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.”
“Could it have been a poison which you haven't encountered before?” Aurea asked almost desperately.
“Perhaps,” he murmured, “but I doubt that and even if it were, unless we isolated specifically what that poison was, we would be unable to create an antidote.”
Slowly, Aurea sank into a chair. She sat rigidly within it, staring forward to the woman in her bed.
The doctor crossed his arms. His gaze fell heavily upon the sleeping brunette. “It's almost as though she's suffering from---” He stopped and shook his head. No, he thought, he was just being silly.
“What?” Aurea asked. She looked up at the doctor who wearily pinched the bridge of his nose. He squinted his eyes while attempting to push the fatigue from his mind.
When he opened his eyes once more, he found Aurea's intense blue eyes focused on him. He sighed. Reluctantly, the doctor finished what he had meant to say. “The generations before us believed that whenever there was an ailment which medicines could not cure, it was a matter of the heart, a matter of the soul. Based o
n what you and your Knights shared with me regarding the battle, I can certainly see how that would apply in this case. She lost her home, her entire life as she knew it.”
Seeing the wave of sadness wash over his Queen made the man flinch slightly. In a need to give her hope, he tried again. “She's fighting valiantly that much is clear. Perhaps her body is struggling to find its way out of the ruin of her old life to the happiness she will have with you in her new life.”
Aurea nodded. The look upon her face was that of a forced hopefulness, more for appearance's sake than a true belief. “Perhaps you're right,” she said. “Thank you, doctor.”
The doctor bowed respectfully. As he left, his expression voiced that he felt he had done more harm than he had good with his words.
Aurea allowed the silence to again wash over her. She drowned within it. Her shoulders lost their regal poise. Slowly she began to break under her fears.
Her head lowered. Her trembling hands rose to mask her frightened face. She sobbed pitifully into her hands. This was what she had always feared. She had found true happiness, true completion and now it would be stolen from her. She would be alone after having finally known what it was to never have the fear of loneliness again.
Anger flashed inside her. She drew in a hissed breath, biting off her tears. Quickly, she wiped her face clean. She sniffled then stood.
Aurea tenderly crept into bed. She took the shivering brunette into her arms. She held her close. “Autumn, why can't I fix this?” she whispered into sweat-laden hair. Tears created a world of hazy discontent.
“All my life, I've done what was necessary to gain more power. Now, I'm the most powerful person in all of Pyros and it means nothing because it isn't enough to make you well again.” She lovingly kissed the top of Autumn's head. Her lips rested there, refusing to relinquish the breath she had inhaled in the moments that Autumn had unconsciously held her breath. It was only when a labored breath was released that Aurea allowed herself to breathe again.
“My title wasn't even enough to permit us to marry,” she voiced bitterly. Her eyes narrowed hatefully on the distance, seeing the faces of those she hated. She saw men in crimson hoods with untrustworthy scarlet eyes. With unfailing clarity, she saw a red-eyed Soren dressed in white. Now, she saw a new face among the others. She saw Angelos III denying her her bride.
She scowled. “Why can't I save you the way that you saved me?”
No one had ever fought for her the way that Autumn had. It had not been for politics or hidden agenda. Autumn had done it for the sheer unabashed complexity of love.
“Being Queen isn't enough, but what is more?”
Aurea tenderly brushed her fingertips along the length of Autumn's jaw. “I want to give you the world,” she uttered. She felt consumed by a bravery she might not have known if the brunette were not lost in recuperative sleep. “A kingdom isn't enough. You deserve so much more.” She lovingly let her eyes wander over the supple curves of Autumn's lips. “Somehow....” she vowed. “Somehow I will give you the world as our----” Her eyes lifted slowly. They fell on the painted mural along the far wall. It held a meticulously painted vision of Pyros.
The map was large and grand. Throughout Pyros, many provinces were clearly marked. Stunning pictures symbolized the proud people within neatly plotted lines. The outermost regions of the land existed in a sort of limbo beyond the reach of either Pyros or Lucidia. A seemingly endless millennium had found that land enjoying a sort of neutrality. Upon its surface, Pyrosians and Lucidians could coexist if only for a short time because the land was holy.
“The land of Logos,” she exhaled.
Beyond the land of Logos was the home to Pyros' eternal enemy, Lucidia. Her eyes did not remain upon those lands long. Her gaze returned to the lush green lands with flowing rivers and waterfalls to bring tears to the eyes at their splendor, where mythical creatures thrived and dreams crept over the earth in an eternal fog. It was a land where myths foretold the dead could be resurrected and the dying could be healed, but only if Logos deemed the dead worthy.
An odd sort of coming together began to happen within her mind. The dreams which Aurea had known her entire life, the dreams for something magnificent and splendid glowed with the brilliance of newly-given life. She could make it a reality. And now, lost in epiphany she understood how.
