The Flame of Wrath (9 page)

             
Aurea stood amidst a sea of others. She felt them crowding her horse in a desperate attempt at obtaining a better look. Her balance swayed violently. She cleaved to the saddle-horn. Inside her ears, her heartbeat thundered menacingly. She drew in a sharp intake of air. It did little good. That breath left her as suddenly as it had joined her.

             
The brilliant flames of her eyes burned more fiercely than any pyre within the city. Those flames focused in soft-blue flares upon the women coming seductively down the street. Namely the beautiful body she recognized all too easily as Autumn.

             
The women were many. They dressed in vibrant colors as bold and alluring as their people. Seven women were dressed in airy skirts of black and red which cleaved to their hips. They held silver swords which sparkled under the fires. Seven other women were dressed in mirroring skirts, but their shades were red and gold. In their hands they carried golden swords which bore a distinctive blade. Their weapons were easily recognized as swords from a nearby culture within the province.

             
With a passionate fury, silver and gold locked in the semblance of mortal combat. Their furious dance reflected one of the many civil wars to touch the Pyrosian lands.

             
Another group of seven came forward. Their bodies were free of clothes yet completely covered in various degrees of red. They were pressed so tightly together in a serpentine line that it was hard to tell where one sensuous body ended and the other began. They traveled closer, winding slowly around the battling warriors. The woman at the front wore a dragon mask so beautiful that it rivaled the one Aurea had worn at the masquerade ball. She acted as the powerful head to the mythical beast while it ominously stalked the women enthralled in conflict.

             
Aurea distinctly heard the music rising in intensity. She felt the drums zealously beating throughout her core. With a wavering breath, she watched the woman timidly making her way through the others.

             
The woman walked with a downcast head. Her hands were fretfully clasped together. Long waves of brown spilled softly around her face. Those tresses fell over the sinewy femininity of her back. Beneath the firelight, the luxury of olive skin was unabashed in its perfection. The glory of her naked body embodied the startling vulnerability of Angels' lost daughter. She was Djidjiga amidst a seemingly endless war. Her beauty was pure and awe-inspiring.

             
“Autumn,” Aurea breathed. The young Queen's voice was thick with rasped lust.

             
The storm of blue-gray swirled with empathy. Sauntering through the warriors, a captivating Autumn moved to stand between the warring sides. Together, she moved with them, swaying in time to the music.

             
Autumn outstretched her arms in an effort to stop the fighting, but her arms were grasped. She was tossed and knocked about in an artistic writhing of forms. Then with a mighty roughness she was spat from the midst of chaos. She landed on hands and knees before the Dragon.

             
The women adorned in blood-red paint were a proud entity. They loomed silently over her.

             
The woman leading the crimson others turned her masked head in the direction of Autumn or in this moment her sweet, Djidjiga. She reached out and took the woman in her arms, sweeping her romantically off her feet. She and the others moved as one as if to spirit Autumn away. Together, they circled the battling women.

             
Autumn loosely hugged her arms around a graceful neck. She rested her head contentedly against a strong shoulder, feeling safe and loved. Then something within her dramatically froze. She gazed upward into the majestic face of the Dragon. Her beautiful features twisted in sorrow. The realization that she could not go with her savior devastated her being like a painful plague. She shook her head from side to side causing her hair to tousle sadly. Her pleading eyes seemed to say the words which refused to leave her pouting mouth.

             
I cannot leave with You.

             
The Dragon placed its grieving child softly down upon her feet. The women in crimson circled their lost Djidjiga a final time before leaving the scene. After they had gone, they were replaced by seductive visions of women glinting in golden paint. They were flame so bright and brilliant that all eyes gravitated toward their arrival.

             
As the flames danced around the others, their erotic forms took on a more predatory air. One by one, the women claimed the bodies of the warriors. They consumed their prey with fiercely passionate kisses. They devoured them as their bodies fell upon the warriors without mercy.

             
With fires raging, Djidjiga stood alone. She gazed tearfully to the sky. Her eyes traveled someplace far from this moment, far from the approach of her death. A touch crept into her reality. It was subtle at first, but soon as she was thrust back to her surroundings, she understood the true urgency of those searing caresses. She could feel the seizing touch of possessive fire.

             
A hand clawed hard at a cool bare shoulder. It tightly gripped the taut surface, determined to pull the woman down.

             
Aurea made a small sound inside her throat which went unheard by the boisterous crowd. Lips moved to Autumn's neck, grazing and brushing along sweet-smelling skin. She watched them enviously. Her heart beat in time with the tribal drumming spurring the flames onward. So badly she wished to be the one taking the trembling brunette into her arms. If she concentrated hard enough, she could almost feel the weight of Autumn against her body. Her eyes transformed from their sensual dreaming. They slit hatefully upon the back of a golden woman rising upward from between Autumn's legs.

             
Taking possession of Autumn's hips, a shimmering woman gazed up into the exquisite cool of steel.  She held those eyes transfixed with her agenda present inside her own heated brown. Her eyes did not shift away even as she witnessed her comrades' approach.

             
Two women slithered upward along Autumn's sides. Their arms roved over Autumn's body. Their lips were the soft stings to preface an inferno. The fierceness of their pink tongues licking along her skin caused a timid hiss. Fuel to the fire, a feast to the appetites of the elemental bud, Djidjiga would soon be devoured. Autumn was powerless to do anything. That is, she was powerless to anything more than extend her shaking hand. She reached out one final time for her beloved Dragon who in turn did the same.

