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The world flashes before my eyes in a blur. The sky and the ground change places.

My body aches, my elbows hitting the stones tearing my skin off. Then I find my face buried in the grass still damp from the morning dew, and everything hushes.

For a moment, I can't move.

Is this my death?..

But apparently not. Pain recedes, and I'm alive again. Gasping for air, which was knocked out of my lungs when I fell, I roll over on my back. I open my eyes...I try to. But then someone hits my head with something blunt and hard, like the handle of a dagger or a pistol, and everything swims in my vision again. Pain makes me feel sick again.

Nearby, I hear noise and ragged breathing, which reminds me of a fight, and I can only guess that it must be Loretto. There are several attackers, and not all of them are here to hit me on the head. They came for Loretto. Cale found Tom.

The thought that Lo needs my help miraculously gives her strength and desire to live. With an angry moan--intended, if not to scare the attackers, then at least to finally take a deep breath!--I push off the ground and swing my fist without looking. Someone jumps away next to me, and I have time to climb to my feet. But this someone doesn't let me straighten up, because I'm immediately attacked again.

And I'm falling to my knees again.

"I would have killed you if Her Majesty hadn't needed you alive!"

With my vision still swimming, I only make out a uniform and a strand of red hair pulled into a short ponytail before we stretch out on the damp ground together.

"Gen?"

"Don't fidget, or I'll break your ribs!"

"Why... Aw!" The same handle hits me in my ribs. It's a combat knife. A grumble of pain escapes my throat.

I grab Gen's wrist as she swings, but she's strong. I only manage to slow her down, not stop.

Ian's sister is one of Cale's spies in Tik'al and she came after Lo on his orders? A breathless riddle pops up in my mind. But then why is she sparing me for Her Majesty's sake?

Knowing that there is still little information to find the answer, I frantically turn my head in search of Lo. And with a new wave of angry frustration, I realize that two guard, not one, dared attack my mentor.

Gen's friends are still trying to catch Loretto. One guard, immobilizing, holds Lo's hands behind faer back when the second one approaches--who is immediately rewarded with a kick of Loretto's boot sole in his chest.

The one who gets hit in the chest plops down on his ass, growls and starts to get up, but at this moment, Lo manages to take a confident step back and, disorienting, hits the opponent who dared hold faer hands from behind, with his back against the nearest tree. Then Tayen throws faer head sharply back, breaking the guard's nose. And as soon as the crippled guard howls, Mentor tears free, ready to fight the guard who is scraping his ass off the ground all this time.

It's hard to say how long Lo will last in this fight.

Tayen looks like a hurricane incarnate, rebellious and implacable. Fascinating...My mentor, surrounded by wisps of smoke, with a swirl of silky long hair over faer shoulders and a proud hem of faer robe fluttering.

But the guards are still twice as muscular as Lo. I used to believe that shamans had diamond skin, but now, having become one myself, I understand that we are still vulnerable, fragile, mortal.

And Loretto doesn't have faer dagger anymore. It's lost somewhere in chaos.

Why don't we use magic?

"You bastard!" Gen pulls free from my hand.

I have to duck to the side. My eye contact with Lo breaks off, and again I hear only noise, ragged breaths, and the irregular rustle of grass. And my pulse, pounding in my temples with renewed anxiety, reminding me that every second can bring pain to both me and Mentor.

Magic...

Just thinking about aura, I feel its minty breath under my heart, although I usually need peace, not confusion. But my desire to live is obviously stronger today. I mentally feel auric energy that is dancing in the world around me. I have never seen the color of aura before--it looked like darkness to me--but now I realize that near the walls of the Great Temple, aura blazes with a prism of ruby glow, of the favorite color of Maricela's robes; Mentor is right, there are myriad protective charms there. And they are all active: they will incinerate any plainblood who comes in without permission.

And, of course, I feel Loretto's aura--a rich indigo color, powerful, fierce as a night thunderstorm, filling the space with the taste of intoxicating, exciting power...However, no matter how Mentor tries, it does not work. There are invisible cocoons around our attackers, a vacuum of shimmering protective runes.

I look back at Gen, who is slowly approaching me like a serpent. And she's surrounded by runes, too.

But how, if Gen doesn't have any amulets or talismans with precious stones, what kind of barrier could create such a protection? The runes are shamanic. And skillful. Placed, if not by the Empress herself, then by one of her councilors--it takes too long to unravel the spell, there is no time for that in battle.

It's also strange, however, that as far as I can tell, Gen's aura runes only work when Loretto's magic touches her. When I mentally reach out to her, nothing happens. It's like these charms don't see me.

No one thought that I could be dangerous. Everything is meant exclusively for the fight with Lo.

