Sky Touched by Eric T Knight

Author:Eric T Knight [Knight, Eric T]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-08-21T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-three

In the following days Fen did everything he could to avoid going anywhere near the palace or even looking that way. He was afraid that he would see Ravin, and he didn’t think he could bear it. Maybe if he’d been sure that now she hated him and would glare at him he wouldn’t have worried about it so much, but his greatest fear was that he would see pain on her face, pain he put there, and it would break him.

He threw himself into the preparations for war, training conscripts, helping load wagons, carrying supplies. He worked himself mercilessly, trying to lose himself in the work so he could avoid thinking. He could barely sleep and he often had headaches. So much was pressing on him that he felt often it would crush him. Ravin was only part of it. He feared the foreigners and what their real purpose was in being here. He feared what was happening to the Fist. The cruelty he’d seen on the man’s face when he killed the gray-haired priest haunted him. What was happening to the man he loved and followed? He feared also for his city. Its people seemed harder, colder as well. The entire place was caught up in a mad dash to war.

His squad mates saw what was happening to him and in their own ways they tried to reach out to him. Cowley tried the hardest, all but tackling Fen in his insistence that his old friend talk to him, but it did no good. Fen admitted nothing to any of them. The truth was that he wasn’t sure he belonged among them anymore. He harbored a terrible secret, one that could destroy them all.

Growing within him was the certainty that he needed to leave Samkara. If he stayed he was afraid he would lose control, and he had no idea what might happen then. A large part of his fear was that he didn’t want to hurt those he loved. But he also feared the look he would see in their eyes once they knew the truth about him. Would he see fear? Revulsion? Both? The thought was unbearable to him. Better to leave before it happened, go somewhere far away where he couldn’t hurt anyone before he died.

The only reason he hadn’t already left was that he still hoped he could get through to the Fist and somehow make him see how dangerous the foreigners were. He’d already tried to speak with him several times, but every time Maphothet was with him and he had no chance. Simply being in the same room with the cold-eyed foreigner caused the strange power within him to swirl uneasily. From the measured way Maphothet looked at him, Fen had a feeling the man could sense the power too.

The news of what the Fist had done to the priest of Hentu spread across the city. It shocked people, but it didn’t surprise them as much as Fen had thought it would.

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