The Flame of Wrath (3 page)

             
She shifted uncomfortably under the weight of the heavy golden armor being placed upon her small chest. She doubted she could stand with it let alone cross any great distance. That doubt increased to something much worse when the golden seal was returned to its place around her neck. It hung by a soft rope of dark red. The ornate weight made it hard to breathe.

             
“As you know, the druid home lies within the heart of Pyros,” Soren began. “The arduous task before you is this: You must reach the palace atop the Fire Peak.” His words loomed in the air for an eternity. “You may take as long as you wish in your journey. You are free to accept aide from your people such as food, shelter or drink, but under no circumstances are you to remove your weights or allow another to carry your burden. It is yours alone to know.”

             
Aurea bit nervously at her inner cheek. She nodded her head. It caused her curls to tumble awkwardly. “When I reach the palace,” she interjected, “I am Queen, yes?”

             
“Dear Aurea,” Soren soothed. “You are our Queen now. No test could alter that.”

             
The questioning look upon her face told Soren that she still did not understand.

             
“The purpose of this test is to reveal what kind of sovereign you will be. Will you stand proudly beneath the weight of your people,” he asked taking in her armor and ceremonial weight. The intensity of his eyes deepened as he coolly arched his brow. “Or will you be crushed beneath it?”

             
Aurea's brow arched defiantly. Her face spoke of a youthful arrogance. If she was Queen already then there was no reason for this challenge. She had the power she sought. “This is foolish,” she sighed, “but if it is necessary for me to have my crown then so be it.”

             
Her arms were grasped firmly. Two druids hoisted her unceremoniously to her feet. Aurea tottered and swayed beneath the weight before her legs adjusted to it.

             
Again, a dull murmur echoed against the high stone archways throughout the great hall.

             
“A final task before your journey begins,” Soren said.

             
The Queen awaited his words with a certain amount of indifference.

             
“Throughout history, your predecessors have been asked this question. And now, I speak the words unto you.” Soren watched as one of his brothers prepared to scribe her words into cherished scrolls. “In a single word, describe to us our Lady Aurea.”

             
Aurea's lips parted slowly into a gracious smile. “Virtuous,” she answered. She turned then set off for her new home, the Pyrosian Palace.

             
Soren swooned. He reached out blindly as a vision raced across his sight.

********

             
Screams sliced savagely through the air. Arrows fell from above like bitter rains. One by one, druids were cast down. Their blood stained the earth. Its scent choked violently at the air.

             
Fires rose upward to caress the night. Their brilliance gave a haunting light to a time in which only darkness should exist. To tearful eyes, midnight had birthed a new dawn.

             
From the fiery heart came a figure. She was a feminine silhouette of grace as she sauntered her way through the flames. With each step, she drew closer to the carnage she had wrought.

             
As she came closer, she slipped from the grips of shadowy profile to become a glistening vision of pristine gold. Her face was touched by serenity. Then slowly the true origins of her tranquility emerged as madness.

             
She breathed out her words with malicious quiet. “I am the Bringer of Light, the Mother of Virtue.” She pointed to the horizon as if to point directly to Soren's waiting eyes. “Destroy them all. Leave nothing, but a scorched reminder that the old ways are no more.”

********

             
Soren's gasp robbed the room of precious air for a heart-stopping moment. He searched around him with wild eyes. When he realized that all eyes were trained on him, he struggled to regain some type of composure.

             
Because he alone experienced visions within the sect, he knew that they were waiting impatiently to hear what he had seen.

             
“Honored Elder,” a voice spoke timidly.

             
Hoarsely, Soren answered the plea for enlightenment. “She will destroy us all.”

Chapter Two

Ascend from the life you have known. Let its darkness harm you no longer. Ascend from the bonds which have held you down. Let your servitude to the inconsequential fall away. Ascend, child of Light. Ascend. Yet heed these words. Do not soar so high from your prior darkness that you forget the depths from which you came.

---- The Book of Wrath

********

Among the blistering heat, Aurea blazed brighter than a star in the heavens. An aura of light encircled her every determined stride. Her small profile was a haunting ghost. It glowed and danced as a blurred silhouette in the distance, but each step she managed brought her further from the reaches of the wavering horizon.
             

As if to offer the weary traveler a reprieve, a sweet-smelling oasis broke the monotony of sun-bathed fields.

To Aurea there had never been a more welcoming sight as the tall grass lazily waving in her direction.

The land began a gradual descent. For one whose body prayed for the luxury of stillness, the land was became the embodiment of temptation. It all but begged her to come into the comforting valley found within the cool shadow of a mountain.

