The Flame of Wrath (25 page)

             
The further they came toward the lighthouse, the more their very existence was touched by unnatural silence. No animals stirred in the forest beneath them. No birds sang their haunting songs. The fog parted suddenly to expose its harbored secrets.

             
It was Maven who caught sight of their destination first. Her body tensed. She sat upward tautly, staring out into the distance.

             
Rapier motioned the soldiers to land and hold their position with a discreet motion of her hand. She spirited her owl forward. Together, she and Queen Maven pulled ahead of the soldiers. They rode parallel to a fathomless abyss in an attempt to determine its end.

             
Directly within the heart of darkness, a landmass reached upward. When its surface fell level with the borders scarcely visible from its shore, it plateaued. There was no bridge to connect the neighboring borders to the lighthouse. It seemed isolated as if by Logos' will alone.

             
Upon the plateau's dry barren lands, the lighthouse stretched skyward defiantly. The tarnish of time thickly cleaved to its exterior. The grimy touch was desperate to keep its former beauty hidden, but something more than the pulsing light yearned to be seen. Something inside the building pleaded to be recognized.

             
Rapier steered her mount away from the lighthouse in the direction of the Pyrosian forces. She landed before them, safely returning their Queen to the anxious soldiers.

             
Maven dismounted Rapier's owl as her own ebony creature was brought forward. She accepted the reins then held tight to the saddle-horn as her foot slipped into the stirrup. She hoisted herself upward, her eyes never leaving the lighthouse ahead.

             
Her orders to Rapier came in a voice which somehow managed to contain her excitement. It was contradictorily cool. “We will lead half of the men to the lighthouse while the other remain poised here to cover our flank,” she commanded.

             
Rapier shouted the orders over her proud shoulder. As her orders were passed backward among the ranks, she witnessed the men organizing into two fierce columns. She silently took in the faces steeling for the prospect of battle. This was what was familiar to them. War was what was safe in this world where nothing was a certainty.

             
When two separate banners were raised as an indication of readiness, Rapier drew closer to Maven. “At your command, my Lady.”

             
Maven held her fist poised in mid-air. She took in a slow controlled breath then motioned her men forward.

             
The chasm's mouth was dark and gaping. It was little more than feet from them when hellish fires pitched toward the skies in a flaming wall. The heat caused all to shelter their eyes.

             
“Retreat!” Rapier called. “All of you, get back!” Her voice was robbed of its pained intensity by the inferno loudly blazing.

             
The flowing ends of Maven's hair had been lightly singed in her blurred retreat. When her owl's talons had touched earth, she leapt from her mount. She withdrew from the others. Her rage was boiling over in the frustrated tears spilling down her cheeks. She lifted her face to the sky and cried out in absolute fury.

             
Rapier said nothing. She could only watch as Maven picked up any stone near her feet to hurl bitterly into the fire. Glancing over her shoulder to the defeated faces of the army, she knew that they all joined in Maven's lamenting anguish.

             
With a final growl, Maven cast one last stone into the fires. The might of her throw had caused her to lose her balance. She tottered then fell sharply to her knees. Breathing heavily, her slumped shoulders heaved up and down. Her dusty hands limply rested against her trembling legs.

             
Green eyes closed. Through her lids, she could still see the unabashed glory of the fire. Maven felt its heat against her skin. She listened to Rapier's familiar footfalls against the gritty earth. She then took comfort in the sound of rustling garments as Rapier knelt at her side.

             
Rapier let loose a sigh. “Now I understand why no army has ever claimed this land,” she admitted somberly. Her arm moved to wrap supportively around the Queen.

             
Maven wearily rested her head against Rapier's inviting shoulder. The fatigue she felt overtook her. It weighted her entire body.

             
Neither spoke. They remained as motionless statues before an absent God's fireplace. Stillness in its most utterly consuming form blanketed their joined bodies. Then as if something otherworldly breathed life into a marble statue, Maven drew in a haggard breath. She tensed with such force that it was almost painful. Her eyes snapped open. Immediately, her beautiful face upturned so that her eyes found Rapier's in an unrelenting gaze.

             
“No army,” she repeated. Her mind drifted away from Rapier's words. It flashed back to their first day upon Logos, namely to the griffin and its bloody warning. He had shown disdain for their weapons.

             
Shakily, she rose to her feet. Maven stripped her war-mount of all but its saddle and reins. She shed her sword from its home at her hip.

             
With a worrisome frown, Rapier hurried after Maven. “What are you doing, Highness?” she asked fearfully.

             
“I'm going to the lighthouse,” Maven declared. “I haven't come this far to be stopped now.”

             
“But you'll die!” Rapier's voice betrayed the truest depths of dread. “The fire will kill you!”

             
Maven paused with her foot poised inside the stirrup. She held to the saddle as her head turned to face Rapier. “I will be safe,” she soothed.

             
“How can you be sure?”

             
“It's something you said. 'No army has ever claimed this land.'” Maven's eyes grew heated in their intensity. “It's true. No army has been able to survive here, but all the accounts passed on throughout the centuries tell us that innocent travelers lived to speak of the wonders they'd seen.”

             
Rapier's brown eyes glistened with the beginnings of tears. They brightly reflected the fire's light. She was bathed in a warm glow. Slowly, she shook her head. “No.”

