The Flame of Wrath

by Christene Knight

  “Endless Sun,” he answered. His eyes pleaded for calm. “It's Lady Autumn.”

  The color drained from Aurea's face. She lurched forward. Her gaze fiercely fell upon the water. She stared into the eyes of a fearful man. “What has happened?” she demanded.

  “She spoke,” the High Prince stammered. “Or rather she let loose a scream, but it's the first sound of any kind that the Princess has made while in our care. She also turned her head to gaze in the direction of the priests attending her before closing her eyes once more.”

  Aurea turned her head, feeling the tears rise inside her eyes. She blinked them away rapidly.

  Was Autumn waking? As soon as she dared to hope for it, she forced that hope away.

  Then with new conviction inside her eyes, she returned her gaze to the water. “I shall leave at once.”

  ********

  The hiding rebels were running out of time. At any moment, Nicodemus would wake. He would notify the others of how he had come to dwell unconscious inside the wine cellar. Then panic would spread throughout the temple and the Empress, who was no doubt already on her way, would be that much closer to having key members of the resistance within her grasp.

  The warriors were mere moments from forcible action when the bishop hurried everyone from the room. He paced wildly back and forth near the doors. “The Empress is sure to come,” he muttered to himself. “I must make an inquiry. If I have no answers to give her, she will... she will...” He swallowed convulsively at the sickening lump inside his throat. Shakily, he left the relic room to begin questioning everyone who had sat watch with Autumn that day. Perhaps something or someone had triggered her restless soul.

  Soren pushed beyond the grips of shadows. He stepped fully into the light. “Autumn,” he voiced quietly. “Wake.”

  “She isn't there,” Zahara uttered sadly. She couldn't believe it. This was her worst fear brought to life. She had a flash of Autumn falling.

  Autumn's blood rose upward against the air as reverse red rains.

  Zahara remembered the agonizing desperation teeming throughout her body as she stretched out her hand for Autumn.

  Then, returning to the moment, Zahara’s eyes shifted to the woman who now lay so still. It was as though Autumn had slipped through her fingers all over again.

  “We came all this way,” Zahara said, “and she... she isn't---”

  Soren's eyes narrowed intensely. “Autumn,” he repeated firmly.

  With a fluid ease, the sleeping woman rolled her head in the direction of the voices. Her eyes gently opened to partake in a hazy world. She smiled sleepily as she caught sight of a familiar face. “Papa Ren,” she spoke in an ill-used voice.

  Soren enveloped the dark-haired woman within his arms. She felt limp inside his embrace as he cradled her close. “You have not called me that since you were a child,” he cooed warmly.

  Autumn's eyes fought against the fatigue weighting her entire body. She wanted to move, to speak freely, but those desires felt impossible. Her body held her soul deeply within its darkest recesses.

  Sensing her inner struggle, Soren spoke. “There's no time. You must trust me.”

  What little voice she might have had, had completely abandoned her. It fell beneath a thick blanket under which the mind could no longer see. All that was left to her was the tiny voice inside her mind. It said what her lips could not. It spoke her trust. It reverberated throughout her consciousness as loving assent.

  Autumn's eyes weakly studied Soren's face. She knew by the gentleness of his expression that he had seen the trusted willingness of her aura.

  Soren extended his hand to Zahara. A ghost's shroud was placed within his grasp. He draped it over Autumn as though she were a frightened child once lost and cold from confusion's rains. The airy fabric immediately conformed to her weary body with a low hiss. The rustle of another shroud caused him to peer curiously over his shoulder.

  “It's no longer safe for you to act out the guise of a priest. Their bishop is questioning everyone,” Zahara said.

  The druid nodded his understanding. Then he too donned the chameleon-like skin.

  As Soren prepared himself, Zahara moved forward. She gazed into Autumn's eyes. Inside her eyes swirled the feelings which had haunted her since the day when she watched her land's most cherished angel fall. She swallowed those feelings, realizing that now was not the right time. Turning her head, she stopped their chaotic life. She moved until her back faced Autumn.

