Talla's Temple Ch. 05

"Be still, boy," one admonished. "There's nothing for it and you can't possibly overcome us."

"But I hurt her."

"You did your job," she replied tersely, still refusing to look over her shoulder. "You violated no Protocol. It's not your fault."

But it was. It was his fault.

Talla had become quiet.

From high in the darkness, a commanding voice spoke out, "Fem sol. Condu-sai hay."

The guards pinning him to the wall took this mysterious verbiage as a command. They forced him past Talla's altar toward a door only a little higher in the wall than the one through which he had entered the Chamber.

"But, but, but -," he sputtered. How could he leave her like this?

He had been momentarily relieved to hear her screaming come to end, but as he passed the altar he caught a glimpse of her face between the women gathered around her. He saw that she was unconscious. Somewhere along the line, the heat, the pain and the cold had been too much.

He knew that feeling. He had nearly been there just moments before. And he'd passed it on to her.

The last thing he saw before being dragged out was Talla's chest rise in a laboured breath.

He hadn't killed her. She was alive.