Anyone who has wronged me in any way will pay more than your feeble human imagination can ever imagine.»
She smiled, indifferently, contemptuously, wickedly… so that he could tell by that smile alone that she was not lying and in no way exaggerating, even downplaying. Her triumph was yet to come, and it would take place on blood and bones.
No words of farewell were uttered; instead, Rhianon merely tilted her sword gently, allowing the leprechaun to slide down onto the bed. After she left, he stared briefly at the lingering, bloodless hole in his belly. The bewilderment at the idea of the wound on his toothy green face was almost immediately replaced by a hungry grin. The wounded man became even more bloodthirsty than before. Bertrand realized only now how naïve he’d been to think the angelic creature wanted to play down his torment. On the contrary, after waiting only a moment, it had increased it. The freed leprechaun pounced on its prey even more furiously than it would have. The helpless stump was at the mercy of a greedy mouth full not of teeth but of needles. After Rhianon’s departure, Bertrand felt too crushed to think at all, rather than move. Now he was even easier prey than before, which the creature did not fail to take advantage of. Perhaps the castle, with its servants and knights trembling before the devil’s affliction of their lord, would be even easier prey for the rebellious peasants. They will need no knives, no pitchforks, not even wood cut down and sheared for a battering ram. The servants here are in such turmoil that they will open the gates themselves. And when they burst into the master’s bedroom, they will realize that they were not wrong in their speculation.
Rhianon considered the naked sword in her hands. Her eyes must have glittered even more ominously than the deadly blade, because Ferdinand, who wanted to cross the threshold, never dared to do so.
She didn’t need him to come in. She knew all the news he wanted to tell her as it was. Not only could she read his mind easily, the sounds from the closed council chamber came to her ears as if the voices speaking there were communicating directly to her. She knew that there was to be war. Everything had been decided. Everything would not be enough for her now.
«I will go with you to the first battle,» she turned to Ferdinand, who had finally decided to enter the hall.
«But…» He was momentarily taken aback. The sword in her hand even startled him. The dwarf was right. The blade was begging for blood at every moment. Not just begging, but demanding. Her hand was strong enough to restrain it. It was for now. Too bad once it tasted blood, it wouldn’t be able to stop. It wanted to now. And Ferdinand was very near, so seductive, so close, so alive… it could be dead in a moment.
Rhianon took a few steps away from him. The long azure train draped behind her on the floor, cramping her movements, and yet she felt herself ready to fight. The sword was thirsty for blood. All she had to do was control it, pointing it at her enemies and not at her supporters. Too bad there was no choice now. Apart from Ferdinand there were no other people present. And blood had to be spilled now. The sword demanded it. She held it back with difficulty.
«You cannot go to the battlefield with me. You are not a knight,» Ferdinand began, for the first time, to dissuade her from doing something. He was frightened. She could see that.
«How can you fight with your frailty… and in your position?»
Oh, yes, he remembered about the child. It was the child of the devil. Rhianon grinned. With a flick of her hand, the sword made a dangerous arc that slid almost across his face. She played with the flame. In one second she had to bring the sword down. Immediately there was a squeak. When she raised the blade forward, there was already a strange creature with green skin and a gutted belly fluttering
