The Flame of Wrath (39 page)

             
Taking advantage of the opportunity to rest, they dressed in fresh clothes. Had one not known, they might have thought that they were merely friends gathered around a fire to savor a meal. And yet, as Autumn looked between their somber faces she realized that they were far from that.

             
She ate slowly, finding her food difficult to chew and even more difficult to swallow as she wondered what it was that she glimpsed so clearly inside their eyes. It seemed that there was something hovering overhead which no one dared to acknowledge. She longed to ask them. And yet, she desperately feared knowing.

             
What horrible truth could have aged the faces of these once beautiful people, she wondered. She frowned, remembering fragments of dreams from which she could not wake. Her hand reached up to clutch her head. Why could she not remember? How long had she slept?

             
When Soren rose to his feet, he offered the princess enlightenment's warm hand. Autumn's acceptance came as a gentle squeeze. She gazed into him with a need to know rising distinctly inside her eyes. Together, they slipped away from the others.

             
Neither spoke for quite some time. It was as if fear gripped all their words. The croak of a nearby frog startled them from their awkward silence.

             
Autumn lifted her head with tear-lined eyes. “How long,” she stammered. “How long was I... sleeping?”

             
“Almost two years,” Soren answered somberly.

             
A sharp inhalation was sucked into the woman's lungs. She held it, too afraid to let it go.

             
“In that time,” Soren continued quietly, “the druids have been murdered so that only a quarter of our once proud numbers remain.”

             
A loud sob forcibly escaped her trembling lips. She knew those men, ate with them, and drank with them. They were distant relatives in a family bound by so many secrets, so many legends.

             
“Who?” The single word was all she could manage even as her mind reeled with questions that demanded answers.

             
“The Empress.”

             
Autumn's brows furrowed in an inability to understand.

             
Soren gave an apologetic gaze before he clarified. “Shortly after your sleep began, the Queen made herself Empress.”

             
Horror washed across Autumn's face. Its waves spread as pure white, robbing her olive skin of its natural hue. “Aurea?” she whispered in disbelief. “My Aurea has done this?” Her insides retched. She shook her head with a whimper, not wanting to see the unabashed truth staring back at her. “No,” she rasped. The single word left her again and again in an effort to convince herself rather than to argue with Soren. “No, it can't be true.”

             
“It
is
true.” Soren's voice was low and stern. If Autumn could not see Aurea for what she was then she could not help them in standing against her.

             
“She wouldn't do this!”

             
“Why?” Soren demanded. “Why wouldn't she do this?” His heart sank down to the depths of his stomach as he heard Autumn's tragic sobs. He forced himself to go on, forced himself to make her see. “We both have seen Aurea's rage, seen her hatred of the druids surface. Is it so hard to believe that she could do this?” He moved closer to her, speaking in conspiratorial tones. “She hunts us down, Autumn. She hunts us down like dogs. She has turned all of Pyros against us, forbidding our people to worship the Dragon.”

             
Autumn's tear-stained face rose sharply. Her eyes were wild with emotion. “She has spoken against the Dragon Mother?”

             
Soren nodded. “Those who worship the Mother are deemed treasonous. She has outlawed our religion. Only her religion remains in the open.”

             
“Her religion?”

             
“She's created a religion devoted to what she deems the Light. In it, she is all but a god, a savior to her people.”

             
Autumn clutched her head. “I--- I don't understand. She was that to us already.”

             
“Yes, but now there is no Dragon Mother to cast Her shadow over her. There is also no risk of a chosen successor coming to replace her.”

             
A dark shadow fell over Soren's face. “There is more,” he added hoarsely. He drew in a deep breath. “Aurea has seized Logos. Her armies inhabit the Holy Land.”

             
Unable to take another word, Autumn rushed to the water's edge. She heaved mightily, letting loose the bitterness that was rising inside her. She coughed and cried in the aftermath. Her matted eyelashes blinked hard. She stared through the haze of tears to the fish greedily rising up to the surface of the water to feed. She could not look. She closed her eyes fiercely then turned her head away.

             
“If only I had been here,” she whispered. “Maybe I could have... I could have...”

             
“No,” Soren soothed. “This is not your burden to carry. It wasn't your fault.”

             
Autumn's hand rose to her mouth as she cried soundlessly.

             
“Fault lies with Aurea,” Soren seethed. “She's the monster. She's the beast!”

             
Saddened eyes faded from glistening blue-gray to the dull pale of silver.

             
Soren read their emotions as painted colors of descriptive auras.