Good.

I'm angry.

Which means I'm dangerous. Only today, maybe, but it's true. I don't need to summon aura, Mentor has already done it, so I just allow the indigo energy to charge through me. I unleash the ferocity that is splashing in Lo's soul. I transform the spiritual power into a material one.

There is a soft crackling sound.

Frost blows into my face.

Gen screams in surprise, but even before she realizes what's going on, icy path runs along the ground from Lo's feet to hers. Ice climbs up Gen's boots, to her very knees, and literally pins her to the ground like cement.

Lo has a spectacular way of expressing faer ferocity, flashes through my mind. And the ice doesn't even melt.

The two guards who are fighting Loretto freeze, gawking in confusion as the ice creeps up to bind their legs as well. This gives Lo the opportunity to punch the throat of the nearest guard and rush towards me...

"That bitch!" Gen howls. Probably thinking that the ice is Loretto's doing despite the runic charms, not mine, she grins. "Kill this two-faced scum!"

One of the guards grabs my mentor by the hem of faer robe. Loretto slips on the ice. Fae doesn't fall, but it takes a moment to catch faer balance, and now the chance to escape is gone, because the guy has already pulled out his own combat knife. And he put this knife against Loretto's throat.

Lo is forced to stop.

"They asked us to bring Tamm alive," Gen says through her gritted teeth. She jerks one foot, but the ice holds her firmly. No way to move. Then she glances at me. "But his scum was not forbidden to kill. Especially since she was the first to start playing against rules."

The next thing happens too fast for me to be scared at all.

A gunshot hisses over our heads. But it's not Gen's weapon, it comes from somewhere behind the bushes: a bullet glides through the air and buries itself into a tree truck above my head. Someone's scream reaches my ears...Ian?

Another bullet. It appears along with Ian, who jumped out onto the road and rushed towards us, and--the bullet pierces the neck of the guard, who threatens Lo with a knife, then flies on and gets stuck in Gen's right hand. One bullet cripples two people. If it's not magic, then, apparently, a divine gift.

I'm freeze, shocked.

Gen drops her gun and grabs her shot arm, starting to scream, hysterical, no longer coherent. The murdered guard falls on his back with an explosion of blood splattering the ice, which still holds his feet. I stare, dumbfounded. Only Lo is not lost. Mentor catches the knife that the murdered guard loses, stabs faer second opponent in the stomach, and finally runs off, toward me.

"You imbecile! Shoot that bitch!" Gen yells at Ian, who has arrived. "You've ruined everything! Kill! Kill the shaman!"

But Ian can't. He doesn't have a gun.

Yaling follows him out of the smoke: her face is as impassive as still water, and her hand does not tremble as she clutches the murder weapon. When Gen sees her brother being held hostage, she goes quiet. The grimace of rage on her face is replaced by horror.

Calmly approaching us, Yaling pokes Ian in the back of his head with her gun, urging him to stop, and he stops--obedient, as if embracing his fate. His gaze travels over the ice, the blood, the dead guard, past Lo and me...and catches his twin sister. Amazement, mixed with fear and sadness, is so bright in Ian's eyes that I feel sorry for him. He didn't think his sister was capable of doing this, either.

There is a moment of confused silence between us.

Gen is really here for our souls on Her Majesty's orders, not Cale's, I realize.

"What have you done, Gen?" Ian asks, finally breaking the silence.

Having spent all the stock of her swearing words, Gen only spits on the ice.

"What have you done, you idiot?" She breathes. "The shamans will execute us now."

"What? No, the revolution is already..."

"A revolution? They don't give a fuck to your revolution, you know? And as usual, shamans will kill the revolutionaries."

"Says you. You stabbed Valto!" Yaling's statement hangs in the air like a stone cloud.

When my eyebrows rise, Yaling looks at me. Still clutching the gun in one hand and holding Ian at gunpoint, she quickly moves the fingers of her other hand. "I'll explain, I found everything out. Not on purpose, I was just bored at first...And these two were always sneaking around our Postulant House, remember, Elisey? Gen brought you a package from home, Ian was chatting with Valto. I thought the four of you were having an affair...But when Valto was found murdered, these two disappeared the wind, no sympathy, no grief. And later, after a while, they started hanging around you again, even when it became obvious that you were sleeping with...yeah." Yaling politely doesn't look at my mentor.

I open my mouth, then close it. Became obvious? At what point? During our last conversation, Yaling talked about Lo as about someone impossible to love. And what the hell does Valto have to do with it?

But Lo neither deny our relationship, nor confirms, and this is probably the best tactic. I also remain silent.

Yaling explains further.