              This land ---so enriched by volcanic soil--- had been a Pyrosian pride. Its fertile darkness had birthed the produce vibrantly growing beneath the warm sun.

Aurea’s eyes paid close attention to this particular stretch of land. Her imagination observed how the fields were meticulously arranged into levels. Each tier gave off the illusion that the earth had been carved into omnipotent steps. Touched by fatigue, Aurea could glimpse the weary God descending each step to walk the world.

A woman in a chocolate tunic knelt to the ruler of her existence. In that moment, it was not the Goddess or even the sovereign to which her people swore their allegiance. While at Nature's temple, she prayed with earth-stained hands to the vine which had proven to be such a fickle and temperamental deity.

             
Her skin was bronzed from a lifetime of tending to the harvest. She smoothed the back of her arm across her brow, smudging her broad face with dirt. Her features were strong. They mirrored the sense of duty and the distinguishable work-ethic present inside her dark brown eyes.

             
A hand came to rest upon the fullness of her hip. Her swollen hip seemed all too accustomed to bearing the weight of any given object, but their truest test was undoubtedly any one of the young children playing joyously through the rows of vines.

             
Flowing dark hair spilled around her face much like the grapevines brimming with healthy life. She ran her fingers through her it before removing a tattered maroon handkerchief from her dusty apron pocket. Quickly, she tied the cloth about her head. It conformed to her head, but the ends remained loose just above the long thick tresses running down her back. The ends clapped and waved like a proud flag, staking claim to the fertile lands of her hair.

             
She sighed loudly while scanning the land around her. It was then that she noticed her audience for the first time. She smiled. Her smile was warm and kind. This was a smile one granted their child upon their return, the kind of smile birthed in love.

             
“Hello, young one,” the woman greeted. “I am Glory.”

             
Aurea hesitated. She observed the woman a moment longer before she spoke. “Hello.”

             
“You look hungry and tired.”

             
Aurea sighed in frustration. “I am both,” she admitted.

             
An empathetic expression crossed Glory's face. She motioned the young woman to follow. “Come,” she said. Her every movement was generously inviting.

             
With a slight frown affixed to her flushed face, Aurea followed. She moved with a cumbersome motion so unlike the woman leading the way. When they stopped, it was beneath an airy white canopy.

             
The shade cooled the winds passing beneath the canopy. This light shelter danced loudly, throbbing in a distinctive rhythm. Beneath its coolness an elderly woman with long silver hair sat quietly singing to a young babe. She was every bit the vision of Glory. Whether that vision was a glimpse into the elder's past or Glory's distant future was unknown.

             
Her body seemed frail now. Aurea wondered if it were possible for the woman to have given every ounce of strength she had to Glory upon the woman's arrival into motherhood. One exchanged look between herself and the old woman pushed that theory away. Though the old woman had grown small with age, her eyes possessed the very same strength passed on to Glory.

             
“Elder, I have brought a guest,” Glory announced.

             
The old woman merely smiled and nodded.

             
Aurea was instructed to sit which she did all too readily. She looked down to the worn woven rug beneath her. Blue eyes narrowed slightly on what she thought resembled various shades of hair. She frowned in wonder. The question running through her mind was soon answered by the arrival of three red-faced children followed by five smiling dogs. She recoiled inwardly from her surroundings.

             
Glory placed a plate of cheese, grapes and bread before Aurea. She smiled reassuringly then nodded in an indication to proceed. As her offering was accepted, she turned and retrieved cool water.

             
The young woman clasped the clay bowl given to her with both hands. She drank the waters quickly, but was reminded to drink slowly by a fleeting stern look from the elder. Slowly, she lowered the bowl from her lips.

             
When a dog with happy brown eyes approached to greet her, Aurea shook her head quickly. She leaned back slightly, urging the animal away. Her eyes shifted away from the beloved pet, who appeared almost hurt by her behavior, to the children watching her curiously. She sighed loudly then stared down at the water shimmering inside the bowl.

             
“What troubles you, Highness?” Glory asked as she knelt at Aurea's feet.

             
The dark-haired woman frowned sadly as she took in the sight of the cuts lining Aurea's feet. She obtained another red-clay bowl and filled it with water. Wordlessly, she cleaned the mixture of blood and dirt from Aurea's once pampered feet.

             
It made sense to her now. “You have only shown me kindness because you recognized me,” Aurea thought aloud. She gazed down at the woman cutting fabric from her dress to wrap protectively around her feet.

             
Glory frowned. Her movements stopped just as she was about to tie the last bandage around Aurea's foot. The expression upon her face was that of utter confusion. In her eyes, the question had been poised. Why should someone's stature govern whether they warranted help?