  With the help of the others, Autumn was placed against Zahara's back. The lead Guardian held the woman atop her back with a protective strength.

  Autumn slumped forward weakly. Her hands fell with feathery softness against Zahara's back.

  The Guardian closed her eyes. She felt her insides quiver with the feeling of the arms embracing her neck and shoulders. She found herself cleaving to this moment as surely as Autumn cleaved to her. She savored it. Then as Autumn's weight settled against her back, that moment gave birth to a slow exhalation of breath.

  “Let's go home,” Zahara said. Her softly-spoken words were as much to Autumn as they were to her men.

  ********

  The priests wandered throughout the temple like ghostly souls long since void of any bodily grounding. Dazed, they moved with ashen skin and haunted eyes. What had they seen? What would this mean for their futures?

  Weary eyes caught subtle movement within their peripheral vision. The priests rejected the sight.

  The steps to the wine cellar creaked beneath some unseen weight. The old door opened under the might of ---perhaps, the wind? Yes, they hoped, let it be the wind. After all, on this night of phantom voices and mournful shadows, what was one more ghost to haunt them?

  Within the cool darkness of the cellar, Nicodemus groaned. He clutched his head as he rose cautiously to his feet. His disbelieving eyes witnessed the materializing forms of masked figures. “Stop,” he ordered.

  He felt his blood run cold with fear. In his confusion, he wondered if perhaps these beings were the incarnation of something dark and evil. He shook his head, trying to regain the use of his logical mind. No, these individuals had to be thieves sent here to steal from the temple. He had to stop them.

  Nicodemus lunged forward, wrapping his arms around a hooded man.

  The rustle of feet scuffling across a dirt-covered floor sang in the darkness. That earthy song was suddenly put to an end by the distinctive sound of a blade being unsheathed followed by a small whimper.

  Soren rushed forward. “What have you done?” he cried.

  The druid caught the young man slumped over a tightly-held dagger. He glared into the eyes of Lucas.

  “He came at me,” Lucas justified. He looked away without remorse.

  Soren gently laid the priest upon the ground. He looked to him with tears rising inside his eyes. He longed to speak an apology, but at this point, no words would do the matter justice. On their mission to save an innocent life, they had quelled a life equally as pure.

  Nicodemus looked upward. His expression was that of biting pain.

  A sudden tranquility overtook the dying young man. He smiled slowly. He could make out eyes of weary gray. He did not recognize their shape or even their color, but what he saw within them was a presence he knew all too well. He had sat quietly in the midst of that presence and savored the intense purity of it.

  Lady Autumn, he thought joyously. She was awake.

  “Don't feel badly,” Nicodemus whispered. “You've granted me a kindness. I'll die defending my home.” His mind flashed to his family, to his brothers. Suddenly that fleeting image was interrupted by the furious face of the Empress. No doubt she would be livid once she learned that Autumn had been taken. He smiled again softly. Autumn was going home where she belonged. She would no longer be alongside forlorn objects.

  Soren heard the huffed exhale that was the young man's last. His eyes rose to Lucas who was opening the secret passageway. “Lucas!” he growled.

  The
man of Illusions paused in the threshold. His back tensed with the biting sting in Soren's voice. His aura was indignant but muddled with confusion. Quickly, he departed into the shadows.

  As Lucas fled, Zahara shook her head. “Not here, Soren. We must retreat to the tunnels.”

  Soren reluctantly slipped from his entanglement with Nicodemus. He lingered in the cellar for a moment longer.

  The sinewy line of one of the Guardians danced around him purposely. She held a broom in her hand. She swept its end over the loose surface of the earth, blurring away their footprints in the soil. When any trace of their arrival was gone, she backed into the tunnel. She ushered Soren inside as well, sweeping after them. She dropped the broom dejectedly to the tunnel floor. Her hand patted Soren's shoulder in an attempt to reassure him. Then she moved around him to follow after the others.

