The Flame of Wrath (55 page)

             
The advancing Imperialists kept close ranks as their cumbersome might marched into the silver obscurity. As they trudged forward, the Shadow Reign siblings dropped from their mounts to join their men within the thick unknown.

             
Now the last to remain beneath the warmth of the sun, Angelos felt his heart pound. He drew in sharp breaths. He summoned up adrenaline to pass for courage. With a roar, he disembarked from his snowy owl to venture down into the dragon's breath where he was consumed wholly.

             
The King landed violently against the ground. His legs crouched in readiness. Tightly, he gripped the sword awaiting a bodily sheath. He navigated the fog cautiously. He could scarcely see, but while lost in this source of disadvantage, his ears perked to an awareness he had never known.

             
All around him, he could hear the sounds of battle. They were amplified to clearly embody nightmares. Swords clashed mightily. The wrath with which they hit, sent flickering sparks into the horizon like dancing fireflies. Cries of pain echoed in this world of sound. That sound was usually always followed by the muted melody of a body hitting lifelessly against the waiting terra.

             
Angelos felt his body knocked roughly by the departing body of a monstrous beast. He screamed loudly.

             
A snarling wolf turned his head to glare at him from over his shoulder. It was then that Angelos saw ruby eyes lock upon him.

             
Snow white fur blurred within the prominent fog. Soren in his wolf form exuded power and wisdom. Yet something about his muzzle wrinkling in rage to bare his dagger-like teeth made him terrifying and horrific. The brilliant red marring his face only furthered that frightening illusion. A growl reverberated lowly from the depths of his throat before he raced away, disappearing into the soupy fog once more.

             
Those eyes haunted Angelos' sight. He staggered backward quickly.

             
The wolf's retreat meant the brutal deaths of so many others. Angelos was certain of it as the air was filled with the sudden increase of bloodcurdling screams.

             
Frightened, Angelos raced in the opposite direction of the transformed druid. He traveled through the fog with wild eyes. A body slammed into him. He growled then thrust his sword wildly into his attacker.

             
As the man fell limply against the ground at his feet, Angelos gasped. The fallen warrior was one of his men. He searched his surroundings, furious that he could still see nothing. Were his men so blinded by the fog that they could possibly be fighting one another?

             
A voice broke his line of thought.

             
“How does it feel, Hunter, to be the hunted?”

             
Angelos frowned. His eyes narrowing dangerously. He knew that voice. “Autumn, come out,” he demanded.

             
“Do you suppose the druids felt such fear?”

             
A chant grew loud within the air. From every vantage, Angelos witnessed the emergence of hooded figures. They stepped forward with hands clasped in prayer. He could make out the red of their eyes from the sheltering darkness of their hoods.

             
“The druids,” he gasped. Angelos remembered how their ghosts had tortured him within the prison. He shook with fear. They had come for him!

             
He shook his head violently. Desperately, he struggled to regain his composure. “No, we killed you. You're all dead.”

             
Just as quickly as they had come, they disappeared from sight. Their forms were distorted lines of color which streaked within a mystical wind. The wind carried their likenesses away with the hissing sound of sands sifting through an hourglass to tickle his ears.

             
Beneath the weight of his armor, Angelos felt his chest struggling for air. His eyes were wild. “Autumn,” he called frantically. “Sister, come out. Surely, we can compromise.” Nervously, he huffed a solitary laugh though he, himself, was ignorant of its sound. “We are family.” His eyes brightened in thought.

             
The baby,
he remembered.

             
“You can leave now,” he bargained. “No harm will come to you or the baby. Just leave, Autumn. Run away. Hide!”

             
“I'm not the one who wishes to run.”

             
Angelos began to turn in a slow circle. The direction of the voice had changed. Dizzily, he spun around faster, hoping to pinpoint its origin.

  
              “Please,” Angelos implored. “Autumn, we must stop this. Would father want his children at war?”

             
“What kind of man have you become, Angelos?”

             
The voice was no longer his sister's voice. In that moment, it had been the strong baritone of his father.

             
“Stop it!” Angelos took an angry swipe at the fog. His movements were wild and erratic. “Curse you, father!” His sword sliced the thickness manically.

             
Angelos' call for peace had been seen for what it truly was, a ploy, but he did not care. Rage and fear had taken over reason.

             
The King cried out. His sword lashed out at the horizon with all the might of his years of bitterness.

             
Momentarily, the silver wall was divided. Two halves of one body longed achingly to be reunited. They merged together once again. Lost in their embrace, their unified bodies created the return of their inescapable world, the return of slow-approaching death.

             
A question was posed to him with the soothing softness of his sister's voice.

             
“Have you ever seen a grain of sand when it's free from the bosom of the earth?”

             
Angelos' shaking violently worsened. “What?” he stammered.

             
In the furthest reaches of his mind, he thought he recalled a story once stressed to him by their father. It was a story their mother had told them when Autumn was but a mere babe. The fable voiced the importance of never shunning what you are because in the end you will cower alone before your foolishness. He frowned. That could not be what Autumn meant. Why would she bring up childhood stories at a time like this?

