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Eltz's journal
22
Ember
The more I find out about what's going on here, the more my anxiety grows and with it, the dull fear of losing Believ. Just thinking about it makes my chest feel painfully tight.
Leaving the clandestine conclave behind me, I follow the Sin Eater's trail through the corridors, making no further attempt to conceal my presence.
I feel I'm getting closer to her. It's as if her aura exerts a magnetic attraction that guides me without me even having to check. But when I arrive like a tornado in one of the corridors, it's not her who appears to me, but a group of monks chatting with a man whose appearance reminds me of those in the amphitheater.
“I'm telling you, I got lost looking for the amenities!”
“But this isn't your first meeting, Christy.”
Christy... The name rings a bell. Would I have known him in some unattainable past?
“Forgive me, but these corridors, really. Who wouldn't get lost? It’s a veritable maze!”
“What were you looking for?”
“What was I... But you're completely delirious; I just have to pee! And if you hold my leg like that, I'll have to relieve myself against the wall...”
“Seriously? Hold on!”
“So, the latrines?” insists Christy before the stunned eyes of the monks, who are disconcerted to see him holding so firmly to his lies.
“Please follow me.”
“Then you'll be accountable.”
“Anything, as long as I can empty my bladder without waiting another quarter of an hour!”
The small group moves away, revealing a passageway that their presence had hitherto concealed. Enclosed by a grate, it displays nothing but eternal night. Yet this is where my instincts tell me to go. And the longer I procrastinate, the more my intuition leads me to believe that whoever got pinched a few seconds ago pointed Believ in this direction.
Has he set a trap for her?
More than likely, for what obscure reason would he have wanted to fly to her rescue? And by what miracle would he have found himself face to face with her in this unlikely place?
I break through the bars and float as fast as I can. But as I advance, I feel the effects of the spell that had struck me down two floors up. Weakened, my progress becomes slower and more difficult. Impalpable, I have no means of holding on, no support other than my determination to find Believ, whose confusion and apprehension surround me even though she’s no longer present within these walls.
Believ, where are you?
I continue my levitation and pick up the pace. Suddenly, a thud sounds before bouncing down the corridor, followed by hysterical screams.
“Sound the alarm!”
“Don't touch me!”
These are the protests of the one I'm looking for! Her voice—though wheezy—has never sounded so sweet to me. She's all right.
For now.
Despite the pain, I rush down the corridor. After interminable seconds, I emerge under a luminescent dome, where the monks seem to have combined a morgue and a laboratory. It doesn't take a great deal of thought to realize that they've been experimenting on the bodies of those they've suppressed. All in all, an irreproachable ethic and morality.
Suddenly, a folding screen collapses under the weight of a monk trying to escape Believ's assault. Despite her small stature, she leaps at the monk's throat without hesitation, punching him under the chin and in the ribs.
Hitherto content to carry out an invariable procedure, diligently reproducing the precepts she had been taught, she now indulges in majestic improvisation.