Her voice contained a dreamy air. In that moment, she dared to finish the thought which stirred her ambitions like a potent elixir. “The world will be our empire.”
********
From across what the Pyrosians knew to be the End of the World, a castle of Gothic dreams and magical whispers housed a great power though to those who might look upon her, she appeared silent and frail.
The Emissary to a God, she was the ruler of Lucidia, the land of never-ending winter, the land of Sacred Tears. The years had left her as the witness to so much, but in the hundred years that she had existed as the Vessel through which their deity spoke, she had never sensed anything possessing the darkness of what she sensed now.
The old Queen leaned forward. Her body slumped beneath the weight of her visions.
The Sisterhood of Tears rushed closer as if to catch her before she fell, but the Queen cast them an icy stare which ceased all movement.
“We are not so weak that We have need of you, young ones,” she spoke in a voice cool as the winter winds.
The Vessel clutched at the arms of her throne. She stared forward with faraway blue eyes. Their nature was the very essence of ice, itself.
As her hands tightened their hold upon the throne, she allowed her mind to begin its unanchored flight.
In her mind’s eye, the Vessel crossed the vast distance between her realm and that of the newly-crowned Pyrosian Dragon Child. She saw the woman bent over her scrolls as she worked diligently on giving life to her plan.
The Sisterhood of Tears watched closely as their Queen narrowed her eyes and seemed to focus her magic more intensely. What was she seeing?
The Lucidian Queen delved deeper into Aurea’s mind and the future of that soul.
The words and images she felt impacting against her hit her like devastating inevitability.
I am a God!
The Vessel’s lips ripped apart to release a scream infused with a life that her raspy voice had not known in years. Her long white hair whipped in temperamental winds caused by her powers. Her eyes glowed white with the lightning desperate to be set free.
The Sisterhood dropped to the floor in a frantic attempt to avoid the elements raging wildly throughout the throne room. They covered their heads to block out the screams and shelter themselves from the stinging daggers of ice falling down from the ceiling. They trembled as their hair crackled with the static of the lighting racing along the walls. Those who cried out, could hear nothing over the terrifying winds which threatened to cast them all away.
“We must find Our successor,” the Vessel commanded. “She must face what comes. She must kill a God.”
Then the most powerful Sorceress in Lucidia collapsed within her throne. As her body fell to a restored quiet, the chaos around her died away, leaving only the might of her words to echo throughout the room.
******************
With new ambitions rising inside her, the ruler of Pyros was forced to rely upon herself more than ever before. The desires she had could not be shared with anyone. At least, not yet, she cautioned herself. She had to discover more about what she intended to do. Otherwise there would be no hope of fleshing out the plans beginning to take shape within her mind. However, in order to do that, she would have to do what she had spoken out against so many times before. Aurea would have to embrace the old ways.
The thought of it sickened her. The past had had no lure for her. In fact, she had shunned it openly. Those words were difficult to swallow. They tasted of wisdom-spouting druids and superstitious men like Angelos III, who looked to Oracles for guidance.
She exhaled wearily while immersing herself within th
eir people's history.
The past deeply saturated her every waking thought. She allowed it to overtake her. Its presence was felt within the dust lining old leather-bound books. It tainted the air with the musk of age. And yet, nothing spoke for the past more than every fragile crackle accompanying the unraveling of precious scrolls.
Her long blond curls tumbled around her face in a disheveled quest to point out lines of particular importance. She sighed and lifted her ink-touched fingertips to her hair in an effort to brush the tresses away.
Her place of study was the foot of her bed. She gazed beyond the mound of papers covering her make-shift desk. Her eyes fell upon the woman who had not regained consciousness.
“You would know the answers to my questions,” Aurea whispered. She smiled in a mixture of tenderness and sadness. “You know the stories for everything just like your mother did.”
Wearily, the Queen returned her eyes to the book spread out before her. “Why can't I find anything in all this-----” She stopped as she sought out the word to voice her frustration. The next word to leave her lips was dripping weightily with her contempt and sarcasm. “‘Knowledge’ about Logos?”
“I … am…”
Aurea felt the hair at the back of her neck stand on end. She shifted her eyes quickly back to Autumn, but the woman had not moved. Her head began to pound with the onset of a headache. She rubbed against the throbbing at her temples. “I must be working too hard,” she grumbled. “I could have sworn you spoke, my Love.”
“I am the defender of the key,” the voice came again.
This time the Queen was certain that Autumn had spoken. She crawled along the great length of her bed then loomed patiently over Autumn. “The key?” She remembered what Maven had shared with her on the night of the coronation ball. She wondered if this could have to do with the tie between the women of Angels and the druids. Could it somehow be connected to Logos? Autumn had not uttered a word until Aurea had mentioned its name.
“What key?” Aurea asked in a gentle prodding.
The Flame of Wrath Page 11