The Kingdom

I didn't know what to do!

"What do I do, El Elyon?" I spoke out loud without really meaning to.

Softly she spoke out from behind me, her voice tinged with curiosity, "Your God speaks to you?"

"Yes."

"What's He saying to you?"

"I don't know what He's saying. I fear I crave a certain answer too greatly in order to hear Him at all, for fear He may say no to my desire."

"This God of yours, has He ever said no to your desires?"

"Well…… no."

"This desire that you speak of, is it me?"

"You know it is!" I said with passion, as I turned to face the woman.

She was smiling with her head tilted to the side as she regarded me as if I was a curious puzzle to be taken apart. The smile, just plain everything about her was perfect. I turned back to the window feeling sweat pop out of every pore on my body.

"Does your God look down upon the physical union between men and women?"

Bringing a shaking hand to my forehead I wiped at the sweat there, as my fireside conversation with Kuri years before came vividly to mind, "No, He created it."

"Then why are you resisting your desire for me?" came the response that echoed now of real humor. The woman was deliberately tormenting me!

Just then there was a scream beyond the window in the city below and I hurried over to it dragging her along after me. It sounded like the wail of a mother expressing the ultimate grief over a lost one.

I looked down towards the city, but night had fallen and there was little to be seen. I heard the cries of a sobbing child and then utter and complete silence as if someone had just dropped a veil over the whole city.

That moment of silence was split apart by a noise of such utterly dark origin that it sounded as if it was a combination of enraged bull and thunder all rolled into one. The cry chilled me to the bone and with its sounding on the midnight air came a gasp from Susori who rushed up and pressed against my back as if seeking shelter from a storm.

I half turned and pulled her around into my arms and hers immediately latched around my middle tightly. There was another cry of rage out in the night and I thought Susori was going to fall apart from fear in my arms.

I already knew Susori to be a brave woman, but the fear of whatever monster lurked on the streets below had completely unhinged her. I held her face to me and rubbed at her back and eventually she stopped shaking.