Nightmarish Sacrifice (Cardew) by Simona Panova

too intensely so as not to completely lose touch with reality. If I managed to truly persuade myself that the secret fantasy was true, there was a slight but existent chance that I would do something impulsive – something which would doubtlessly please Cardew but make me feel horribly humiliated – and, in order to minimize this chance, I hurried to pick the first gemstone that the tips of my fingers brushed.
                  “Turn it towards yourself,” he instructed me and I did, casting a quick glance at the ruby lines on the hexagon...
                  Oh dear...
                  “What is it?” intrigued, Cardew bent forward, and his hair moved lightly in soft airy waves, shimmering in lovely dark crimson with the faint reflected light of the sky. “Oh... Forget about it.”
                  “What does it mean exactly?” I asked, although I was familiar with the sign on the stone my fingers were holding. “Destruction?”
                  The boy nodded and gazed more intensely at the rune as I left the obsidian on his palm.
                  “I don’t know what you asked about,” he pronounced seriously, no mockery or any hint of a joke or seductive deception in his tone. “But if you love your life, never get into the situation you imagined.”
                  Icy thrills of dread were frenziedly racing down my back, and I couldn’t even define whether it was Cardew himself I feared, or the tremendous force inside the simple stones with ancient powerful signs which had revealed such sinister possible future for me.
                  So Cardew would be my destruction?...
                  Was he warning me against himself? No, I laughed in my mind – he wouldn’t take such pain only to protect me, and actually, it would totally make no sense to do it if what he wanted was to hurt me – why would he set me on guard when it would be easier for him if my defences were low?
                  Then maybe he really didn’t know what my question had been about, and the runes were trying to protect me from him with such an open straightforward message?...
                  “Will I die?” I went on directly and an almost imperceptible smile appeared on Cardew’s lips before he mercilessly extinguished it.
                  This made all my blood freeze, and I shivered with the penetrating cold it suddenly filled me with.
                  “All mortals tend to die at some point,” he started philosophically as though to calm me down, but – because of the warning or simply my mistrust, I sensed some hidden demonic satisfaction in his intonation. “Just that fulfilling the desire from your question can make your fatal moment come much earlier.”
                  I stared insistently at him, but his face was composed and inexpressive – the perfect mask of calmness – and I couldn’t suppose what emotions he was covering up.
                  If there existed such at all...
                  “You’re joking!” I forced out a naturally sounding giggle and got to my feet while he was gathering the obsidian stones back in the satin pouch.
                  “I’m not,” Cardew sounded terrifyingly earnest again, as he got up and the two of us started walking back towards the car. “I had to warn you as you are in some kind of danger.”
                  ‘You are the danger!’ I bit my lips not to shout.
                  “So be careful when you’re alone,” he went on seriously, his dark gray eyes elusively content with an unknown fact. “When I’m here you’re safe but –”
                  “But you’re my enemy, after all,” I reminded and got into the car as he gentlemanly held the door opened. “I can’t rely on an enemy to keep me