The Flame of Wrath (15 page)

             
Even in the Oracle's absence, Autumn knew what she would have asked her. She would have asked what was so horrible about her love with Aurea that so many were willing to fight to keep them apart.

             
Clutching her shoulder, she staggered forward.

She realized then that the answer to her question did not really matter. As long as there were people willing to fight to keep them apart, Autumn would fight to keep them together. This was the promise she had made to herself.

              She heard footsteps growing louder against the stone steps. They were growing closer. She held her shoulder a little tighter, her stance straightening. She could also hear the cries of raptors drawing closer. That could only mean that the Guardians would be arriving at any moment.

             
Her father's men reached the top of the carved mountain. They stood breathlessly within the circle, beneath the shadows of proud stone archways.

             
Autumn felt the sudden cold of the wind against the blood lining her clothes. It was a contradicting chill to the fiery heat of the essence which originated from three misleadingly small points. The beautiful blue of her dress was gone. It was now a myriad of colors: first blue, next a haunted sort of twilight then a red so deep it appeared black. The colors were startling against blanching skin.

             
“Please, Lady Autumn,” a guard pleaded. He took a single step forward, imploring her with his eyes. “Return to the castle with us. Let us help you.”

             
Autumn shook her head slowly. She was beginning to sway slightly. She closed her eyes tightly in an effort to concentrate on their voices, but her focus was waning along with her strength. The winds answered her earnest attempt to listen by howling more prominently within her ears. 

             
Soft scrapes echoed throughout the air. It was the sound of her sandaled feet inching backward against the stones.

The guards cried out in panic. “Stop!”

              Autumn's eyes flashed open with a jolt of her body as she jerked to attention. She looked groggy and weak.

             
It was a name which echoed repeatedly throughout this holy place.
Lady Autumn.
She suddenly heard it almost as loudly as the winds.

             
The storm of warring eyes closed again in exhaustion. Autumn dropped her sword with a resonating clang.

             
The guards breathed deeply. It was over.

             
Autumn lightly pushed off the sacred alter, taking a tranquil step into nothingness. She no longer heard the pleaded incarnations of her name. She heard only distant screams that quickly fell away as she dropped rapidly.

             
The wind clapped in her hair, in her dress. It sang in unison with her thundering heart. The cries of eagles made her eyes flutter open. Around her in a death dive, she saw two enormous white birds. Each carried women who extended their hands to save her before they all died in this morbid spiraling dance.

             
If it is true that in times of crisis our true nature is revealed within the choices we make, then Autumn’s true form was making itself known by the intensity of pure instinct.

As Autumn plummeted to her death, she recognized the faces of two women she loved and in so doing, two distinctive choices.

              Zahara was beauty and grace. The leader of the enigmatic Guardians was the regal legacy of a people, Autumn's people. In recent years, Autumn had looked to her and seen the marvelous splendors which had once belonged to her mother, Queen Thalia. She had seen these things and longed to be them as Zahara had come to personify them. Zahara embodied their ancient strengths and their cherished tie to the stars. She had come to be everything Autumn had always wished to be.

             
Zahara's hand extended pleadingly. Her lithe fingers splayed frantically to catch the fallen angel. Desperate cries ripped from her throat to slip past the only part of her face. In its sound lived the absolute fear for her land's cherished princess.

             
Queen Aurea was radiant like the eternal flame of Pyros. Her cape billowed with all the might of the Dragon's wings. She promised forever with not the beauty of her words, but the timeless captivation of her eyes. As her hand extended desperately, her fingertips grazed Autumn's in a torturous tease.

             
As three women fell in death's spiral, Aurea screamed. It was her voice which ensnared Autumn not her grasp. It was a scream of pure vulnerability, of heartfelt anguish at the thought of losing the falling brunette.

             
Autumn woke from her weariness with a newfound determination for life. She possessively took hold of the wrist offered to her, pulling herself from the end's clutches.

             
Aurea encircled her arms around her just before she and Zahara were both forced to pull out of the spiral. Their raptors cut in two separate paths, narrowly averting death as they raced in opposite directions.

             
The Queen looked down at the woman in her arms. Autumn seemed so frail as she watched over her.  She was covered in cold sweat and burning blood.

             
“I knew you would come,” Autumn whispered.

             
Aurea shook fearfully. She had followed Autumn's description to the letter. The cave had waited patiently for her, just as Autumn had said it would. Truly, the misleading cave had housed a colossal treasure. That treasure had come in the majestic form of a larger than life Prayer. She held Autumn closer, inwardly vowing to never let her go again.

             
The voice of her fears rushed to cloud her mind.
What if the eagle had not been the fastest in the land as Autumn had boasted? What if its best flight had still not been good enough?
She blanched, feeling her blood turn to ice.
Or worse, what if her reach had been just a fingertip's length too short and she was forced to watch as Autumn fell?
She pushed away the fearful thoughts, knowing that the weight of their might would crush her.

             
The Queen turned to look over her shoulder. The Guardians were coming. She could clearly see them giving chase. It would not matter if she could just cross the province line with Autumn. Then they would be safe. The High Lord's reach would not extend to another province, but once they left Angels, Aurea knew that she would never be allowed to return. The ancient laws would forbid it. She would be an outlaw in their lands.

