Born of Fire: The Dawn of Legend (38 page)

The carriage door opened, and BaRone smiled while Rex, DiNiya, EeNox, and LyCora gave a look of curious surprise.

Standing before them with arms folded in front was a pretty young girl with long flowing blond fur and big lavender eyes. Something in Rex immediately stirred upon seeing her, for there was an air to this girl that reminded him of something, but what, he could not say. Still, it was a feeling of apprehension that now stirred in his chest.

“Hello,” she said politely. “It’s very nice to meet you all. My name is AnaSaya.”

The scene around the bed where TarFor lay was one of quiet intensity. Everyone who stood in the room was waiting to see what few had ever seen before: a healer of a caliber on par with those of the lavender flames of legend.

AnaSaya walked around the bed slowly, dragging one of her claws across the sheets as she regarded TarFor thoughtfully. Her eyes scanned every inch of him, as if she was studying him for damage.

Rex, DiNiya, EeNox, and LyCora stood back in one of the far corners and watched the unusual girl glide about the room like a curious phantom. The strangest part of it was no one said anything; rather, they just regarded her in silence, as if awaiting a miracle—something Rex knew they did not believe in. Leaning over to DiNiya, he asked, “So what exactly is supposed to happen here?”

“I’m really not sure, to tell you the truth,” she answered without taking her eyes off AnaSaya. “No one here except some of the elders has ever seen a healer as powerful as she’s supposed to be.”

“Personally, I don’t see it being that much different than how any of our resident healers do it,” said EeNox. “Just a little more powerful, maybe.”

“I’m not even really convinced of that,” LyCora said in her usual cynical tone. She was not a fan of the notion of another flame rivaling her own in this sort of territory. While understanding full well that the lavender flame was one that specialized in the restoration of living things, she, through intense training, had honed her own healing capabilities to a point where they even surpassed those of most lavender flames. Like all children of EeNara, however, she had grown up with the stories of those of the lavender flame being able to command such power over another’s flame that they could separate it from a person at will, making them deadly assassins in the war. Still, she always found it difficult to believe such tales, having never seen anyone who possessed this famed and mythical power.
Then again, I grew up with a story about the red flame that’s even harder to believe
, she thought, glancing over at DiNiya and Rex.
But there they both are, standing there alive in the flesh
.

Suddenly AnaSaya froze while standing over TarFor. She held out both hands and gently clasped his face. Closing her eyes, she lowered her head, and the moment that followed felt like an eternity to Rex, but in reality it was only about thirty seconds. He looked around and saw everyone standing in silent anticipation. Leaning over again, he whispered out of the corner of his mouth, “Is this it?”

Before anyone could answer, they felt a sudden wave pass through all of them, before feeling like it was pulling them right back into the center of the room.
What the hell?
Rex thought as he grasped his chest, trying to regain his breath. For a moment it felt like all the air had been sucked right out of the room and was being pumped right back into his lungs.

A brilliant purple glow suddenly caught his eye, causing him to shield his face as he looked up. He squinted as the glow subsided to reveal it was coming from AnaSaya, who now gathered it all in a lavender ball of fire, which she let pass into TarFor. Everyone watched in silent awe as his veins began to glow vividly with her flame.

“It’s beautiful,” DiNiya gasped as she watched swirling tendrils of lavender flame snake around the unconscious man like elegant serpents that responded to AnaSaya’s tiniest whim.

AnaSaya held out her hands, and the tendrils slowly wrapped themselves around TarFor as if they were going to constrict the life out of him, but instead they began pumping what looked like pulses of light from her flame into his body. Every pulse made his veins glow brighter and brought color back to his pale sunken face. Slowly his green flame began to glow through her lavender as he himself began to slowly stir.

“Look! He’s moving,” said EeNox, pointing enthusiastically. “She’s really doing it!”

Together, the collective flames in the room had borne witness to a power from an ancient time. With one final pulse, TarFor’s body erupted in a torrent of green fire, and AnaSaya’s flaming tendrils receded and her eyes rolled into the back of her head as she suddenly began to fall backwards. Without even thinking, Rex rushed forward and caught her before she hit the ground.

