It didn’t take five minutes for Simon to be arching his back, trying desperately to keep his hands on the creature’s face while he was shaking by spasms of ecstasy. Under his fingers, he felt the fur slowly disappearing and the scales fusing with the skin, but he was powerless, unable to control his own body.

  “Ah… Thomas, close your eyes !”

  He bit his lips until he tasted blood, ignoring the brilliant light of the repaired artifact, trying his best to turn on his belly, but his limbs weren’t listening to him.

  “What did you…”

  In his desperate attempt, his hand had slipped from Thomas’ face and he was now looking at him with the most horrified face he had ever made. The slim man quickly stepped back, taking his penis out of Simon’s back end, trying to put some distance between them but unable to take his eyes off the knight, shaking on the altar.

  “What did you… What did I… What ?”

  Thomas seemed terrified and confused, his eyes bloodshot and wide open like a madman, his breathing ragged. He put a hand on his throat, as if to take off an imaginary constraint, but despite this he could not breathe properly.

  “What the fuck ? What happened ? Did I… What did I do ?”

  His legs gave out under him and he fell to his knees on the stone floor covered in sand. Simon, who could finally move somewhat, tried his best to clean himself with his handkerchief and pull up his pants, then climbed down the altar, almost rolling to the floor because of his weak legs.

  “Calm down, nothing bad happened, everything is alright.”

  He walked towards Thomas, kneeling in front of him, but the Shaman grabbed him by the colr.

  “No, it’s not alright ! I did that on my own ! I jumped on you, I wanted you ! Nothing is alright, it’s less than alright, it’s terrible, it’s…”

  He tried to scream again, but he was shaking and had more and more trouble breathing. Simon tried to hand him a cigarette but Thomas was getting worse by the second.

  “What the fuck… That’s not right, that’s not me, what the fuck…”

  “It’s your Shamanic nature, we knew the risks when we decided to do this. Don’t break down now, okay ? Stay strong.”

  The slim man didn’t seem to be able to hear him, he was mumbling under his breath.

  “That’s right, that’s not me. There is someone else. Is it the Shaman ? No, the Shaman is me. Or am I ? There must be two Shamans. One is me and one is trying to take over me. Yes, it’s the same sensation as when Mariane touched Bael, someone is touching me…”

  Simon was listening to him with a pained expression. It was only the fourth artifact, if Thomas was that affected, they wouldn’t be able to go all the way to the seventh. He picked up the cigarette box again, lit one up, and held it towards the Shaman, waiting patiently, discreetly blowing the smoke so that it would reach his face.

  “Yes, I was wondering why the cursed beasts look like me, maybe it’s the Shaman that created them ? Are there two Shamans ? Did he separate himself in two to be able to go on vacation in other dimensions while still doing his job here ? Then did the clone go berserk and make the curse ? Or was it pnned to control the world by killing everyone except his kingdom ?”

  Eventually, his rambling became less and less coherent, slowing down gradually until he closed his mouth, silently breathing the smoke from the cigarette. It had taken a few dozen minutes, way more than if he was directly smoking, but it was still effective. Simon breathed a sigh of relief and leaned forward to put the cigarette between Thomas’ lips.

  “Do you feel better now ?”

  The Shaman grabbed the commander’s hand before he could pull away, inhaling the smoke for long seconds before exhaling.

  “Why don’t I hate you ?”

  Simon was taken aback, but he didn’t dare to free his hand. With Thomas’ erratic behavior, he didn’t know how he would react.

  “Only you can answer that.”

  The Shaman smoked some more before speaking, his gaze was fixated on something above Simon’s head, something the knight couldn’t see.

  “I should hate you, that’s the logical thing to do. It’s not as if I can’t hate familiars, I despise the twins and the new guy, but for some reason I can’t hate you. What I did just now should have destroyed me, but it didn’t. I was only mad because I wasn’t controlling my body. But when I came to and you were covering my eyes while holding the cigarette to my mouth, I felt happy. Why ? It’s confusing.”

