Page 77 of Of Nightmares & Fire (Elusive Umbra #1)
A woman. She saunters toward me like she is taking a stroll through a garden on an average summer night, ignoring all the death and chaos that consumes the desert around her.
Her eyes lock on mine as she strides into the direct path of moonlight.
It’s like a spotlight shining down on her.
Bodies of creatures and men create dark stains that sink into the sand.
Steaming puddles oozing black blood with pieces of Cerkin antlers still sticking out from them litter the ground and paint the scene around her in horror.
The bright firelight to her right dances, reflecting on her long, golden brown hair and illuminating the deep red sheer fabric that flows around her like an aura of fire. My breath stalls in my lungs when she speaks.
“Now that I see your beauty in person, I see how you have him so entangled in your vicious web, little spider…” The woman says, though her voice is sickly sweet, the words themselves carry enough hatred to kill.
The dress she wears does nothing to cover her scarred skin.
What seems to have once been a pale alabaster is twisted and turned pink and deep red in some areas.
Half of her face is unblemished and smooth, while the other has the same twisted scars like tree roots branching out under her skin.
It’s jarring, yet the way she carries herself makes everything about her dangerously beautiful.
“Who are you?” I question with a demand in my tone; the grip on my blades grows tighter with each passing moment.
Both of which surprise me, though I hope it’s not noticeable.
The turmoil around us seems to have slowed, and time itself stands still as her split smile twists and curls up at the corners.
“You look just like her—your mother.” Her words stop my heart completely, and a heaviness weighs down my chest as I try to suck in air.
What is happening? Who is this? What does she know of my mother?
She hasn’t moved. Though her words have shifted everything within me.
“You have her eyes.” She continues, her own narrowing as she assesses me.
“Don’t you think so, Connard?” She addresses my father, and I swiftly look over my shoulder to see him dismounting his horse.
He's yelling orders, pointing men in every direction, but their voices don't carry to me anymore. Can they see me ?
“Who are you?” I ask again, trying to calculate how fast I can get away and get to where Cole and the others seem snared by magick beyond the dome of horrendous tranquility.
Where is Kyros? Her eyes burrow into me.
Taking time on my every feature. Memorizing or recalling?
Something about her seems familiar but off…
“I wouldn’t think you would remember me.
It was so very long ago, and well, I look a bit different than when you were just a child.
” Her words send chills wrapping around my spine, and I take a slow step backward.
Feeling as though the distance between us is not enough and too much all at once.
The conflicting thoughts cause a war in my heart.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say defiantly as she looks at my feet and how I am pedaling backward.
“I suppose you are right. Your father, the vile man that he is, he didn't wish to tell you the truth. The shadows around your fire tell me that he has gone to great lengths to try to hide you away. Stupid man,” She pauses, her gaze flicking to my father once again.
. A dimidiate smile pulls at her lips as she narrows her eyes thoughtfully as I too look at the man who sired me.
“You tried to evade the promise you made, and that was a wild mistake, King Connard. Perhaps you forget what the deal was?” She doesn't get a response; I can't hear anything beyond us, and I doubt he can hear anything being said either. Her gaze languidly turns back to me.
“You have heard his call, but still you refuse to come where you now belong, beautiful Astraea?” I feel the blood drain from my face.
I know she is talking about the nightmare.
My gaze turns to the endless prison that are the eyes that have watched me in my sleep.
The nightmare that has caused even hours awake to be riddled with fear.
Countless nights waking in a sweat-soaked, choked fear.
To where he tilts his head to the side, surveying, waiting… I shudder.
Blinking away, I look at the woman closer now. Try to see beyond the scars she wears like beautiful abstract art. The air around her seems to ripple the harder I focus on her.
The silence of the desert; the stillness that surrounds me.
Like the words within my head have created a fissure in the realm, a sound like the crack of a whip makes my eyes fly wide, but a new voice breaks into my mind like a strike of lightning.
“Concede to the shadows, only when you are ready to let your fire burn—” My mother’s eyes, pale blue just as mine, burrow into me in the memory.
A wrinkle of pain creases her brow as she takes my tiny hand in hers.
“You are everything they wish they could harness. Don’t let them.
Burn as bright as the fires that guide us to Runerth, and when it's time, let them feel the flames.” I blink out of the memory as lightning strikes between us, throwing sand out like shards of glass.
Instinctively, I shield my face with my arm, and as the sand settles, the cloud of darkness remains.
The crescendo of chaos slams back in on me. Screams of pain. My name being shouted. Gurgling death and clashing of blades. It's deafening.
Kyros emerges from the shadows on horseback, his magick wisps from his body like dark clouds of poison.
The heat inside me swells as our eyes make contact, and he snarls as he pushes the horse he rides into a gallop.
The dark Tsalalerian Steel blade in his hand glimmers as his shadows writhe around it like an extension of his power.
He is charging forward at the same moment that the nightmare begins lifting his mask.
The shadows, so similar to Kyros, whirling around him in a frenzy.
The cryptic woman reaches out for me, her scarred hand throwing some sort of gray magick toward where I stand, followed by my father screaming an order at Cadoc who also pushes toward me…
Everything happens at once, as if I am in the center of a tornado that is breaking apart.
I close my eyes and think of my mother’s voice.
“Concede to the shadows, only when you are ready to let your fire burn—”
It’s strange how I don’t recall much of my childhood. Sometimes I wonder if it was just so bad that I have blocked it all out, or if there was just nothing good worth remembering.
It’s a crushing feeling, not knowing how you became who you are because you simply don’t remember. Was I always so calloused? Are they there from the scars of a past I don’t recall? Or did they develop as an adult to protect me through everything else I would later endure?
One thing stays the same regardless, through memories or none: the pain.
The lack of air in my lungs. The feeling of just skimming the surface and then being violently yanked back under just before you can get a full breath.
When will my life be my own again? Was it ever?
Do I choose to swim, fight the current, and walk out with my sharp chin held high, or do I allow the ocean to thrash me until it eventually spits me out on the beach, all the sharp edges worn down so there is nothing left to fight with?
The heat blazes within my chest. I feel that lasso of fire igniting within me, and from it I know the answer.
My eyes fly wide, and white-hot flame fills my vision just as Kyros reaches me.
He’s no longer on horseback but moves faster than should be possible for being just a man.
One hand is outstretched in my direction, the other ready with the dark blade to ward off anyone who comes toward us.
His eyes, dark as night, burrow into mine, and the fire that burns within me flares.
More flames whip at the scars on my back, and they feel as though they are splitting open all over again.
I think I’m screaming, or maybe it's screams from those around us. I don’t know anymore.
As fire, bright and hot, bursts from my back like wings, a roar fills my ears.
Familiar and distant. Kyros renders a portal, and the last thing I see as I fall is the bright blue of the manticore’s stare.
He lands at the brim of a distant dune, and though I know he is too far to hear me, I try to tell him anyway.
“Protect them.” I whisper, just as I am pulled through the portal. Kyros’ arm wraps tightly around my middle, and I concede to the shadows and let the elusive umbra swallow me whole.
To be continued…