             
I could have tamed the beast
, he saw.
I could have soothed her venomous bites.
Or so Autumn foolishly believed.

             
“Don't,” he whispered protectively. “Don't do this to yourself, little one.”

             
Autumn weakly clawed at a cold mossy stone. She used the large constant to push herself upward. Her body swayed as she fought to stand. Then clutching her aching sides, she staggered alone into the darkness.

             
Soren gazed after her with tears running hotly down his cheeks.

             
“Soren,” he heard timidly.

             
“Yes, Zahara?” he whispered.

             
“Should we... I mean... do you think that maybe we ought to---”

             
“No,” he said. “She needs time to be alone. After all, she must process in hours what we have had two years to know.” Soren sighed sadly. “Let her go.”

********

              Morning was breaking. Its touch swept across the sky lazily in an effort to prolong the night.

             
The warriors worked throughout the day gathering their supplies. They had decided that they would leave the oasis beneath the cover of nightfall. It was their hope that they would be able to cover more ground if not beaten by the desert sun.

             
They refilled their water canteens at the water's edge in preparation for the long journey ahead. They packed fresh fruit while other fruits were packed away to be dried. Fish was salted and dried in pouches. If all went according to plan, their supplies would sustain them until they ventured from the desert and could replenish them in the nearest province. Still, there was no guarantee that they would be able to restock their provisions safely. No doubt every bordering province to Endless Sun had been advised to keep watch for Autumn and her captors.

From this point on, it would be a dangerous struggle for survival. Agents of the Empire would be everywhere. One mistake, one unnecessary delay and it could mean the difference between arriving to Angels safely and being whisked away to Aurea's prisons. They all knew this. They all feared it. And yet, it remained unsaid.

              As dusk softened the vibrant nature of the sky, airy white garments were swaddled about their bodies.

             
Through her protective glasses, Zahara gazed up at the sky. She could scarcely see the light peeking its way through the canopy. With a slight frown, she lowered her eyes. Her gaze fell upon the druid, who had only just finished aiding the others in gathering the last of the lizards for transport.

             
“Where is Autumn?” the lead Guardian asked softly.

             
“She has yet to return,” Soren answered. He pulled at the strap of the saddle, affixing it to the lizard’s strong body.

             
Zahara fell prey to a consuming fear though she masked it behind her cowl.

             
A touch brought the statuesque woman from the clutches of that fright. Zahara turned her head. Gazing over her shoulder, she saw Autumn.

             
The young woman held her head down. Long chocolate waves spilled around her face to keep it possessively hidden from the world. Her hand upon the Guardian's shoulder was soft, but reassuring. She gently squeezed at the shoulder within her grasp before allowing her hand to fall away. Silently, she walked to the clothes laid out for her. She slipped into them mechanically. Then without a word, she went to the lizard meant for her.

             
Zahara looked after her in concern and wonder. She longed to take the young woman to the side and see for herself how the princess was fairing but there was no time for that. They had so much ground to cover and so little time.

Chapter Fifteen

Promise
s are forever. Pity that they are but mere words unless behind them lies the conviction to mean what is said.

---Book of Wrath

********

             
In the distant hills, the horizon caught fire. It showered the land with sweeping oranges and pinks, but still it could not suppress the powerful golden-yellow which stirred its heart or even the unabashed glory of furious red.             

             
King Angelos III gazed out across his land. Dusk bathed everything in its warm light. Yet even it could not soften the horrible truth of what he knew waited just outside his reach. For three long months, the Empress had loomed outside his borders. She had been waiting, always waiting. It sent an icy chill sweeping over his skin.

              There was something looming in the air. He could feel it so distinctly. The Oracle had
said that this would be the day when hope died. What had she meant? Was Autumn in danger? He almost huffed darkly. Of course she was in danger. She had been from the very instant she had left the temple. He frowned as the rethought that. In reality, Autumn had been in danger from the moment she moved to be at Aurea's side.

             
He turned away from the windows. The light sent prisms dancing against the snow-capped peaks of his dark wavy hair. The time of hellish waiting was reflected so greatly inside his face. The beauty of his strong features had worn. His proud jaw was hidden now beneath thick waves. Inside the beard of chocolate curls, paling swirls of cream ran directly down his chin.

             
His eyes were weary. Their crisp blue was dim. A shadow remained beneath them to bring about the onset of old age.

             
Angelos III walked slowly. His warrior's body had gone. It had died a warrior's death while fighting against fatigue. He was slender now with slumped shoulders. Once his hand had been legendary for how it wielded a sword, but now it was known for how dependently it cleaved to a cane.