“AnaSaya!” VyKia cried out as she raced over to her daughter.

AnaSaya’s eyes slowly dropped back down, and she looked around at the concerned faces surrounding her before her eyes drifted upwards and met the crimson stare hovering just above her. “Oh,” she said before her blank expression turned into a smile. “Thank you for catching me.”

“Don’t mention it,” Rex responded in a flat tone.

The two looked at each other for a moment, Rex not knowing what to say next, when AnaSaya said, “Would it be all right if I stand up now?”

“Huh? Oh…yeah…sorry,” Rex stammered as he brought her up to her feet.

“No worries,” she replied in a gentle tone.

“Are you all right?” her mother asked, sounding concerned.

“Yes, just a little worn out. I think I overdid it a bit.”

“You need to be more careful. We could have broken up your uncle’s treatment into sessions so you could pace yourself.”

“Your mother’s right,” BaRone said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “TarFor is strong and can hold on for a little longer.”

“Speaking of which,” VayRonx said from the window. “How is he doing?”

BaRone leaned forward and put his head against TarFor chest, listening to his heart, before standing back up and replying, “His heart is beating stronger than it was before.”

“Back to normal?” asked Rex.

“Not quite, but considerably better.”

“Well, that’s a good sign,” VyKia said, looking noticeably relieved. “Thank you, AnaSaya.”

“Of course,” she replied with a benign smile. “You know I would never turn my back on someone who needed me, especially not my own uncle.”

Meanwhile, the other four teens were watching her with a strange sense of fascination, as if all her mannerisms were somehow hypnotic. Indeed, there was something strangely off about her that made her a curiosity to observe.

EeNox crept quietly behind Rex and whispered in his ear, “Smooth move swooping in and catching her like that.”

“Seriously?” Rex replied, annoyed.

EeNox just grinned and slinked back behind his sister.

“Come on, you two,” BaRone said to AnaSaya and VyKia. “I’ll show you to your room.”

He led them out of the room, leaving the four teenagers alone with VoRenna, who was looking over TarFor, and VayRonx, who was still positioned just outside the bedroom window.

“You four should get some rest yourselves,” the alpha declared.

“What do you mean?” asked DiNiya.

“Well…just look at you,” VoRenna explained. “You’re a mess.”

They looked down at themselves and saw that they were battered and bruised from earlier, with Rex and EeNox still wearing DiNiya’s long sleeve shirt and LyCora’s cloak around their waists and nothing else.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right, but will you be all right yourself looking after TarFor?”

“Your concern is touching,” she said with a chuckle. “But AnaSaya seems to have done most of the work for me. I would not be surprised if he wakes up before the next session.”

“We can only hope,” she said before turning to the others. “Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I could use a bath.”

“Mmm, a soak in the hot springs sounds pretty good right about now,” LyCora said as they walked out into the hall.

Rex found the prospect of relaxing in the thermal hot spring in the caverns below ground increasingly more enticing with every step; he could feel his muscles aching from the day’s rigorous activity. Although they became supercharged while using his flame, they were also still very much unaccustomed to it, thus resulting in three solid hours of sore muscles and stiff joints.

Less than thirty minutes later, they were all down in the caverns soaking their aches and pains away while reflecting on the events of the day.

Rex and EeNox leaned against the edge side by side with their heads tilted all the way back and their eyes closed while the two girls sat at opposite ends of the springs. Further in, DyVorians of varying sizes conversed about the arrival of the healer as they too enjoyed a relaxing dip in the waters warmed by the natural fire of KaNar’s geothermal vents.

“Oww,” Rex groaned as he lowered his head and rotated his arm forward than backwards. “My shoulder is killing me.”

“You need to sit lower so it can soak in the water,” EeNox said, opening one eye.

Rex complied and lowered his body further beneath the hot water until his shoulders were completely submerged. “Ahhhh,” he said, shutting his eyes again. “Better.”

EeNox smiled and leaned his head back again. “Still not used to using your flame, huh?”

“That obvious?”

“Pretty much, but I wouldn’t worry about it. I was aching all over when I started, too.”

“Oh, yeah, and how long ago was that?” he asked in a tone that implied he suspected the answer would make him feel more despondent.