             
The Dragon swooped in quickly offering its hand to save her from the flame, but Autumn clutched her arm to her being and turned away. The Dragon God watched as a frightened Djidjiga refused the help which was not offered to her people.

             
Aurea gasped as she lost sight of Autumn beneath the interwoven forms of golden loveliness.

             
As the crowd watched, women garbed in flowing black skirts rushed forward. Behind their gazelle-like forms, they carried a giant curtain of billowing black. It whipped in the winds, masking the bodies of the fallen. They swirled and rolled until the ends of the silken curtain had swaddled protectively around them. Then they crouched low to the ground, bringing the curtain down with them.

             
The flowing mass of black fell as a darkened blanket over both the women and the ground. Silence mirrored its act by falling over the people lost in reverence. It was only after the choking hush had released them that one by one throughout the crowd, people began to voice their cries for life.

             
“Long live Djidjiga!” one said. While another soon followed with, “We will never forget!” Its voice was echoed by, “Live again, fallen star!”

             
The Queen stared around her with a look of confusion and wonder. They praised the lost child as though she were a demigod, as though she were a Dragon Child.

             
“Return!” she heard.

             
The random calls for Djidjiga soon lost themselves among a steady beat of fists pumping high into the night while voices gave her new life.

             
“Live,” they chanted. Each cry was louder than the one before it until at last the Dragon returned over the blackened land to throw precious Djidjiga blooms from its many delicate hands.

             
The crowd reached outward to catch the flowers with jubilant cheers. Whomever possessed the flower immediately rushed toward the vat of crushed grapes, excitedly throwing their bloom into the newly-forming elixir.

             
Each dancer rushed through the crowds relishing the cheers as she tossed flowers in every direction.

             
Autumn raced through the people. The cheers around her had grown to a near-deafening might. Her hair rode over the currents of her own speed before it fell limply to frame her face. She had come screeching to a standstill.

             
Amidst the chaos of the euphoric beings, she had not seen the enchanting woman in gold. She gazed up at her with a spellbound expression. Aurea was here. Her sweet Aurea was here on the Night of Bloom.

             
Perhaps it was the music. Perhaps it was the intoxicating scent of blooms which gave her courage, but whatever the reason, Autumn did not run away from the sapphire flames consuming her with the same violence the golden flames had taken Djidjiga in the dance.

             
“Long live Djidjiga!” the crowd cried once more as they spotted Autumn.

             
Their voices broke the spell cast by Aurea's eyes. Autumn rapidly blinked her dreamy visions away. She regained her composure as her head turned to speak over her shoulder.

             
“Glory to the Dragon Child,” she said.

             
Gasps filled the air. Immediately, people fell. They moved in a progressive wave of skin and colorful fabric. Afterward, Autumn's words were echoed with a strongly voiced allegiance.

             
“Glory to the Dragon Child,” the masses answered.

             
Aurea studied the way in which Autumn stepped forward with her head lowered submissively. There was something different in the manner in which Autumn's head lowered. It was not done as the ploy used by many around the Queen. Autumn meant it as a genuine form a respect. 

             
The young ruler found herself reveling in it. That someone whose inner strength might one day command an army could so willingly offer up her servitude inspired her entire body to grow enthralled by her emotions. What was this emotion which clouded her mind so completely?

             
Autumn's hands lifted in offering, holding up a beautiful Djidjiga bloom.

             
Aurea felt the answer to her question rising upward to claim her. Love? Did she love Autumn? Could she love her? She had never thought it was in her nature, but could this be what rampaged throughout her core now?

             
Staring at the trembling flower, Aurea ached to charge forward and sweep Autumn up into her arms before riding away into the night. She needed to know if what she suspected of herself was true. And yet, reason prevented her from doing so. She knew that if she did, she would spurn the holiday which these people loved so deeply and in so doing, she would wound the woman she coveted so profoundly.

             
Gently taking possession of the bloom, Aurea held it close. She led her horse forward in a showy canter, stopping alongside the forming wine. From her hand, the bloom was dropped.

             
“For Djidjiga,” Aurea proclaimed. She smiled beautifully to the crowd as they rose to their feet in uproarious applause. She dipped her head repeated in each direction, catering to their applause before returning her eyes to Autumn.

             
Autumn felt herself succumb to Fate. She knew precisely in that moment what her future would be and she welcomed it. It charged toward her thunderously in the form of a Queen on horseback. She was roughly spirited off her feet and swung around to sit directly behind the ruler of Pyros.

             
Aurea closed her eyes briefly. She savored the arms enveloping her waist. A ripple raced up her spine as she felt the woman mold her body to hers.

             
“Where is High Lord Angelos?” the Queen asked. All around her, there was an explosion of movement. The barrels of Djidjiga wine matured from years past were being opened in celebration.

             
The Queen's knight, Galen, emerged at her side as the silent wolf atop his shield. His lean body made him appear so like beautiful people of Angels. “He is there, my Liege.” He pointed to the ornately designed scaffold built to overlook the ceremonies as a regal balcony. From there, both the ruler of the province and its intermediate circle of nobility watched the happenings closely.