             
Maven frowned. “No?”

             
Quietly, Rapier began to shed her armor.

             
“What are you doing?” Maven demanded timorously. She felt an anxious knotting inside of her. Rapier continued to rid herself of battlements as though Maven had never uttered a word.

             
When the last of her armor was gone, Rapier silently urged Maven back from her apprehensive owl. “I'll go,” she announced. Her voice was flat.

             
The soldiers were hushed as their commander moved astride the owl. Sensing the precedence of what was coming, many removed their helmets respectfully while others lowered their heads.

             
Resolved in her decision, Rapier stared ahead to the consuming flames. Her silver hair whipped lightly within the heated gales coming from the fire wall.

             
Maven's face blanched. Her mind was memorizing this moment, creating a picture of Rapier to always dwell within her heart. It was too painful to think of and all too much like a goodbye. She countered the only way she knew how. “No, it's my theory. I'll go.”

             
“You're our Queen. It's my duty to protect you.” Rapier glanced away just long enough to meet Maven's eyes. “I'll go,” she whispered. Their eyes locked then. The moments ticked by like lifetimes, joining them together.

             
Rapier had seen enough battles to know what truly existed within the depths of another's eyes. She read Maven's emotions, sensing the precise moment when to sever the tie between them.

             
Their connection ripped. The sound of its tearing was brutally tangible.

             
Maven's hand extended. She grasped bitterly at the air. Her hand scarcely missed Rapier's arm. Her insides quivered as Rapier and her owl rose high into the air.

             
What if she were wrong? What if the fire's might consumed Rapier without a moment's hesitation? Could she live with the fact that her misguided theory had led to Rapier's death?

             
Maven felt her body sway, but she refused to fall. She balled her fists staring after Rapier's waning silhouette. Steadily, that familiar line grew more and more faint, until it was a speck within a brilliantly burning sky.

             
The Queen forgot her status. She rid her mind of the importance she had once found in quests for power. She lowered to first one knee and then the other. She touched her palms to the earth. It would not be the first time she had knelt beneath the savageness of this island. She leaned forward until the soil touched her forehead. Maven closed her eyes unable to look to the moment which would forever change her life.

             
Would she fail the Empress? Would she return home with nothing from this land? Would Rapier be among those heartfelt loses?

             
“She's gone!” the soldiers screamed. An uproarious chaos filled the air. “Rapier's gone! The fire swallowed her up!”

             
Maven's hands clenched the earth. She huffed a sob. “No.” Her head rose. Her tearful gaze scoured the horizon for any sign of life, but all that thrived before her waiting eyes was a fire without end.

             
She pushed off the ground then raced at the flaming wall. The screams of her men soon echoed the zealous footfalls of her feet against the land.

             
Every soldier ran with an outstretched hand, desperate to reach their fleeing Queen before she too was consumed by the fire's wrath.

             
I am afraid, Maven thought.

             
She continued to run with all her might. She winced at the stinging heat. She did not want to die. Her foot shoved off the ground's crumbling ledge. As she was catapulted into the air, her thoughts screamed louder than the voices of her men. She knew then that more than fearing death, she feared giving up on herself and her dreams for something grander.

             
The fires swirled around her. It enveloped her in its fiery hands.

             
The Pyrosian army lurched to an abrupt stop. Tears blurred their vision so badly that they could scarcely believe their eyes.

             
Maven stood upon a golden bridge. She raised her hands. She turned them slowly in an attempt to search for injuries upon her skin. There was not a mark on her. She shakily glanced over her shoulder to her frightened men. They were watching as if completely enthralled by the fire's light. She smiled almost warmly. Was she dead? The surreal haze through which she saw the world made her wonder if perhaps she was staring out at the world from another world, from another reality.

             
A voice called hauntingly from the distance. Its words were indistinguishable, but beautiful.

             
The Queen turned to look across the bridge. Sitting proudly atop her owl, Rapier glowed ethereally.

             
Maven's chest swelled. She sprinted across the bridge, closing the distance between herself and a smiling Rapier.

             
The warrior slipped from her owl then rushed to meet Maven. She swept the royal up into her arms then held her close.

             
“You're alive!” Maven cheered. She touched over Rapier's unharmed face, unable to look away. “We must go tell the others. They will be so happy.”

             
Maven slipped from Rapier's arms. She grasped hold of a soft hand then rushed toward the bridge. She felt herself lunge to a halt as Rapier did not budge. With a slightly huffed laugh, she tugged at Rapier's hand. “Come on,” she said. “They're waiting.”

             
Rapier did not speak. She merely slowly shook her head.

             
“What do you mean, 'no'?” Maven's smile began to melt away.

             
“They must make the decision on their own,” Rapier answered quietly. “Just as we did.”

             
“But---”

             
“When you jumped, you already believed I was dead. Despite that thought, you leapt into the fire.” Rapier touched her free hand passionately to her chest. “I charged into that fire knowing that I would die, but convinced that it was better to try than to allow you to die.”

             
Maven drew in a shaking breath. She frowned vulnerably. Her eyes tore from Rapier's impassioned brown eyes to the far side of the bridge. As she stared across the bridge, she heard the soft-spoken firmness of Rapier's voice.