“I don’t know, a year old, I think,” the other boy replied, opening his eyes for a moment then closing them again as he readjusted on the rock he was sitting on. “But, hey, no shame in being a late bloomer.”

Rex angrily snorted bubbles.

DiNiya, meanwhile, was sitting comfortably off to the side with her eyes closed, letting the warm water soak into her skin and wash away the stress of the day.
I really needed this
, she thought as she slowly cracked her neck on each side before sighing heavily and sliding further down into the water until only her head was above the surface.
Today was certainly an eye-opener. First a ClorRax shows up this far north and tries to kill us, then a CeraVora comes along and does the same. What’s happening around here?
She lazily opened her eyes and leaned her head to her left, looking at Rex and her brother conversing casually between themselves.
Rex has certainly started to come into his own. Today was proof enough of that…the way he used his flame. He was already almost as proficient with it as anyone his age that had been using it all their lives. I envy you, Rex
. Her thoughts drifted away from him to the arrival of one of the Northern Continent’s most prominent names.

The enormous DoraMax was definitely something of a household name, making her presence in town a conversation starter, but then there was AnaSaya—a healer worthy of the praise of those during the war. She remembered having met her briefly a few times when VyKia would come to visit, with her spending most of the time hiding in her room or behind her mother, too shy to do little more than peer out from behind her mother’s leg.  Now that same shy girl had grown into an immensely powerful lavender flame. DiNiya, like almost everyone else she knew, had always wondered just what it would be like to meet someone with one so powerful that it could reach inside and literally touch the life of another. Lastly, there was still the matter of the rest of her present company, who was sitting in silence ten meters across from her and seemingly just as lost in their own thoughts. DiNiya sank lower into the water until only her eyes were above, and furrowed her brow as she stared off at her nemesis, who, from what she could tell, did not seem to notice.

LyCora’s mind was racing despite her calm exterior.
What was that upstairs?
she wondered.
How can a healing flame be that powerful
? Being of the blue flame meant that she was far more adept to actually feeling resonance or how much energy an individual’s flame was putting off.
True, her power seemed strictly defensive in nature, but…it was more powerful than mine and even my mother’s! Who is she
? She stretched her legs out in front of her and broke the surface with them momentarily before making them disappear below once more. She glanced over to the two boys from the corner of her eye.
Those two seem to have grown thick as thieves. You can always count on boys banding together. Wonder if their combined brainpower allows them to think at the level of a single person?
She smiled smugly at her own condescension. Still, it was not Rex’s relationship with EeNox that bothered her but rather the one he had forged early on with DiNiya. She pretended to know a great deal about her but had always deduced that she was more of the loner type, able to function well enough with others but always watching from the sidelines in her mind. LyCora was highly adept at studying people. It was something her mother had taught and encouraged in her, stating that a blue flame’s true power came from their ability to analyze and understand everything around them to know the most effective way to use their strengths in any given situation.

Because of this, she was able to deduce that Rex was more or less the same, but he was able to adapt much faster to a changing environment and new people than DiNiya could. They seemed, on the other hand, to be oblivious of themselves to what was right in front of them, what they might be capable of. Together, however, they might realize it by seeing it in the other. The prospect unnerved LyCora, even scared her a little, because if DiNiya had been able to do what she did back on that day, then imagine what Rex could?
Worse yet, what would they be capable of together?
Damn it, I wish she would stop staring at me like I didn’t notice.

           
“Soooo,” EeNox said, breaking the silence between him and Rex, prompting Rex to glance over, already suspicious just from his tone alone. “What do we think of AnaSaya?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you mean, what do I mean?” Rex glared at him. “Oh, come on, don’t tell me you weren’t thinking it too!”

Rex turned his head to show his lack of interest. “Something tells me we’re rarely thinking the same thing.”

“Ouch, that stung.”

“Get over it,” Rex said with a smug grin as he once again closed his eyes.
 
EeNox looked disheartened by his lack of interest. “She was pretty cute though,” Rex said without moving or opening his eyes.

EeNox looked back over and smiled before resuming his placid state in the soothing warm waters.