"And then Maricela, who came to my book club, hinted that you, Elisey, are a relative of the Cabracan rebel who is plotting a coup. She hinted that you might be dangerous too. Only when I started spying on the twins, hoping to learn something about you, I realized that they were the ones dangerous. Ian was constantly walking with the patrollers who were close to the criminal plainbloods, and Gen was always looming outside the office of the Imperial Council, as if waiting for an opportunity when she could attack--even on the day of Valto's death, as if she didn't have enough blood. And I remembered..."

Clutching her bleeding hand, Gen humorlessly chuckles.

"...I remembered that Gen brought you something at the Postulant House when you first arrived at Tik'al. So she was in your room, saw it, learned it. And if Valto was killed in your bed, then the killer could have got to him in the dark, only knowing what and where, right? Through the window. I was in the house that evening, in the living room, and I didn't see anyone at the door. So it's either her," Yaling nods at Gen, "or he found out everything from her and pulled it off," she looks at Ian.

Gen laughs, grim again.

"All he can do is make a mess," she says. "My stupid brother has ruined everything even now. Yes, yes, I killed Valto! But only because he jumped in front of me.

"And you didn't think you were killing me?" I ask. I was pretty sure that Valto was dead because he took my place. At some point, I even began to blame myself for living at someone else's expense.

"You? I told you, we need you alive," Gen grumbles. "My orders were to keep an eye on you, Tamm. To find out your brother's plans. I went to search your things, and Valto was lying on your bed. He woke up, he was going to scream. He would have given me away! And then... then my family would have been killed."

For the first time today, Gen's face shows a sadness that I know. The one with which she once told me that she and Ian had no other relatives--no one but each other. He's her only family.

"Who's going to take care of this idiot if not me?" Gen continues, looking up at his twin. "Since our mother died, I've been doing everything myself. This imbecile does not understand anything. He plays in the revolution, then he falls for a shaman, without thinking about tomorrow. He's always messing things up. Even now! He fell in love, oh my! He came running to save an aurablood! And who's going to save you, huh?" She meets Ian's gaze. "If you hadn't been drooling over your two-faced scum, the bitch wouldn't have started spying on me! You set me up, do you understand?

Ian stares at his sister in confusion, silent.

Yaling scowls in displeasure, clearly reading on Gen's lips that she called her a "bitch."

Lo ignores the title of "two-faced scum."

Obviously, Ian is still in love with my mentor. He probably could have snatched the gun out of Yaling's skinny hands right now. He could have taken her by surprise, knocked her down, overpower her...

Looking closer now, I realize that Yaling's hold on the gun isn't that confident--she's pretending to be brave, but in fact, it's just a facade. Her chin is trembling, her forehead pale.

And Ian ignores it. Because of his feelings for Lo or the shock of his sister's confessions... but he's helping us now.

"Why does Ixchel need Elisey today?" Lo suddenly says. Fae asks it in an even, almost aloof tone of a teacher, skillfully hiding all faer emotions behind it.

"Why?" Gen laughs. "Look around, Your Divinity. We're on fire. Ixchel and her Council know that this is your doing. They don't know how to kill you, but they don't mind trying. At the very least, to hurt you through your faithful Tamm." Shaking his head, she adds, "I hate you, Tayen. To break my brother's heart...to break our lives without even noticing it...A typical shaman. Hate you."

The pain in her shot arm prevails, and tears begin to roll down her cheeks. Intemperate, furious, partly hysterical tears. Wiping them off, Gen smears the blood from her hand on her cheeks. I see Ian swallow; he leans forward, as if about to go over and comfort his sister, but then, remembering the gun in Yaling's hands, he refuses this idea and continues to stand still.

All my jealousy and discontent, which I used to feel towards Gen's brother, disappear in an instant. Maybe, of course, aura is to blame for sharpening my empathy, but Ian's grief, so hunted, stunned, lost, rattles somewhere inside me, just like my own.

I'm already taking half a step forward to heal Gen myself, but Ian looks with such pleading, seemingly deciding that I want to finish his sister off, that I freeze.

"Don't bother," Lo tells me in a whisper. "She's stronger than she looks, Eli."

"But she's suffering."

"The ice will melt as soon as we get to a safe distance. Ian will carry her, if not to the infirmary, then to the rebels, they must have a doctor. And if she doesn't make it...well, not everyone survives. This is already a war." Meeting Yaling's eyes, Lo adds, "Will you stay with them?"

Yaling shakes her head in alarm. She pales even more and looks scared now, when the adrenaline from the battle has subsided.

After one last glance at Gen, who is still crying, Lo, Yaling, and I walk away from her, Ian, the corpses on the ice and the roar of the battle.

Back to the Great Temple, the den of shamans, to which I now belong.

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