Percy wasn't holding back. And for once, Tish was glad that he wasn't, and ashamed of being glad. She watched him ruthlessly slashing through the crowd of townsfolk, blood spraying up toward the grey sky before showering down over those who remained. A few tried to stop him, a few froze, and a few wise ones started fleeing. Percy's eyes caught Tish's across the crowd. He gave her a nod.
I am here.
Tish almost sobbed with relief. Almost a hundred people still stood between them, but the fact that Percy was out there, in her line of sight, fighting for her, gave her a profound hope. She nodded back at him and stood up, wiping at her face with the backs of her hands to erase whatever tears of fear had escaped. She didn't dare lift the dome. Instead, she tried to push it wider, to shorten the distance between her sanctuary and where Percy was fighting the townsfolk. She placed her palms on the dome, closed her eyes, and pushed with her mind.
It worked. For a second.
Then she hit a block. Not a physical block, but a mental one. She couldn't feel the dome anymore, as if the holy magic linking the barrier to her had abruptly ceased to exist.
She opened her eyes. It was the Oracle. He stood with his forehead pressed against the dome, palms flat against hers on the other side of the barrier, eyes fixed on her face, watching.
Tish dropped her hands and staggered back. The Oracle smiled. Then he mouthed: *Wait here for me.*
He turned, eyes fixed on Percy. Air left Tish's lungs as she watched the Oracle walk toward Percy with a calm gait. Tish tried to push the dome, to break it. But nothing happened. The dome stayed immovable. The barrier wasn't hers anymore. It belonged to the Oracle.
Tish's sanctuary had turned into her prison. Why? Why! Tish pushed again. She felt her holy magic rushing toward the wall and meeting the block, like water trapped against cold, immovable stone.
"Percy!" Tish screamed. She didn't care about herself anymore. She cared only that Percy survive. "Run! Just run!"
But stupid, brave Percy! He froze when he saw the Oracle, a new face, and challenged him all the same.
"PERCY!"
Percy swung his long sword with both hands, and the blade arced through the air, but the Oracle stepped back with eerie swiftness. Percy didn't let him widen the distance. He skidded forward, the point aimed directly at the Oracle's heart, and thrust. The Oracle merely sidestepped, grabbed Percy's wrist with one hand and his forearm with the other, and brought the captured limb down hard on his knee.
Tish didn't hear the crack. She just saw Percy's face go pale, beaded with sweat, and understood. She pounded on the dome uselessly. "Don't hurt him!"
The Oracle didn't look back as he grabbed Percy's throat and drew him closer. Even with a broken hand, Percy fought hard. He rammed his head against the Oracle's face. Once. Twice.
From where Tish stood, she could only see the Oracle's back and Percy's face. She noticed Percy's forehead come away bloody from bashing it against the Oracle's. He roared, thrusting his sword into the Oracle's abdomen with his one good hand. Tish saw the tip of the blade poking out of the Oracle's back.
Then Percy's face changed. The desperate anger and determination drained out of it, replaced by something stunned. His gaze dropped to the wound where the blade had gone in, and his eyes went wide, as if he couldn't believe what he saw. He looked at Tish, then back at the Oracle. He let go of the sword, jaw falling open.
"Percy!!" Tish was fully sobbing now, her eyes blurred. "Just save yourself! Why don't you just save yourself!" She punched the dome again and again. Ripples spread outward from where her fist met it, like water absorbing all of her hopelessness and giving back... nothing.
The Oracle stood unaffected, a blade through his body. He held out a hand, and a flicker of silver light oozed out of it, so faint that Tish could barely see it in her delirious state.
From where Tish stood helpless, she could only watch the fallen townsfolk getting up one by one, a little confused, as if they had fallen asleep instead of lying in a bloodbath. They looked at themselves, patting their bodies, hands and heads in disbelief.
Tish had healed people before, but only by touch, and only one at a time. Whether they had been dead or dying, no healer, not even a Saintess, could heal that fast. Or so she had thought.
