The Flame of Wrath (7 page)

             
The siblings were idealistic, but in them Aurea saw a yearning for a purpose. They were ships in need of a beacon to guide them home. They were four brothers and two sisters with hair the color of sparkling sand and eyes that matched the sea. They lingered near the Queen as though she possessed the keys to life in her words. They were dressed as various animals of the forest.

             
The sister dressed as a falcon spoke the feeling felt among her siblings. “My Queen, please never forget that the Province of Shadow Reign is widely renowned for its martial skill. If you should ever need, our blades... our shields... our very lives... they are yours, Highness. We are your servants.”

             
Looking between them, Aurea memorized the intensity of their eyes. “There is something,” she began. “I may have need of such warriors one day.” Her thoughts ventured to the design slowly beginning its genesis within her mind. Though she was not yet ready to speak of it aloud, she knew that one day the time would come.

             
Their eyes widened in hopeful surprise as inwardly they prayed for the opportunity to serve a ruler of Pyros and one day become legends to rival those of their province's honorable past. “We will be ready when that day comes,” they promised. Much to their great delight, they were favored with a gentle smile.

             
Moments later, Aurea wordlessly rose from her chair. She did not bother to excuse herself from the banquet table. The attendants around her made those remarks for her. Instead she wandered aimlessly through the crowd until she found herself standing beyond the reaches of her great celebration.

             
She stood beneath a starry sky, deep within the valley of the sacred volcano. All the wonders of the garden were in every direction she looked.

             
With both hands, the Queen removed her mask. She stood motionless, a dazed warrior at the end of her first battle. She searched the stars for the answer to a question she was yet to know.

             
Swaying slightly, her world tottered. The mask fell helplessly from her grasp. It fell with an eerie slow-motion which claimed the surrounding night. As it impacted brutally against the grass beneath her feet, the dream came as the storm to cloud her mind.

********

             
The white bloom sent out a bewitching perfume to seduce the innermost secrets from her soul. She exhaled. It was a shivering warmth that caused the flower to tremble in anticipation. As she leaned forward, her eyes closed slowly.

********

              Gravity commanded that Aurea obey. She knelt to her as forcibly she fell to her knees.

********

              Through the protection of her closed eyelids, she could see the intensity of pure blinding light growing stronger. Its heat grew stronger against her face. She inclined into it, moving away from the darkness abound everywhere but this flower's heart. Her lips parted. Her head tilted as she moistened her lips to bestow a solitary kiss so impassioned by all she possessed that it would sear the bloom.

********

              Her hands slowly scoured and groped at the ground in a feeble attempt at surrogate sight. Blindly, she tangled her fingers within cool emerald strands.

********

             
“The stars.” A voice spoke hauntingly from the blackness. “The stars are destruction and rebirth.”

             
A kneeling woman was no more than tantalizing shadows. She offered up the gift within her trembling hands. A star blazed zealously. Its white light flooded the horizon with blinding might.

             
“Ash and bloom.”

********

              Somewhere in the distance, she heard the rushing footsteps of others approaching. Their voices seemed so far away. When at last their touch was felt upon her skin, they others felt no nearer to her. What was happening? Why couldn't she see?

********

             
The intense light had fallen away. It glowed weakly inside the closed hands of the ghostly woman. Through her hands, its illumination was soft like a trapped firefly.

             
The woman disappeared and with her so too did all the light of the world.

             
She was alone now. It gripped her coldly, causing her entire body to quake and shiver.

             
Once the horizon had been a blackened pane of glass through which no light could enter, but as she waited within that dark stillness, Nature's design morphed. She extended a disbelieving hand.

             
To desperate eyes, tiny droplets of rain began to beat against its surface. First one came and then another until little by little, light filtered through the fathomless night. She cleaved to those appearing beads. They were everything.

             
Timidly, light began to peak through. The ancient stars were born. Their voices silently announced themselves.

             
Before her eyes, the cosmos was created. She watched it breathe deeply, drawing in its first moments of life. Her roving gaze settled upon the brilliance of a solitary star. She outstretched trembling fingers, straining to reach it. As her fingertip touched the surface of the tiny star, it collapsed into limp ash.

             
Floating on a non-existent breeze, it swirled and changed the distant horizon.

********

              “Highness?”

             
“Highness, are you all right?”

********

             
A single ray of gracious light fell. It lit a pair of bewitching eyes. Those eyes stared up to her with a feeling she could neither deny nor escape. She felt the tears rise within her eyes as she stared deeply into their depths.

             
Inside those eyes she caught sight of a newborn constellation. It burned more brightly than any constellation she had ever seen. She memorized its body, knowing that it would always remind her of those eyes, those beautifully haunting eyes.

********

              The voices slowly crashed against the rocks of her consciousness. With a weakness weighting her limbs, she opened her eyes.

             
Surrounding her bed, she saw the faces of many she recognized, but only one face truly stood apart from the others. Her hand reached out for that one.

             
In understanding, Maven immediately acted. She spirited the others from the room. She watched over her weakened Queen with agonized green eyes. She was consumed by the fear she felt for her sovereign. Then without a word, she too left the room.