  The knight felt his heart flutter, but he hardened his face, he didn’t want Thomas to notice.

  “Maybe it’s some sort of trauma bonding ? We both were never expecting to be put in that situation. And we do depend on each other to save what matters to us, so I guess it makes us close.”

  “Your country, and my Bael… It makes sense.”

  The Shaman scratched his head, trying to rex and shake the stress off his body. That’s when he noticed that he was still holding Simon’s hand.

  “Weird…”

  He let it go and stood up, disabling the barriers to walk out of the temple. The commander, still on the floor, lowered his head to hide his flushed face.

  ‘That was close… Did he notice that I stopped breathing ? I don’t know… What if he does it again ? That’s not good for my heart !’

  After taking a deep breath, he ran outside to catch up to Thomas. The Shaman was completely ignoring Alexei, only waiting for Simon while looking at an invisible object in the air. When the knight reached him, he grumbled :

  “The next one is annoying… The temple is in the middle of a ke, really ?”

  He turned to Simon.

  “So, for the next artifact, we…”

  But he stopped. Now that the adrenaline was leaving his body, Simon looked really bad. He was still not healed since he took a mortal dose of drug to save Thomas in the castle, and now he had helped to repair two artifacts, without even talking about the physical fight they just had. Most of the burden was put on him, since Thomas wasn’t able to come during sex, so Simon was the medium for the flow to seep into the artifact, and it showed clearly. He had become pale, frail, and his eyes were sunken, his lip was also bleeding, probably from biting it too hard. Nevertheless, the knight hid his shaky hands and smiled brightly.

  “Yes ? What do we need to do for the next one ?”

  Thomas furrowed his brows and eventually shrugged.

  “Nothing. Come.”

  He took Simon’s hand without a hint of hesitation and pulled the knight towards him, deploying his wings and taking off. They flew away, leaving Alexei near the artifact, a small dot in the vast desert. Simon wasn’t saying anything, but he held Thomas’ hand tighter. Even after all the times they had done it, being in the skies with him was still a marvelous moment.

  “I don’t understand how that thing works… What does it mean ‘all things flow, so all things are the flow’ ? What a useless hint to unlock…”

  The commander tilted his head in confusion.

  “Did you gain a new power ? I think you said that you grow stronger after each artifact, so with the two we just did, you probably changed a lot, right ?”

  “Yes and no.”

  Thomas conjured a small barrier to block his face from the wind and took another cigarette out.

  “The third was pretty useful. You read my notebook, right ? So you know that the flow responds to your will.”

  “Yes, I tried a few times but it’s hard for me to grasp the concept. I can’t even use my magic except in desperate situations…”

  Thinking back about how he pushed Thomas back with his flow when the Shaman was transformed into a beast, a chill ran down his spine. Thomas probably felt it but he chose to ignore it.

  “Basically, with the third artifact it’s like more space in my brain was created. It’s hard to expin. Something like, more room to store knowledge ? Or more free space for my creativity to run wild ? Something like that. It makes me more powerful because if I have more freedom to imagine things, I have more ways to use my magic.”

  Simon nodded.

  “I see… And if you can absorb more knowledge, you can do the same thing you did when you studied weapons to be able to create them. What about the fourth artifact ?”

  Thomas frowned.

  “Just a hint I don’t understand. What do you think, Bael ?”

  The king thought for a bit, scratching his cheek, before shrugging.

  “I don’t know, but it must be important if that’s what the game gave you.”

  “I think so too. It’s unclear, but the way it’s phrased : ‘all things flow, so all things are the flow’, it’s like the game is telling me that I can use my method to control the flow on other things.”

  “You should try with demonic power, then !”

  “I already did, but it’s more complicated…”

  Simon was observing Thomas, speaking alone, and gritted his teeth. Things were becoming more serious, and he had almost lost control during the circution. The next artifact would probably be even more dangerous for the knight.

  ‘I can’t back down, I need to keep my promise and bring him back to Bael safely.’

  He tried his best to hide the worry on his face. He had a bad feeling.