  Soren was left alone in the darkness with the sounds of his party's footsteps growing more distant within the tunnel. It was not their footfalls alone which left him. The sealed door had also placed an end to softly uttered words of forgiveness.

  ********

  Howls of lament were released into the bitter cold of the desert night. The small province of Endless Sun shook with grief. One of their brothers was dead. He had been stabbed by a villain who had emerged from the depths of their greatest nightmares only to return to them without a trace.

  The priests had discovered Nicodemus at the very moment that others found Autumn missing.

  ********

  Cries of sorrow traveled across a vast land until they were echoed soon after by the ringing chime of a crystal dish.

  Aurea gazed over her shoulder in the direction of the signaling bowl. She motioned for her servants to wait in their preparations for her departure. Curiously, she drew nearer to the waters. The confusion written plainly across her face shimmered with her dancing reflection. She tapped the ringing dish with her small silver hammer.

  The Prince of Virtue awkwardly shifted. “Empress,” he stammered.

  The Empress arched her brow slowly. Something ominous seized her spine.

  News of the murder came with a downcast head, but it was the report on Autumn's disappearance which was uttered scarcely above a whisper.

  Sapphire eyes widened. The flames they housed rose high. Each flame whipped as white hot rage which spread across her iris. “Find her!” Aurea snapped.

  “Yes, Empress,” the High Prince stuttered. Quickly, he fled.

  With silence ringing inside her ears louder than the alarm ever could, Aurea scoured her surroundings with wild eyes. Her breathing was erratic and wild. She staggered out of her chambers.

  A blooming swell gathered force inside her abdomen. It made her body shake in anticipation. Then like the ancient peaks whose wrath erupted upon the lands, Aurea's cry burst from her body. Her frightening voice sent life throughout the palace. All those souls who once had slept were snatched from peacefulness to inhabit her world of chaos.

  “Wake!” she demanded. “Wake!”

  Servants trembling with fear hurried from their beds.

  “Bring me my bride!” she roared.

  A flurry of people raced around her in every direction. All were readying an excursion to the temple of Endless Sun.

  As the Empress stood panting angrily among them so many thoughts swirled throughout Aurea's mind. Autumn was missing. Missing! Where could she have gone? Was she taken from the temple? Or did she wake and leave of her own volition? A priest was dead. Who could have killed him? Had she awoke to a place she did not know, surrounded by men who were strangers only to defend herself? Was she the murderer?

  The Empress shuddered violently. “No,” she muttered. Autumn did not have it in her to be a murderer. Her brother perhaps, but never Autumn.

  There was only one possible conclusion. Someone had taken her. But who, she wondered, and how?

  Hands coiled over her shoulders, gripping them with a gentle firmness. “My Empress,” came a soft voice.

  Aurea shifted her eyes until their gaze met brilliant green. She found Maven watching her closely through the mirror-like surface of the windows.

  “It would seem,” Maven said, “that what we've feared for so long has finally come to pass.”

  The shoulders beneath her touch tensed dramatically. The statuesque Queen released the petite Empress from her grasp.

  Rage gathered in strength as it coursed wildly through her limbs. Aurea turned until she could clearly stare into the face of the beautiful Queen. “You think that this is the rebellion,” she husked. “You think that this is the work of Angelos III?”

  Maven nodded her head slowly as if its weight was too much for her long neck. “Would a father not scour the ends of the earth to find his lost child?” she mused aloud.

  Aurea did not have time to waste upon wondering how Angelos III had finally learned of his daughter's whereabouts. All that mattered now was trying to stop him before he could get Autumn back to Angels' ground, where Aurea no longer had power. “Redirect the Knights from Endless Sun.”

  “Where would you have us focus our attention, my Empress?”

  “I want my forces lining the border between what is mine and what is cursed by Angels.”

  Maven paused before the doors. She held her lithe fingers against the cool surface. Her eyes twinkled with indiscernible emotion. “You think they will try to pass the border?” she asked curiously.