             
He loathed what he had become. And yet, what other choice had he had? His children had been his entire life. When they left, the life he had created around them had fallen apart.

             
His only son had chosen a life without honor, without a care for anything beyond power and wealth. Each day Angelos III lived with the knowledge that the one meant to carry his name into the future was tainting it instead. With each progressive step his son took toward his materialistic ideals, he brought shame to his father and to their honorable ancestors.

             
Angelos’ only daughter had been his greatest heartache. The one in whom his hopes had been greatest had gone and with her so too had his beliefs in hopeful things. She had taken up a sword against him. Her willingness to fight for love, he could have accepted. Even her path to defy him would have been something he could have respected over time, but it was the person she had chosen to do these things for which caused him anguish. She had chosen to die rather than stay with him and for what… for whom? For Aurea, the bringer of not Light as she would claim, but Death.

             
His chest tightened. Can love truly make us so blind, he wondered. What face must Aurea have presented to his daughter in order to hide the monstrous one she truly possessed?

             
The years had been filled with so many painful memories.

             
Angelos III wondered where he had failed his children. As he fell into his throne, he also wondered how he had failed them. But the wheres and the hows of what had happened suddenly didn't seem as important as a door creaked open.

             
Slowly, he lifted his eyes.

             
The eyes which had seen so much momentarily lost all sight. That is, they lost all vision but the last one permitted to touch their haunted depths.

             
The man who had sent countless armies crashing to their knees fell to his own. He blindly stared at his trembling hands. Desperately, he clawed at the castle floor in an attempt to clasp hold of the moment before it escaped him like so much had escaped him. He cried soundlessly, the only tell being his huffed breaths as they struggled past his lips. His heart leapt up to his throat as soft hands cupped his gaunt face.

             
The world at Autumn’s back was warm and ethereal. It caught in every sparkling fleck of dust to dance inside the air, but never did it catch with such grace as it did inside the auburn strands intermingling within her dark sienna hair.

             
Angelos III reached upward timidly. His fingers lingered so close to her face that he wondered if perhaps this were yet another dream from which he would soon wake. The warmth he felt so near to his touch gave him a floundering hope, but even as he dared to hope, fear caused him to reject it. The woman he saw was little more than a silhouette, little more than a familiar line of shadows. She could have been his wife. She could have been his daughter. Who could tell when it came to dreams?

             
“Sweet father,” he heard spoken softly. “What have they done to you?”

             
In that moment, he crushed Autumn to him with a strength he had thought lost. He held her for every parent who has ever lost a child and in so doing, their way. He held her with the fear that Fate might change its mind upon a whim and whisk Autumn away. But the skies did not collapse. The earth did not crumble and Fate was kind that day.

             
Autumn closed her eyes inside their embrace. She slipped her arms around her father, amazed at how slim his body had grown. He felt frail. She felt the trickles of tears run down her cheeks as she envisioned the shallow light inside his eyes.

             
“Fault lies with Aurea. She's the monster. She's the beast!”
The words raced to the forefront of Autumn's mind. Aurea was the reason why her father had wasted away to nothing. She buried her face in his hair, ashamed that she had brought this curse onto her family.

             
The figures silently looming in shadows did not speak for fear that they might somehow shatter the fragility of this moment. And yet despite the rescuers desire to protect the bond, the stillness was savagely broken by a sudden burst of movement.

             
“My King!” a young messenger cried as he pushed through the newly-returned entourage. His eyes were panicked. “The Empress!”

             
Autumn's hands gripped more fiercely at her father's robes. She all but clawed at his ebony cape. She opened her eyes to glare venomously in the distant direction of her land's borders. “She's here,” she whispered knowingly. She could feel her teeming throughout every conceivable fiber of her body.

             
The messenger took a single hesitant step forward. His eyes focused on Zahara. “She is demanding to speak with you, Honored Guardian.”

             
Zahara arched her brow before looking away to her King.

             
The allies had been living within the castle of Angels for weeks now, hoping against hope that the team of soldiers would return. It was Frost who voiced what his comrades were thinking.

             
“It's a trap,” he uttered coolly. “She knows that you would entrust Zahara with such an important mission. If she demands to see Zahara but she does not appear then it will serve as confirmation that she is away on a mission.”

             
“She's taunting you, Uncle,” Echo growled. Her eyes glared out the windows in Aurea's direction. “She believes the mission has already failed.” Her jaw clenched at the thought of Aurea's arrogance.

