“Tay,” Cerené’s tongue twisted. “Take,” she pointed at her glass urn tied to her stomach under her dress.
Shew took it, not knowing what Cerené wanted her to do with it. It looked like the other urns to her left and right. Cerené wasn’t talking anymore. She only pointed at the Wall of Thorns then fell back completely.
“Piggy, Piggy!” Loki shouted from behind the wall, his voice void of sarcasm.
Even if it was going to delay saving Cerené, she had to get rid of him.
Kill him, damn it. Kill him!
Shew took the glass urn and rode her unicorn back to the edge of the wall. She wasn’t going to run through it again. She’d been bleeding for some time, and she was getting weaker.
Loki was already in the middle of the Wall of Thorns, crossing it slowly on his unicorn. Shew felt maddened by the fact that Wall of Thorns considered him a friend and let him pass. She rode close to the edge of the thorns, looking Loki in the eyes.
“This is for Cerené,” she said, and threw her sword like a spear, right into his heart, wiping the nasty smirk off his face. “And this sword has a piece of her in it.
Loki fell back instantly and his unicorn ran away. Shew couldn’t see what happened to him from behind the thicket of thorns, but she was worried. She’d stabbed him in the stomach before and he didn’t die. There was no assurance he’d die when a sword plunged right through his heart.
A moment had passed without him even cursing or talking. Could it be that he was dead? It looked like it.
She turned around, back to Cerené.
“Peek-a-boo,” Loki’s voice called her from behind, sarcastic and full of himself again. She turned around and saw his head from above the thorns. The Fleece reddened it. Loki had been saved by the power of the Queen again. “I see you,” he said, pointing two fingers at her and back to his eyes.
She wasn’t sure if he had pulled the sword out or not. It was hard to see his chest from behind the thorns, and there was no way she was going to enter the Wall of Thorns again.
“It’s been a rough day,” he said, wiping Cerené’s blood from his mouth. “And you owe me a heart and liver, princess,” he was walking toward her, about to cross the Wall of Thorns.
Shew stood swordless, without ideas, and almost void of any strength left. Ironically, it was at this very moment when she’d decided that killing him was the right thing. The Loki she had loved and always known was gone, just like any other relationship gone to hell, one of the two lovers had simply died. Foolishly, it had taken her the whole dream to figure it out. Nevertheless, the heart had reason the mind didn’t know of.
At this moment, Shew’s heart was on Cerené’s side and she had to kill that beast standing in front of her.
While Loki was approaching, Shew stood with nothing but Cerené’s glass urn in her hands. What was she going to do with it, throw it at him? If she only knew what Cerené wanted her to do with it?
“Isn’t it ironic that the so called Chosen One herself can’t pass through the Wall of Thorns without being cut everywhere,” Loki said, approaching slowly. Of course, he was having the time of his life. He must have known there was no way out of the Field of Dreams, and she had decided she wasn’t in the mood to take more slashes from the Wall of Thorns.
“Stupid Wall of Thorns,” Shew said. A couple of insulted vines tried to reach out for her. “It doesn’t understand that you’re the enemy here, Loki Van Helsing.”
“Stupidity,” Loki considered, now extremely close. “What a beautiful thing. If the Wall of Thorns wasn’t stupid, we wouldn’t be in this situation now, where I’m going to rip your heart out with my own hands.”
A couple of another insulted vines crawled around Loki, unhappy with how he talked about them. She watched them with eager eyes and wished they’d avenge Cerené and kill him.
“Get off, stupid thorns,” Loki hushed them away. “They can’t hurt me, even when I am not good to them. You know why? Because like everything else in the world, they are stupid,” he sneered back at Shew. “Look at you, princess. All soaked in blood,” he mocked her. “I hope you still have your heart and liver intact.”
It was the first time the word ‘blood’ sounded sweet to Shew. She remembered when Dame Gothel spattered the cake with the girl’s blood in the weighing-of-the-soul chamber, and finally understood what the glass urn was for. She understood why Cerené insisted on her taking it.
Slowly, Shew squeezed the blood soaking her dress and partially filled the glass urn with it while Loki kept approaching and talking.
“Even if I keep insulting the thorns all day, they can’t hurt me, because guess what,” Loki waved his celebrating arms next to him, only five strides away from Shew, “to the thorns, I am a friend.”