Talia backed away, nervously grabbing at her bound hair, the fire wand clattering to the ground. He bent and picked it up, handing it back to her. She hurried to snatch it away, only knocking it to the floor again. His shoulders shook with silent laughter as he retrieved it once more.
Her face felt hot and she fled the room once she had gotten a good grip on her wand. She hurried even faster past the damning room where things had probably gotten more heated between Vandr and Clarina.
Reaching the locker room, she barely had time to slump against the wall just behind the door before her legs gave out. She closed her eyes, tilted her head up towards the ceiling and emitted a ragged sigh.
She had nearly slipped as she made the descent. The cold floor soaked against her skin, causing her eyes to shoot open, her hands wet and sticky then too.
Blood. A lot of it and no mystery where it came from.
Clarina was nearly unrecognizable, torn apart as if by a wild animal. Her limbs were decapitated but the head was still attached to the torso, twisted at an unnatural angle. Blood coated the body everywhere; everywhere but the pristine white skin of her doll-like face. A couple of droplets defiled her left cheek, but her face. The jaw was frozen open in a scream of terror, the eyes bulging and glassy, cloudy as they had started to freeze in the unheated room.
She couldn’t back away any further but her feet skittered uselessly against the pool of blood, terror leaving her mute as she struggled to find her voice.
The screams finally peeled out painfully on an endless keening note, a sound foreign to her own ears. She twisted in the pool of blood, trying to escape, painting herself in the thick cold crimson of her dead friend’s blood.
Where was her wand? She didn’t know, but her hands blazed blue, igniting the pool of blood and cremating the body.
Five discordant notes played over and over, breaking through to her.
Focus, focus, focus…
She saw Aiden in the doorway, unable to reach her through the wall of flame she created. Somehow she was able to calm the blaze and he had thrown the lute over his shoulder, slinging it over his shoulder to replace it with her trembling body.
The fire had cooled to orange as it burned on its own, but he rushed her out of the building as it caught and spread quickly.
Aiden had set her down outside and they stood side by side, watching the building burn, barely registering the commotion of fire squads and onlookers trying to contain it.
“My wand!” she murmured, lunging towards the building, feeling Aiden’s hand clamp over her wrist.
He shook his head, reaching behind him into his pack to extract her wand. She gripped it gratefully, tears tracing trails through the mess of blood and soot on her cheeks.
Talia felt some sense returning and hung her head before looking up at him again.
“You have to go. Someone is going to find her there and you’ll be a suspect.”
Aiden nodded, raising his hand to smear the streaks on her cheeks with the rough pad of his thumb. He smirked, seeing he only made it worse.
As he hurried off, she lamented that she wouldn’t see him again. Not just him, any of them. Everything changed that day and there was no going back.
Her father would find out quicker than the rest, but there was a way around it.
Her trip to Melikai came sooner than she expected, on a wave of blood and fire.
Hey Readers!
UnSung is coming up next. You may have noticed some floating characters with parts yet to play. While each book is a standalone adventure, there will always be an advantage to spotting those recurring characters.
I’m trying something a little different in the next one. The lead-in to UnSung ends on the death of one girl, so… a murder mystery is ahead. I’ve always wanted to integrate a crime thriller into a fantasy, so it’s exciting to integrate.
As for formatting, I wanted to do away with the confinement of chapters, dividing each story into three main parts. There are still scene divisions that you can use as stopping points.
While I enjoyed the name games of this one, each main character carries a different challenge. I hope you enjoy the adventures of Aiden the bard, Talia the fire dancer and a new central cast.
Follow me for updates! The Unconventional Author – kristagossett.blogspot.com Twitter- CrimsonMoonGirl
FaceBook page- Krista Lynn Gossett
Patreon – www.patreon.com/kitacraft
UnNamed Page 28