             
As Angelos III held Autumn within his arms, he suddenly realized that nothing else mattered. Not Aurea and her games, nothing. “Ignore her,” he said. “She has darkened our borders long enough.” He softly smiled into Autumn's gaze. “You are home. That's all that matters.”

             
“No, father,” Autumn said. Her voice was filled with something he did not recognize. “It's not all that matters.”

             
The King frowned slightly. What did he see in Autumn's eyes? She was different somehow. He had no time to discover how because his daughter pulled away from his grasp.

             
Autumn stood before her father's counsel. In that moment, she appeared more like the ruler of Angels than her father had been since losing his children. She gave a softly spoken command. Its firmness left no room for questioning. “Zahara,” she said.

             
The lead Guardian took a step forward.

             
“Ready the Guardians.”

             
“At once, my Princess.” Zahara bowed then respectfully took her leave.

             
“Daughter?” Angelos III hesitated. He stared after the woman he had seldom come to recognize, but Autumn vanished all too like the lost daughter of his nightmares. Once again, she was gone while Aurea's presence loomed somewhere in the distance.

********

              The Empress left the regal trappings of her traveling palace. The canopy flap clapped thunderously behind her. She stared beyond her realm of silken things as a goddess of the elements. Growth the kindling of all life thrived inside her hungry sapphire eyes. She stood tall despite her petite stature. Her eyes slowly roved the masses of troops awaiting her command.

             
As she took confident strides toward her waiting mount, she embodied the approaching storm. With a fluid motion, she mounted her celestial war horse. Its hoof drumming almost rhythmically against the earth awakened the soldiers to arms like a growling thunder on the mountain. Aurea’s golden armor was the lightning to quicken the sky and her scarlet cape was the blazing flag billowing beneath fury's wind.

             
The Empress realized more every day that they had reached the precipice of war. The time for games between her and Angelos III was at an end. Something or rather someone would have to break. There could be no other way. If he had Autumn, she would storm his lands to find her. And if her men could manage to seize the rebellion's men before they reached Angels' lands then they would serve as a bitter reminder to those who stood against her of what the penalty was for defying her.

             
A loud cry caused all eyes to ascend to the heavens.

             
Aurea felt the distinctive rush of adrenaline coursing through her veins as she took in the familiar beauty of the Guardians descending from on high. It seemed so long ago that this vision had once inspired her innermost dreamer. Their grace, their beauty, they had called to her so profoundly once. She had created an elite group of her very own to emulate their majesty. Still, the days of her admiration for the Guardians were gone.

             
The Empress hardened. She withdrew into herself as one by one the heavenly creatures touched down upon the earth. “Where is she?” she demanded lowly. Her voice heavily enunciated each word with a brutal sting.

             
The land was divided into two halves both night and day. The approaching night sent shadows over the Guardians while the warm light of day shimmered off the imperial forces.

             
Though the Empress could make out the incredible beauty each possessed the combination of the otherworldly veil of night and their omnipotent masks made it nearly impossible to determine the identities of each warrior. And yet, even in the dying light, Aurea's eyes narrowed in on the silhouette of the woman dismounting from her powerful eagle. She watched the confident slowness with which she moved, stopping just beyond the fleeting sunlight. Her eyes moved toward the trident peeking its head over a proud shoulder.

             
“Who?” she heard.

             
Aurea's heart thundered inside her ears. “Zahara,” she breathed scarcely above a whisper. She had been so sure that Zahara was in route to the border. No one had reported catching sight of the woman or her warriors. How had she gotten to Angels? That question soon gave way to a quaking fear. What if Zahara's mission had been successful?

             
There was a quiet laugh which filled the air as melodious bells. “You sound almost disappointed to see me, Empress. Did you not call for me?”

             
The Empress fumed with Zahara's laughter. Her fists balled tightly against the reins. “I will ask you again,” she began. “Where is she?”

             
“This conversation is over,” Zahara sighed. The Guardian slowly began to turn as if to leave when Aurea's rage spilled from her mouth.

             
“Do not turn away from me!” Aurea snarled. “Ever!” Her eyes were dangerous slits of rage. “Now tell me where you have taken Autumn or----”

             
The warrior of Angels stopped mid-motion. “Or what?” Zahara asked calmly. “You do not dare to cross this border. You will have the might of Angels upon you and that, my dear Empress, is a battle you could never win. My King would have every right to your life and it would be my pleasure to deliver it to him.”