  Aurea's flames dimmed to a chilling cold. “There is nothing else for them to do,” she glowered. “Getting Autumn to Angels is their only hope.”

  ********

  Even from the cold confines of the tunnel, they could clearly hear the storm raging.

  The temple was being turned completely upside-down in an effort to discover the means of escape used by those who had dared to take Autumn.

  As the madness of chaos emerged so too did the dark truths about the brotherhood within the temple. Many men among the priests' ranks removed their robes to don the armor they were truly at home within. These men had taken up the faith, yes, but they were soldiers first. It had been their lives to pass the days gathering information on their brothers, but now, now they would interrogate them. They questioned their brothers with the brutality of their words, but also with their tightly-closed fists.

  “The temple will burn!” a soldier vowed. He searched the priests' frightened faces, waiting for the one who might crack beneath the pressure of his threats. “All of you will die for your betrayal!”

  Still no answers came.

  The conspiracy which the soldiers had been desperately searching to uncover did not appear to exist. The more they questioned the priests, the more they realized that they were in fact as innocent as they had claimed. Still, innocence would not be enough to save them. Aurea would require blood to appease her furies. Unfortunately for the men of Endless Sun, it was they who would be fed to the beast.

  ********

  “Search the oasis!”

  A weary man gave a growled command. He and his brothers had scoured the area surrounding the temple for days. They had searched for any clues as to where their enemy might have gone. Yet, they could find nothing.

  If they could not find them among the comforts of the oasis, he thought. Then frankly, he would not know where else to look.

  The land offered so little. There was nothing in every harsh direction, but endless desert with the exception of a small jewel of green. It was the last remaining haven which housed his team now.

  They had reached the oasis beneath the light of an inviting moon. They welcomed the cool reprieve if only for a moment.

  Tranquility was broken by a rustling sound. Its sound caused the men to tense. Apprehensively, they drew their swords. The rustling had stopped. Could it be the rebellion's forces struggling to avoid further detection?

  They cautiously began closing in upon the once quivering thicket.

  Both, captain and priest, he commanded his men by example. He was exhausted just as his m
en were exhausted, but their mission was not yet complete. They had to rescue Autumn from the resistance.

  The captain extended his hand. Pressing his fingertips to the leaves, he carefully swept back the curtain of foliage.

  As one, the soldiers held their breaths. Their eyes peered heavily into the shaded darkness.

  A low growl made boiling blood thicken with frost.

  “It's a nesting ground,” he screamed. “Run!” But it was too late.

  An enormous lizard leapt from the darkness. As its tongue whipped across the air, it tasted the darkness in these men's souls. Innocent blood stained their hearts and hands. The lizard's jaws frothed with the same menace that these men had attacked innocents.

  The carnivorous creature pinned the captain between its powerful claws. Its head lifted to look around it. The trees were wild and alive with its brothers who were encircling their prey.

  Screams rang out into the night. They voiced a resounding truth. The soldiers were dead. The serene oasis was now a peaceful place to no one.

  From the distance, a smoldering fire rose up to blaze against the night. Once it had been a beautiful temple, but now, it was the kindling meant to feed insatiable fires. It was a tomb. The priests inside were dead. As their ghosts rose into the air as loudly popping ash, their haunted voices demanded the answer to their consuming question: Where was Autumn of Angels?

  ********

  It was in the consuming darkness that Autumn rested within the arms of her old friend, Soren. It was no longer the sleep of a woman whose soul was in desperate need of mending. This sleep belonged to a woman who was on the cocoon-like verge of reawakening as something far more beautiful, something far stronger.

  Soren had yet to tell her the horrors she would need to know. Instead, he ---perhaps foolishly--- allowed her to know the peace of vivid dreaming before those dreams turned to nightmares. Soon, she would carry the full weight of her beloved's sins. What that meant for Autumn no one knew. Not even the wisest of the druids.

  He held her closer, resting his cheek atop the soft pillow of her hair.

  The silence of the tunnel grew lost beneath the sputtered coughs afflicting his companions.