             
“I recognized you, yes,” Glory said, “but I would have helped you whether you had worn the clothes of coronation or you had nothing to your name but rags.”

             
Aurea's brow twisted into a frown. “Why?”

             
Dark eyes watched the young blond eating bits of cheese. She suddenly felt consumed by sadness for this young creature. Aurea was so very young and so incredibly jaded by the world around her. “A better question might be, what kind of person would I be, had I not helped you?”

             
Slowly, Aurea chewed the last remnants of cheese inside her mouth. For a moment, the morsel which had once melted pleasantly against her tongue seemed to swell. It remained there, suddenly refusing to be swallowed. When she finally managed to choke it down, she frowned.

             
Awkwardly, she cleared her throat. “You sound like the druids,” Aurea whispered hoarsely.

             
Smiling proudly, Glory's warmth returned to her eyes. It banished the sadness which had been there only moments before. “The druids are wise. I can only hope to live as they do.”

             
“What is so wise about making me endure this unbearable trek?”

             
“Have you not had the opportunity to look inside yourself while on this journey, Highness?”

             
The voice to ask the question had started the others. The elder had chosen that precise moment to speak softly. All eyes now looked to her as she patiently awaited her answer.

             
“I have,” Aurea answered scarcely above a whisper.

             
“And what have you seen?” the elder asked.

             
“I have seen that I deserve better than this,” Aurea said at first. She paused then spoke again in a voice laced with dreams. “I have also seen the future of the world.”

             
Glory had soundlessly removed the sandals from her feet. She tenderly placed them upon bandaged feet, certain that they ---though slightly big on the young woman's feet--- would help in her future voyage. She lifted her head now that her doting was completed. A thoughtful question left her lips. “What is that future?” she asked.

             
“One of virtue.”

             
“Whose?”

             
Aurea met eyes with the woman who had helped her so graciously. She had not heard maliciousness in Glory's voice. She doubted that the woman even possessed that trait. And yet, something in her question ----perhaps the fact that she had questioned her at all---- sent the flames within her eyes blazing. She took one last sip of water before rising to her feet.

             
“Thank you for your hospitality,” she said by reflex alone.

             
With a confused family at her back, Aurea set out again on her journey. The words of the druids echoed in her head.

             
What kind of soul will you be when you face Her?

             
She glared toward the horizon. “A better one,” she answered bitterly. She fumed as she thought of the red-eyed druids. “---One who no longer has need of you.”

********

           The sun had shifted in the sky. It burned hotly against the back of her neck. Its heat nipped and licked at her skin.

             
A passerby gasped from atop his modest gray mount. He was an old reed-like man with glasses slipping to the tip of his hawkish nose. The disheveled appearance of his riding clothes betrayed his nature. It showed that he cared much more for the botanical wonders he had sketched inside the book tucked beneath his arm than for his actual appearance. “Highness,” he began softly. “Please.”

             
Without a word, he dismounted from his mare. He carefully helped Aurea to the polished saddle. He took the saddlebags containing his possessions. With a slight heft, he threw the bags over his shoulder. Then with a respectful dip of his head, he smiled and was on his way. “Good luck on your journey,” he called with a wave.

             
Aurea stared after him in a state of confusion. What a peculiar man, she thought. She guided her newly-acquired mare into the opposite direction, returning to her previous course. As her horse set out to a carefree gallop, the wind caressed her fair skin. She winced, feeling the sting of a summer burn.

             
Urging her steed forward, she began the trip from the bowels of the valley. The wind flowing down into the valley was a comforting reprieve.

             
Once out of the lush bowl within the earth, she scanned the horizon. If she kept the peaks to her west and traveled north, she would reach the outskirts of the land by nightfall. She hoped.

********

              The sun was steadily losing its battle with her lifelong nemesis the moon. She had battled bravely but the day was near an end and the night taunted her maniacally by gaining in strength.

             
Aurea caught a sound rising up in unison with the creatures of the night. As she listened more closely, she could begin to peel away the layers until at last she could make out the sounds of the nearby river.

The lulling song was one which could seduce even the most headstrong of travelers to break if only for a moment. Aurea was no different. She surrendered to the siren’s call all too willingly.

Grateful to rest, Aurea led her horse to the river's edge. Once her horse had waded to its ankles into the water and began to drink, she found a calm place upstream to kneel. She wearily placed her hands within the waters.

             
The clear waters bubbled and circled around her wrists. She pooled the cool liquid inside her hands then brought the water to her face. The coolness soothed her burned skin. It made the inner recesses of her being sigh with contentment.

             
A noise called to the young woman away from that peace. Her head quickly shot up. She gazed through water-matted lashes. She blinked the droplets away, staring across to the opposite shore.