They’d dragged Tacit to the cell and chained him where he’d been thrown. There’d been no need to drag him. He would have gone with them willingly. Where else was he to go? Where else had he to go? He knew what was to befall him. It didn’t scare him. Nothing scared him any more. Not now.
He felt blessed, truly blessed, even in that loathsome place, amongst the rot and the stench, in between the beatings.
But nothing could touch him now. He felt complete. After all, there were those who went their entire lives never having known love, true love, never having felt its touch upon them or their lives. And yet Tacit had felt it, and he had felt it three times.
A Holy presence.
Tacit closed his eyes and remembered the lightly scented smell of his mother, the haven he always found within her embrace. Suddenly he heard the laugh of Mila in his ears, the spirit of her voice, filling him and enriching him. And then he felt the touch of Isabella’s fingers on his face, the delicate warmth of her fingertips, spreading across his skin like ripples on a pond.
He felt the emotion of love swell around him, like an energy manifested within the prison cell. He then opened his eyes and he laughed, and then he roared with unrestrained joy. There were lights again! Lights all around him! Warming him with their wonder and whispering softly in his ear.