CHAPTER NINE: YEARNING FOR HER LIGHT (2)

 Eshya watched in horror as her guards, five men, and three women, dropped to the ground as the lightning strike turned them into charred crisp corpses. Even those hidden behind large rocks and trees weren't safe as the element of destruction struck indiscriminately.

The young priestess couldn't simply take anyone else dying today, not when she could do something about it this time.

She began whispering in a foreign tongue as she rammed both fists at the side, separating them to reveal a thin chain of bright golden light stretching between the spaces. She opened a palm to a golden hook in the shape of an arrowhead at the end of the chain.

“Let the light shower the darkness!”

She then threw the divine chain with her right hand, the chain length unending as it stretched from her raised left palm; a mysterious display of her divine capabilities.

The arrowhead flashed across the distance in seconds and dug into the crazy man's back, causing him to turn around in fury. Before any further action could be taken by him though, the chain length curved in a layered circumference around the arrowhead and thus, around the man whose back it was embedded in.

“Protect the priestess!” Johnson yelled out at the rest of his team, rushing along with them to stand their formation before Eshya, gun set at a ready.

“Seize your weapons! It’s over.”

True to the priestess' words, the chain of light whipped around the wild man's body and successfully bounded him from the neck down in seconds; the other end unseen beyond her glowing left palm that had it in a loose grip. She calmly walked out of her guards' formation, the chain sinking into the light of her enclosed palm as she moved closer to the struggling man on the floor. She slightly shook the chain and the man was yanked onto his back, baring his fangless teeth at her.

"It's okay. I won't hurt you." Eshya slowly lowered onto her knees, watching the frantic hazels of the man calm into focus as her soothing blues drew closer.

Johnson took quick but wary steps towards them. “Be careful, Prieste…..”

Eshya didn’t bother to look up at him as cold orders escaped her lips. “I’m fine, Head guard. Let me handle it from here on.”

Johnson knew better than to persist when she was this serious. He gave a stiff nod and only moved ten meters away with his men.

Eshya sighed as she continuously held the now calm man’s gaze. “Who are you?” She asked in a soft tone. Her hands slid between their close faces and it lit a dim glow. She could see the hunger-like eagerness in his eyes. “Is this what you want?” She slowly glided her hand from left to right, watching the man’s wide eyes follow it.

She glanced down at the man's worn wear to confirm he truly wasn't a finalist from the temple's military school. How on earth did a civilian end up in Wraith Valley? The location is situated too far from the nearest district; hundreds of miles of wild nature stretching between them. As far as she was aware, only the victims of the retribution goddess' vengeance have their corpses disposed of here.

She had been far too distracted in her thought when the impatient man finally caught her hand between his teeth and she yelped before sending the man’s cheek sharply turning the opposite way with a brutal slap to the face.

“Priestess?”

"I'm fine." She quickly replied to Johnson before he could take a step towards her. She caressed the bite mark as she glared down in shock at the man whose eyes had returned to hers. She had felt it. For the briefest of contact, she had felt the chaotic ripples of dark energy dwelling within this man. "Is that why you're after my light?" She raised her bitten hand, releasing a glow once again to find the man unsettled. "Will this soothe your raging mind?" She slowly placed her hand over the man's head and she could say she wasn't prepared for what she experienced.

                        ……………………………………………………………………………………..

 Johnson was about to tell of some of his men slacking off when a familiar scream reached his ears and he dashed towards the priestess before his brain could even process anything. He doesn’t get close though as an explosion of visibly dark energy wrapped around her and the strange man, dancing in deadly waves that promised any who dared move closer a great insight into life in hell. Great winds of fearsome emotion surged into the atmosphere and he found himself falling to his knees as he choked on the abnormal trepidation that lay thick in the air around him and his men. He watched with immense concern for the priestess hunched over the man in the distance. He regretted listening to her. He should have gotten rid of that lunatic at the first chance he got. Now, his carelessness had pulled the priestess into a predicament of this level.

Where was the proof now that he deserved the priestess’ Head of Security position? He felt extremely useless to have allowed such a situation to befall her. Did he even deserve to be a personal guard to the nation’s divine treasure? Did he even deserve a place in the prestigious temple’s face at all? ....... Did he even deserve to be alive right now?

Unknown to Johnson, he had just a moment under the effect of the darkness that came from Etanai. These were his last thoughts before a sudden dull boom that reached his ears had him whipping his head upward and, unfortunately, catch the blinding glare of golden light bursting out of the priestess. He groaned as a harsh wave of wind pushed him onto his butt cheeks. The breeze screeched into his ears for about twelve seconds, and then…. nothing. It was all quiet. Calling his situation lost beyond words was an understatement.

His instinct kicked into gear and he scurried forward to check on Eshya, reaching them in time to hear the last exchange of words before she passed out on the chest of the man also slipping into unconsciousness.

“……your name?”

“Hmm, Etanai Ba…..”