             
Her thoughts traveled to her knights who by now must have been drawing closer to the border's edge. They would make it, she assured herself. Their horses were strong and Angelos IV knew ways to hide them.

             
Autumn clutched tightly to a crimson cape. Her head began to loll weakly to the side.

             
Sapphire eyes grew frightened. Autumn had grown so pale. She pressed her cape hard against Autumn's wounds, hoping to stop the bleeding. “Why did you do that?” Aurea asked. Tears rolled hotly down her cheeks. Flashes of the battle rushed before her eyes, robbing her of her sights of Autumn. “You could have died!”

             
Scarcely above the winds, her voice came as hushed surrender. It possessed all the softness it had known during their first meeting. The end result was no different than that day. A Queen was made a slave by the humble graces of a voice.

“Do you see what you have done to me, my Angel,”
Autumn recited. “You’ve come as a swift end and cursed me to a world of hopeful longing.”

Aurea searched the eyes staring up at her in absolute trust. The tears creating a watery haze were pushed away as she tightly closed her eyes and crushed Autumn to her.

Chapter Six

It is not enough to dream. Even the darkest of us dream. Be worthy of the fantasies which you create.

----The Book of Wrath

********

              The Lady Autumn’s breaths shuddered with all the vulnerability of brittle ash. It was as if at any moment they might collapse. In their wake, they would leave only destruction. The little hope each breath possessed could have easily died within those struggling breaths, but the anxious souls inside the room refused to let that happen.

             
A bevy of nursemaids and attendants filled the chamber. Their faces wore the somber masks of mourners. Queen Aurea resented their defeatism. How could they give up so easily, she wondered. Even as she thought it, she could not help but understand the reason for it.

Autumn was the very likeness of suffering. The manner in which Death courted her made Aurea feel as though It were a rival suitor.

The Queen searched among the attendants. Even with their resolve floundering, Aurea still envied them. At least they had a sense of purpose. They tended to Autumn so diligently, knowing precisely what to do while Aurea could only feel useless.

             
Another rasped breath hoarsely filled the air. Its sound caused the Queen to freeze where she stood.

             
In the distance where the world and her gripping fears met, Aurea faintly heard the sounds of the doctor speaking to her, but nothing mattered as much as the breath which simply would not come. The only thing that mattered to Aurea was lying all but motionless within her bed-chambers.

             
How could a warrior who demonstrated such ferocity appear so small now? Autumn was all but engulfed by the royal silks swaddling her. Her azure-gray eyes were closed with no assurance that they would ever open again. There was little more than a glimmer of movement betraying any signs of life. They came in the strained rises and falls of Autumn's chest.

             
A nursemaid gently dabbed the sweat from Autumn's brow.

             
With the glisten of dew banished from her skin, Autumn appeared waxen. The beautiful coloring of her olive skin had bled away within the copious mists to line her skin. She was ashen, a broken doll in disarray.

             
As Aurea watched, a whimper left Autumn's colorless lips.

             
“How is she?” Aurea asked in a hoarse whisper.

             
Weakly, Autumn's head lolled to the side. Beneath the light, rippling chocolate ribbons melted. They clumped messily to her slumped head.

             
Aurea looked away from the ghost of the woman in her bed. It was more than she could bear.  Tears began to line the sapphire splendor of her eyes. She swallowed hard at the fear suffocating her.

             
The doctor sighed in frustration. He raked his fingers through thick chestnut hair. “May I speak candidly, Highness?” he asked.

             
The room tensed with his voice. Discreetly those around perked their ears. News had already spread throughout the land that their soon-to-be Queen was dying inside the bed she had yet to consummate her marriage within. The land was mourning her loss before they had ever celebrated her rise to status as Aurea's bride.

             
Aurea motioned the attending nursemaids away. She watched them finish the last of their tasks before scuttling from the room. The doors closing behind them echoed inside the silent room.

             
Now alone with Autumn, the prevalent quiet roared inside their ears. Its unnatural might only furthered the nature of Autumn's dilemma. No one should be so still unless held by eternal sleep.

             
The Queen motioned for the doctor to speak freely.

             
“I know that in your struggle to evade the Guardians, it was necessary to delay finding help for Autumn,” he began tentatively, “but the instant you crossed the Angels' border, you were able to get her the help she needed. Yes, her injuries created a significant loss of blood, but nothing which couldn't be stabilized with treatment.” He was at a loss. It was read clearly across his features. “She has received nothing but the utmost care. When she was strong enough to be moved to the palace, our nation's best doctors flocked here to see her.”

             
Aurea was well aware of the fact that Autumn had been provided the best of care. She had demanded nothing less for her future wife. That said, the question still begged to be asked. “Then why is she still suffering?”

             
“At first, I feared the cause could be poisoning,” he answered, “but nothing in either her symptoms or the wounds themselves suggests it. I've sought counsel with many of my colleagues. We're all in agreement that no disease that we have ever encountered is to blame nor is this a case of any poison we know of.”