Free Nightmarish Sacrifice (Cardew) by Simona Panova Page B

defensively, as he looked so serious that I couldn’t determine if he was still joking, or my worries had become less unfounded. “Let go!”
                  Maybe because of my furious counter-attack, or just thanks to the fact that Cardew did loosen his grip indeed, I managed to finally wrench myself out of his arms, and, having regained my self-confidence, I cast him a rather scornful glance. “If you want to tell me something personal, go straight – I already warned you that I’d love to break your heart –”
                  Pleased, he chuckled with obvious content, and leant back on the monument again, his slant gaze capable of making me freeze into horror and set me ablaze with fury at the very same moment.
                  “Easy, lovely, I’m not trying to violate you,” he smirked slightly while his hand was mechanically shuffling the amazingly beautiful stones with the runes scattered on the land between us. “If I had wanted, you would have already been mine –”
                  “I underestimated you,” I started slowly, playing thoughtful while imperceptibly measuring the distance that was dividing me from him and the exact angle from which he wasn’t protecting himself well…
                  And then, as unexpectedly as he had a minute before, I flung myself in his direction and Cardew found himself brought down and blocked under my body before he could react or even figure out he had been aimed at.
                  “But you’re underestimating me as well!” I added triumphantly, and, using the fact that his surprise was delaying his actions, I hurried to move away from him so as not to turn his slight irritation into real intense rage that could result into immediate physical harm for me.
                  However, the boy just chuckled – not with the empty artificial laughter of a defeated enemy, but with the light indulgent gesture of a warrior who knows he has lost the battle but believes that the victory in the war as a whole belongs to him.
                  “Think up a question and pick a rune –” he suggested again and gave me a teasingly tempting wink arising the untypical for me desire to obey to his invincible willpower. “Don’t close your eyes if you trust me so little – just don’t look at the gems while you’re choosing which one to take.”
                  “Alright –” I sank deeply into my subconsciousness, wondering what I wanted to know; the nightmares about the sacrificed girl was the question torturing me for weeks, but something cruel and invincible in Cardew’s eyes was hinting me that he would be able to find out what the question had been about, and an instinct was making me hide from him what I had seen in my visions.
                  “Are you ready?” he turned to me as I was already reaching my hand, having focused my thoughts on the topic which was the most important for me right then and was not directly related to my nightmares. “Concentrate on the question – if it’s situation, imagine it has already happened – and let the runes tell you the answer –”
                  ‘What will happen if Cardew and I start a love-affair with each other?’ my fortunately unspoken question could easily make me giggle awkwardly, but I managed to stay earnestly serene while concentrating on it and still wondering why this would be a safe subject to have in mind in case Cardew could somehow guess it, and one about the strange pagan ritual would not.
                  ‘Imagine it has already happened –’
                  Perfectly able but too unwilling to resist to this advice of his, I did let the situation in question occupy my senses with its obscure obsessive attractiveness, but – although the picture I imagined was utterly appealing far more than I could confess, I tried not to think of it