Seven
'Rei-chan?' Minako pushed the slatted doors open a little. No one had answered her knocking.
The Temple was empty, the ceremonial fires not lit for morning meditations. Minako had never seen the fires out; the room seemed sterile, and somewhat larger.
'Rei?' Minako called again.
Nothing.
Minako walked through the temple, her steps echoing in the desolate room. She shuddered and hugged her coat tight.
'Phoebos? Demios?' Minako tried, opening an adjacent door which lead to Rei's private chamber. The Priestess' two crows didn't even seem to be awake yet.
Minako heard a knocking noise further down the hall, and hurried towards Rei's room.
Please let her be home, Minako thought. She didn't feel like being alone.
'Rei?' Minako pushed open Rei's door a little, checking the girl wasn't still asleep.
Her bed was untouched.
But she'd found the source of the persistant knocking sound. At the windowsill outside, sat Phoebos and Demios, desperately trying to get into the room through the glass.
Minako's gaze was drawn to the corner of the room and her morning's ordeal was forgotten.
Rei was curled in a ball, her eyes wide open, her skin as pale as death, in the corner of her room closest to where her fire should have been blazing. It was out; the embers stone cold.
'Rei?' Mina's voice wavered as she put a hand on the girl's shoulder.
Rei's eyes flashed and snapped to regard Minako. The blonde girl startled, withdrawing her hand. Rei had felt so cold. On her left cheek, was an ice-white mark, sort of like a blister, in the shape of a tiny multi-pointed star.
'Cold,' Rei rasped. 'Screaming.'
'Don't,' Minako shook her head painfully, sitting Rei up properly so she was leaning against the wall.
'Cold!' Rei told Minako angrily.
'I know!' Mina replied, rushing to Rei's fire trying to re-light it. After a few failed attempts, Mina gave up and stripped Rei's bed of its covers, piling them onto the freezing girl.
Rei coughed; a deep, dry, throaty cough. Her indigo gaze fell on the two desperate crows at the window.
Minako looked up, and hurried to them.
Her hand was on the window latch, ready to open it, when she faltered. The crows were squawking strangely, almost screaming. She looked up to them. Their eyes. They weren't their usual amber.
They were blue. A familiar glowing, unworldly cornsilk blue.
The crows didn't seem so desperate to get to their Priestess at that moment. They seemed desperate to get in and get to Minako.
Changing her mind, she closed the shutters and hurried back to the fire. She had to re-light it. She had to do something to get her mind off the hateful blue eyes that were pursuing her.
