The Oracle, wearing Mamon's face, kept walking. He hadn't grabbed Tish or caged her in any way. But something about him made Tish so scared that she didn't dare stop.
"His Highness..." Tish's teeth started chattering uncontrollably for some reason. "Is he..."
She couldn't even finish the sentence. She clamped her mouth shut to compose herself first. The Oracle noticed. He turned, eyes soft. "He is fine. I wore his face to draw you away from your friend. I am not a shapeshifter, Teresa. I'm like you."
Tish looked up at the man in front of her. But suddenly it was hard to stare at him. It was all too bright.
It was holy magic.
The light vanished in a second. In place of Mamon now stood an unfamiliar man. He didn't look very old, someone around Rudra's age. He wasn't exactly handsome, but his face had perfect proportions, like a statue's, the kind of face nobody could call attractive, only admire from afar. He was clean-shaven, and his ash-grey hair was cropped close, the way soldiers cut theirs.
He wore a tunic, hunting trousers and boots, but nothing heavy to protect his body against the cold weather. He crossed his bare arms over his chest, unaffected by the freezing wind. He looked as if he were out for a pleasant walk on a summer afternoon. No weapons. He looked every bit a civilian, a face she could have passed in a crowd and forgotten the very next second.
But his gaze pinned Tish the way a snake traps its prey with a stare alone. Unlike the rest of him, his eyes were ancient. The blue in them was like water trapped under thick ice, as if the very soul inside that shell of a body had forgotten to age long ago.
He reached out and took Tish's hand, the one that had been wounded that morning. Tish tried to pull it away, but he held it firmly. "I see you've had your first real sacrifice. Your fingers grew back, but the pain was real." He looked at her face. "How has it felt? To be able to give more than most and yet walk away without losing anything?"
Tish felt a familiar flicker of anger. The incident at the medical center hadn't felt like some grand sacrifice. And yet this man was treating Tish's traumatic morning like an achievement.
"It felt like a nightmare," Tish hissed, pulling her hand back. "Where is Prince Mamon?" she asked again.
The man looked pleased. "I've heard you have quite a bit of fire. I'm glad to see it's true," he said. "I told you your Prince is fine. I'm not a shapeshifter who needs to gnaw on his hair or fingers to shift into his body. That is below me."
"You're... not a shapeshifter?" Tish asked, more confused than before. "What are you?"
"I told you," the Oracle repeated. "I am like you." He gestured forward. "Come with me, Teresa. I need to take you to a safe place before they strike."
"Before who strikes?" Tish asked. "I need to inform His Highness! I need to inform Percy—"
"Don't worry about them. They'll die anyway, but you must live."
As soon as those words were out of his mouth, Tish didn't miss a beat. She was running.
Run first. Think later. Kroskoslav was not a big town, and it had been only minutes since she had parted ways with Percy. She ran across the pebbled street and almost immediately crashed into a man. It was one of the townsfolk.
"Saintess—!" he gasped as he steadied her. "Why a'le you in a—"
"The Benevian soldiers! Alert them!" Tish shook him. But he just stared. Tish turned around. There were other townsfolk, but they just watched her.
"Saintess," said the man who was holding her, "listen to the O'lacle..."
Tish shoved the man back and sprinted again. She made a beeline toward where she had left Percy, but she didn't get far. The street, which had been empty a minute ago, was filling up. Doors creaked open, heads poked out of windows, and people appeared from small corners and niches. Tish noticed several figures sliding out of alleyways and from behind carts, one after another, until the townsfolk stood shoulder to shoulder across the road. No one shouted. No one charged. They simply closed in, the way water closes over a stone.
Here and there, a laugh escaped, like a small ripple across an otherwise dead-calm lake.
The closest one held up a hand to stop her, but she ducked under his arm. Almost immediately she ran into a wall of fur-lined coats. She turned right, or what she hoped was right, and with a sinking feeling discovered there were only more of them: pale faces with sunken cheeks and hazy eyes, all fixed on her. The smell of metal and old meat pressed in with them.
"Saintess..." they murmured, over and over, like a prayer. "Please don't leave us..."
"Please..." Tish begged back. "I don't want to hurt anyone..."
A hand suddenly caught her sleeve, then another found her skirt, then a third and a fourth. Fingers crept behind her back. They were not rough or harsh, but greedy. Thumbs pressed into her flesh with religious adoration, and it terrified her more than the Oracle had.
Tish pushed and shoved, but for every hand she pried loose, two more took its place, always patient, always needy.
"Saintess, please..."
The crowd kept growing until she was less running and more wading, her feet barely leaving the ground. Someone's shoulder pressed against her back. Someone's breath, hot and sour, brushed her neck. Someone's mouth was too close to her ear, whispering pleas. Then a hand tangled in her braid and pulled hard, snapping her head back, and Tish lost it.
The holy magic of Rāva flared up abruptly, like a defense mechanism taking the reins on its own, without Tish consciously activating it.
Light exploded from Tish in a golden dome. Then Tish herself pushed it bigger and wider, shoving back the suffocating crowd, not to hurt them but to find a little room to breathe. One man slammed against the wall of a nearby house and fell heavily to the ground. Cracks spread across the bricks like a spiderweb from where he had hit. Another landed on the rooftop tiles and went skidding across them. People started screaming. The rest stumbled back to avoid being crushed by the widening dome.
Then everyone went silent, half in awe, half in shock. Everyone except Tish, who had crumpled onto the dirt and was gulping down fresh air now that she finally had room to breathe.
*Oh no.*
A part of Tish, the part that still thought of herself as a healer, a Saintess who was supposed to heal and not hurt, recoiled in horror at what she had done. The man who had crashed against the wall had fallen onto the dirt, and he wasn't moving. *What have I done?*
But then more of the townsfolk came crowding around the dome, their palms flat against the protective shield, foreheads pressed to it, mouths open. Someone started pounding on the dome urgently, and others followed his example. The horror Tish felt at doing something she had never done turned into fear of what would be done to her if the dome fell.
"Saintess!" The muffled voices called to her, and Tish squeezed her eyes shut. "Save us! Don't leave us!" A cacophony of pleas and wails and sick laughter surrounded the dome. Tish felt like an animal trapped in a zoo exhibit.
Then the voices rose, their tone shifting from pleas to alarmed shouts.
Shiiing...
Thud...
There were new sounds. At first Tish didn't want to look. She just wanted to sit there, eyes closed, ears covered, and never come out of her dome. But she needed to understand this new element. She needed to know whether the Oracle had finally caught up with her, and whether the dome would hold against someone like him, someone she didn't yet understand.
She looked up. The crowd was being jostled, and a few people were even fleeing. A figure pushed through, stubborn and determined. Tish caught a blade flashing amid the wall of bodies. The crowd parted just enough for her to see between the shoulders of two women who had turned their backs to the dome, facing the commotion.
It was Percy.