             
“What sand?” His panic rose in the wild movements of his expressive arms. Somewhere inside of him, a voice answered him. It was his mother's voice. She was reminding him of whom and what he was. “What are you talking about?” he lamented.

             
Angelos heard the sounds of his ancestors' voices rushing to meet him. Their voices were many. Their words were persistent whispers which bled together into a maddening noise. Then all at once, there was silence.

             
The dark-haired King heard the rasp of his labored breath. His eyes were wide with fear. The silence was deafening. Then his sister's voice returned with a distinction and a closeness which made his blood run cold.             

             
“It trembles.”

             
From out of the thickness, Autumn emerged like a wrathful god. Her sword streaked with unforgivable quickness. For an instant, it was a flash of glowing silver that reflected inside storming orbs.

********

              Enigmas held captive within the sultry line of a woman's body, they were a small collective. The Lucidian beauties dressed somberly in black gazed upward to a snow-covered hill. Their eyes focused intensely upon the child who had been dancing and twirling within the wintry scene of her own making.

             
Nestled against the blanket of white were a row of indentations. The last indentation actually housed a bright-eyed child who giggled loudly as she gazed up at the sky.

             
A red-haired sorceress gave an inquiring look as she looked away from the playful child to their leader. “Snow angels?”

             
Serenity had clearly heard the sorceress' words, but she did not answer. Instead, with dark eyes, she followed the humming child. Inwardly she smiled if only for a brief moment.

             
The little girl's happiness bubbled out of her in the form of a joyously carefree laugh which slowly proved to be infectious.

             
Bringing her cape a bit closer to her neck, Serenity studied the way in which the Vessel never quite allowed her body to make a full imprint within the last snow angel. She furrowed her brows, reading the symbolism of the Vessel's message.

              When she turned to face the others, Serenity was as always the symbol of poise. “The Empress' enforcers, her angels, have fallen.” She paused then frowned. The numbers were incorrect. The Knights were seven, but she saw only five snow angels. The last one to be made was little more than a half attempt at creating the likeness.

             
“One has escaped,” she explained. Her voice was quiet. Its confidence spoke to her absolute faith in the Vessel's sight. “And we know that the other remaining inhabits the Holy Land.”

             
The ladies turned as the Vessel happily bounced to her feet. She ran in circles around the partially made angel, creating a dizzying pattern of her footfalls in the snow around it. She jumped into a massive drift.

             
All around her, snow whooshed upward as airy lightness. It thickened the air with white. When the snow had settled to reveal her, she was sitting crouched on hands and knees. Her right hand reached out and mightily batted at the snow.

             
The beautiful little girl threw back her head with a loud howl.

             
Where the snow angel's silhouette had once been so beautiful it was now marred by the slashes of what appeared to be claws.

             
As the Sisterhood Council intensified their gazes, the Vessel let loose another long mournful howl. Its sound lingered heavily in the air then transformed into a torrent of uproarious giggles before the child fell onto her side, holding her body as she laid against the pillows of snow.

********
             

             
“Run!” a voice screamed desperately. “Get away! Please!”

             
The last word had been a bloodcurdling plea which was echoed by the painful cries of bitter end.

             
Olivia ran through the tiniest bit of clarity within the fog. Her helmet had long ago been knocked from her head. Her golden hair was matted by mud and blood. Some of that blood, she knew to be her own by the stinging she could feel at her scalp, but most of it had been from the battle.

             
She ran with a noticeable limp. Her tearful blue eyes spoke of tragedy. She had recognized the voice crying out to her. It had been her beloved sister, Leigh.

             
The tears came harder as Olivia ran faster. The sounds of the battle were growing further away. In the distance, she could begin to make out the mountain. If she could only reach it, she knew that her owl would be waiting. She could then get word to the Empress. She could tell her that the resistance was far stronger than any of them had ever dreamed. She could warn her that the Empire was in danger. Virtue was in danger.

             
Her pains fell away. They had succumbed to the numbness of mourning. Her family was dead. She and Donovan were all that remained. And who knew how long it would be before Logos devoured her eldest brother? Tears streamed soundlessly down her cheeks.

             
When she reached the mountain, her hands clawed at the mountainside. She pulled herself up its steep terrain. A shard of light rained down on her soothingly.

             
She wept harder at its ethereal brilliance. “Virtue save us,” she prayed in a sob.

********

              Like the veil of dreaming gently releasing the mind from its seduction, a warrior in bronze began to see through her child's breath. With her kill still twitching at her feet, the Honored Mother narrowed her steel-blue eyes. In the distance she caught sight of a small glint of light. Its gold winked to betray the origin as a member of the Imperial elite. Perhaps even a Knight.

             
Autumn raced into the depths of silver. It swirled around her, protecting her lovingly. She sprinted harder. She slashed at those obstacles impeding her path, but always her eyes remained focused on the glint of light she had seen reflecting off someone's armor.

             
No one within Aurea's army could escape this battle, she vowed. No one could leave to warn the Empress.

             
Autumn shoved her opponent from her path. She did not see the wounded soldier crumpling into the dust. She exhaled heatedly. The act sent her child's breath into the air, as if even from the womb her child yearned to claim its birthright.