Loretta of the Lamp - The Fallout

Soul tired

Behind Akil, the play of colours flickering on the horizon could only mean the lamp was about to be set alight.

Loretta could also see a crowd approaching the foot of the platform. The king's retinue.

"My dear Akil, you have returned!"

Loretta shuddered to hear the voice, and stood up straight. She walked right to the edge of the flame wall, intent on being as close to Akil as she could, but the flames were hot, and she could feel the scalding singe against the hairs on her arms.

"Akil, please go," she begged him.

Akil ignored her.

"Tell me, Loretta," the Djin king called to her, "is this the time that I will see your dance again?" he asked as he reached the top of the stairs and stepped to Akil's side so he could look down at her.

"No," she told him, pacing around the totem pole. She was a rat in a cage and she knew it. A rat in a cage with no hope for the future.

"It seems you were wrong about my dear Akil here," the king mused, "I doubt he would choose to leave your side, nor could I make him, I suspect."

"And so we all played into your hands," she agreed with an uncaring shrug.

"Well, I don't know about that," he let out a single laugh, "you could have played into my hands a little longer before you tried to stab me into the back."

Loretta tasted the bile in her throat, "That was never, ever going to happen." She still felt dirty because of it.

"I hope you understand about Hess," he said suddenly, "it was nothing against you, but I haven't lived and enjoyed all these years of my life by permitting such vehement dissension."

"She had every right," Loretta spat the words.

The Djin king shrugged, and suddenly the fire dropped away completely. Loretta didn't pause for a moment. Akil moved forward, but not fast enough as she threw herself across the gap and lunged at the Djin King's neck. The king caught her, twisting her arms behind her back and holding her against him in a tight embrace.

He leaned his face to her, till his lips tickled her ear, "I can end his life with a click of my fingers," he whispered, as Akil watched on with clenched fists. "Don't tempt me too much," he added.

"Let me go!" she shouted, ripping herself away from him. Akil was close, but not close enough to have heard his words. As the king released his grip, Loretta lost her balance and fell into Akil.

Akil clasped his arms around her, though she could feel his whole body trembling with anger. As they stood there, dawn turned and the light of day flickered across the lamp before settling in to a mellow glow across the bronzed sky.

"Well, that makes it easier for us to see our way," the Djin king said to them both. "Shall we be off then?" he turned and walked to the edge of the platform.

"Where?" Loretta demanded, shaking off the the firm hand one of the soldiers had placed on her shoulder.

He nodded toward the mountain of smoke. "It's time to end this and send you both back to where you belong."

"Lead on," she told him with a hopeless shrug.

"I hope you understand," the king said as he walked, "I can't keep you as I would have liked. For watching your wandering across the lamp, my excitement at Bennou's return and your arrival in Misbah, and all the strange events in between, I love a good mystery, but some are too dangerous to unravel, and you are one of them, my dear," he reached his hand out and touched the swollen side of her face.