             
Confusion filled her now. The dark-haired woman took a timid step forward. Her right hand clutched at her left bicep. Nervously her thumb smoothed its surface. She darted her eyes to the sealed doors then toward the young woman staring at her with unwavering eyes.

             
“Should I leave as well?” she whispered.

             
“No, Autumn.” Aurea wondered if she had truly spoken. She felt outside herself. “I need you with me.” Even as the words hovered in the air, she wondered if she had actually uttered them.

             
Autumn moved forward. She swiftly descended upon the Queen as if those words had granted her the act of flight. Sitting at the edge of the bed, she loomed protectively over the weakened blond. Her eyes were a darkened gray, their sorrow clearly seen.

             
“My Queen, what happened?” she asked. Her hand gently touched itself to Aurea's fevered cheek.

             
Aurea leaned into the hand which was so soft against her skin. She closed her eyes with a pained frown. “May I tell you something I have never shared with anyone?” she breathed.

             
Autumn gave an intent nod which unopened eyes clearly visualized.

             
“Since I was a girl,” Aurea began. “I have had these dreams. They haunt me.”  She struggled to describe what she had always felt compelled to keep hidden. “When I have them, it's so hard to tell what’s real from what isn't. Even now, I find myself wondering if you are real or if you are the dream.”

             
Autumn found herself lost in pools of blue.

             
“You are beautiful... so very beautiful just as the dream is beautiful.” Aurea placed her hand atop Autumn's tender hand. “But you terrify me... the way the dream terrifies me.”

             
“Why?” Autumn asked hoarsely.

             
Aurea awkwardly fought to sit up. Her movements were slow and inspired electric pain to course throughout her head. She found herself experiencing a bout of courage due to the fact that she suspected she might still be within the realm of dreams. “It's because of the way you see me, because of the way I see myself when I look at you. I think you know me. What's worse is that I pray for you to know me as no one ever has. In your smile, I see my sacred accomplishments and when you turn away, I know the reality of my most bitter failures.”

             
Weakly, the Queen slipped out of bed. She walked to the windows, staring up to the dreamy twilight sky. Her cheek came to rest against the cool surface of the arching windowpane. She huffed a laugh which spat defiantly into itself
.

             
“Do you see what you have done to me, my Angel,” Aurea whispered as if accepting her defeat at Autumn's hands. “You’ve come as a swift end and cursed me to a world of hopeful longing.”

             
Autumn stared to the silhouette of her Queen. She took in the breathtaking elegance in her every line as it was haloed lovingly by a glisten of lavender gray and amaranth pink.

             
Aurea looked away from the sky. She peered over her shoulder to the woman gazing up at her with such tragedy around her. Was it sorrow or regret she envisioned so clearly inside those eyes? She felt her heart quicken as if to rush to its life's end. She knew those eyes. Her body slumped forward.

             
Bounding the distance between them, Autumn caught the flaxen-haired Queen in her arms.

             
Together, they sat tangled upon the chamber's floor. Their faces were agonizingly close. They were each too frightened to breathe or to move. As one, they wondered if it were possible to have one’s life so completely ensnared within the web of another.

             
Soon, Aurea’s body began to violently succumb to fever's touch. She shivered helplessly from it. As she struggled to memorize every line of the dark-haired woman's face, she saw her world fade to black.

********

             
“The stars----”

             
The words carried over from dream to reality in a desperate struggle to be remembered. Golden lashes parted to expose their clear blue to the afternoon light.

             
Her body was lovingly cradled within the softness of a plush bed. She felt the luxurious silk lightly veiling her body. Deeply, she drew in a breath. Her abdomen expanded but stopped beneath a weight. She frowned in fearful confusion.

             
Aurea lowered her hand to her stomach. Her hand fell directly into the softest silk she had ever felt. It wove possessively around her fingers as thick tresses of rich brown. Each wave sent one of equal might rippling throughout the Queen's being. Carefully, she pushed up, supporting her weight onto her elbows. She maneuvered until she could clearly see the woman sleeping contentedly atop her abdomen. The manner in which an arm had been draped over her hips laid out the scenario for the young Queen.

             
Autumn had kept vigil over her until the last of her will had been spent and she was forced to surrender to sleep.

             
The sleeping woman demonstrated such peace. Her olive skin glowed in the pale morning light. Beneath its ethereal rays, she radiated like a vision.

             
The warm nuances of her hair flirted with the light. Airy and soft as newly brushed fleece, thick waves became an inviting bed to Aurea's hand. She watched as a lock of hair was embraced. It was drawn close then rejected as it was pushed away with each breath to escape the sleeping woman.

             
Aurea used only the sheer softness of her fingertips to compel a satiny lock from Autumn's romantic features. That simple act had seemed to mirror a hand drawing back a curtain. So much of Autumn's perfection was now exposed to her greedy young eyes.

             
Azure flames fell with gentle heat upon the supple lips stilled by dreams. Aurea lazily took in their shapeliness. Her eyes painstakingly traced the line of the woman's nose. Her eyes then ventured steadily lower to a jaw of strength and nobility. She smiled, seeing a bit of Angelos shining through in his beautiful daughter.