Even the townsfolk looked shocked. Then the Oracle slowly, very slowly, pulled Percy's sword out of his body and held it up to the sky.
Even through the barrier of the dome, she could hear the Oracle roar, "All hail Rāva's grace!"
He had taken Rāva's name. Of all the gods and monsters, of all heaven and hell, he had to take Rāva, the name of her goddess. Her divine mother.
Tish watched the Oracle throw Percy's sword aside and produce a small, slim knife. It was so small, but it felt far more terrifying than Percy's long sword.
Tish pressed her forehead against the barrier, breathing through her mouth. As the Oracle cornered Percy, she realised how true Rudra's words had been.
Even when Saya had died, and even now, with Percy dying in front of her, she could do nothing. She could only watch.
Rudra's words echoed in her head, the ones he had thoughtlessly thrown at her a year ago in Partha.
"You can do nothing."
He was right. He had always been right about Tish.
"You are useless to me."
And it was probably Tish who had failed to see the truth: that being a Saintess meant nothing. While she just stood there, being useless, her friend faced her enemies for her.
Even with a broken hand and a bloody forehead, Percy was still fighting. As the Oracle gripped his throat, he swung his good hand upward, aiming to break the Oracle's jaw. He kicked at the Oracle's knee. But the Oracle didn't even budge. Then he pressed the knife to Percy's throat.
The Oracle paused for a second, and then the blade sank in. Blood sprayed from the wound. Percy's whole body jerked. And Tish just watched, with Rudra's venomous words playing in her head.
"You have the lineage of a gutter rat!"
She was a gutter rat. A rat caught in a trap of her own making, the dome she had built to hide in, and now she watched Percy dying a short distance away.
"You ungrateful bitch!"
He had told the truth. Rāva had given her a gift, and she couldn't use it for anyone. Not even for Percy. She knew it. She didn't need to be reminded again and again, in blood and tears.
In the Oracle's hand, Percy went limp. His eyes rolled up, his head tilted heavily to one side. The Oracle dropped him on the ground, lifeless.
Just stop. Just stop. Please.
"Rāva!" Tish whispered, her voice shaking. "Why don't you just let me die instead?"
But as usual, her goddess remained impassive and silent while Tish watched her childhood friend lying in a pool of blood, pale, eyes wide open, no longer moving.
Just stop. Just kill me. I can't take it anymore...
But Rudra's words kept echoing in her head, the only thing that never changed.
"That dirty bitch won't even be a good fuck. Why the hell should I keep her around."
Those words were as clear as day in Tish's head, even now.
And she let go of all her holy power, with no aim and no purpose. She just let it flow, like a dam breaking.
Inside the dome, everything grew brighter and brighter. Tish felt her hair floating and the ground stinging, but she couldn't stop. What was the point of stopping? What was the point of holding back?
So she let everything go.
And the dome cracked, like glass under the pressure of water. Then it vanished. Tish stumbled forward and then fell onto the ground. The Oracle turned around, eyes wide. The townsfolk gasped. But Tish didn't have time. She was moving, half running and half crawling toward Percy.
When she reached him, she threw herself over Percy, pouring out her healing power, or whatever was left of it. She pressed her palm against the wound in his neck and felt his pulse, faint, so faint, but still there.
"Percy!" she cried. "Open your eyes, please!" But he wasn't responding. Tish sat down, cradling his head. Her fingers became caked with mud and his blood.
Gods, there was so much blood...
"You told me not to leave you alone in your rage!" she pleaded, blood dripping down her nose, her vision blurring. "Don't leave me alone in my grief!"
Percy gasped, eyes flying open. His pupils were darker and bigger than usual. Tish was laughing and crying. "It's okay, it's okay!" she promised. She wiped at her face, trying to brush away her tears, but only smeared Percy's blood across her cheeks and nose, the salted copper smell filling her senses.
But at least Percy was alive...
A hand flashed beside her and sank a blade into Percy's heart. Percy let out a croaking sound. Tish froze. Then she turned to look at the Oracle, who had been crouching beside her for who knew how long. He was smiling.
And he was killing Percy. Again.