Chapter IX
“I need to
see it.”
“Be patient.”
“How am I to
do that? Even a fat slab of meat ready to be barbequed wasn’t enough to change
him!”
“Aru—“
“No. I’m
going this time.”
It was
beautiful. Entrancing. Thrilling. He never tired of it. The organic nature of
the chaos, yet the controlled and predictable course the flames took. Thousands
of years he had watched it now, yet it never lost its magic. Magic, indeed.
Lazuris
perched himself behind one of the smaller falls and gazed at the distorted
dancing lights through the water. Curious how through the lens of flowing
liquid, the destruction of an entire city seemed rather… droll.
The man
curled his neck back ‘round the falls, his face falling slightly. It was a
beautiful castle, and quite a shame to see it go. No one used wood so
beautifully anymore. It was all marble, plaster, and steel. At least this
glorious example of human architecture met a fitting end. Fire was the most
honorable of deaths.
A sparkling
ember danced away from the conflagration and zipped toward him.
“Did he find
her?” Lazuris asked. He leapt lightly from his viewing spot to a set of
slippery rocks below. The water burned away long before his feet touched down
on it.
“He was distracted for a moment. He found the
two,” answered a surprisingly deep female voice. It crackled and grumbled,
like the burning embers of a fire. Or was that just an echo from the castle?
Yet this voice did not resonate off the walls, nor was it drowned out by the
falls. It was as distinct and pure as if spoken in an empty chapel.
“What did he
do?” Lazuris asked. He watched the castle intently, his eyes fixed on the north
tower. Smoke was pouring out from cracked windows and the faint glow of amber
light penetrated the darkness.
“He wanted them. Nearly changed. The knight
has infuriated him before, apparently. The fires have made him unstable.”
The glittering moth landed on the tall man’s shoulder. A soft veil of steam
clouded it as the moth’s wings singed the sputtering water from the waterfall
away.
“And this is
who he wants?” Lazuris asked. He was doubtful. He never got along with Lycaons.
They were hot-headed and extremely rigid. Intelligent? To a point. It didn’t
help that they had the libido of rabbit. Lazuris silently smirked at that
comment. All they needed was a little cotton tail.
“Taerce is adamant about this,” the moth
insisted.
“I suppose,”
Lazuris said languidly. The Spirit had to be serious if he was turning to his…
subordinates. And Lazuris had been so close the Southern Isles. It had been
nearly four hundred years since he had visited. But his darling forced him to
come back.
“Lazuris. Look.”
The man
tilted his chin up, his eyes darting back to the castle. A small form had appeared
at the cracked window. Lazuris leaned forward; it was a habit from staying on
the lower lands for so long. His eyes were perfect at night.
It was the
woman. He could sense from his Fire Friends that her door was blocked—which was
quite intentional—so she was attempting her escape through the window. Her
right hand appeared injured and the bandage she had wrapped around it was
frayed and charred.
Lazuris could
have predicted it as easily as the position of the stars each night. He groaned
as the girl snagged her linen bandage on the shattered glass of the window.
Desperate to escape, she tugged and tried to rip away. In a distressed state, she
failed to realize how the backward force would adversely affect the already
questionable stability of her feet.
Unsurprisingly,
as the girl finally freed herself, her backward momentum knocked her away from
the lip of stone she had been standing on. Her arms flailed and she grappled at
empty air.
“Shall I—?”
“Wait,” the moth insisted, though even she appeared concerned.
The guised princess began to tumble back, her
arms flapping wildly as her hair streamed around her. Shame the girl concealed
her true form with such unwavering attention to detail. If her hair had
remained its ginger hue, the image would be perfect. A girl of flame falling
into the falls.
Lazuris paused,
his eyes narrowing as the Princess fell. “Is this Aru’mat’s plan?” he asked,
lowering himself, ready to pounce. He thought it was the Lycaon? Why would he
take that one?
“Wait!” hissed the voice from his
shoulder.
Lazuris’
gaze fell down, following the trajectory that the girl was sure to take. She
was falling between a pair of turrets. Jagged rocks and spires awaited her but—Ah.
So that was his plan.
General
Noden was at the bottom of one of the towers, balanced on a balcony, watching
with fierce concentration at the alarming descent of the Princess. The Lycaon eased
back, waited, and then leaped with rapid acceleration straight across the
divide between the two towers.
The General
snatched the girl out of the air before crashing through a window on the other
side. It was perfect timing, especially given the hundreds of variables. The girl
could easily have twisted away from her original path, causing her to be just
out of reach at that moment, or the flames within the castle could have changed
the pressure resulting in a massive explosion from breaking that window.
But Lazuris
wouldn’t have allowed the latter, at least. That area was still free of his
precious little Friends. For now.
“Velrin?”
Lazuris inquired.
“Surprisingly, no.”
Curious.
Perhaps this one would be suitable for fastidious Aru’mat.
“You told me
that you took him to her. Why did you leave him before he got to the tower?”
Lazuris asked, turning to glare softly at the little puff of flame on his
shoulder.
“I said no such thing. Besides, we aren’t
supposed to intervene unless we’re instructed to.”
“Think she
survived that… rescue mission?”
“Did the Lycaon have any other option?”
“True,”
Lazuris whispered. The force of his tackle would at minimum blow the wind out
of her, at worst snap her neck, and most likely knocked her unconscious. Shame.
He still had his big finale to perform.
A tickling
sensation prickled along Lazuris’ arms. He knew it well; it was familiar and
comforting. He closed his eyes and allowed the strings of his consciousness to
be twisted and pulled. With vivid yet haphazard snippets, his precious flames
gave him glimpses of the castle, the areas they had taken and where they were
going.
“He’s going
down,” Lazuris said curiously. He didn’t have to speak. His darling already
knew. “She’s unconscious, as expected.”
Oh, how
Lazuris reveled in that moment. The lightness of fire, how free and weightless
it felt as it leapt from space to space. No constraints, not even from the laws
of physics he had studied so long. Seeing as the flames saw, feeling as their
fingers felt… it was the only time he felt like a Watcher. The twang of guilt
and the latching grasp of remorse tugged at Lazuris’ heart.
“How long
has it been, Karst?” he asked longingly.
“It’s not worth asking anymore. I am you, and you are me.”
The hairs on
Lazuris’ arm began to burn away and he quickly returned his attention back to
the tugging wires from his many Friends. It was almost like a spider’s web with
hundreds of threads. Each of his flames held a thread and could tug at the
strings to get his attention.
Some were
more impatient than others, as demonstrated by his hair-free arms.
He followed
the trails back through his mind. His Friends were chattering; the crackles of embers
were now a harmonious symphony to Lazuris’ trained ear. The whispers, though
complex, could easily be picked apart.
“Both the
male and the female are in the prisoner’s cells,” Lazuris noted.
“Lazuris,” the moth called.
“These
humans always take the strangest of routes. His only option is to leap into the
falls. Well, he’s not human, is he? He acts like one.”
“Lazuris,” she repeated, urgently, this time.
“She’s waking,
now. Just in time to see my friends devour the last of her castle. Look at
this, Karst, all they can do is scream at each other! The floor is quite
literally about to melt beneath their feet and they’re yelling like a pair of
toddlers. I can’t even distinguish it. Is she angry that he saved her life?”
“LAZURIS!”
But that
time, Lazuris didn’t need Karst calling him. A sharp, dagger-like pain streamed
from his temples down to his chest. A piercing screech scratched at his ears
and clawed deep into his mind. His breath caught in his throat and his toes
went numb before his vision blurred in and out of focus with each painful throb
of his heart.
Lazuris
couldn’t stand it. He fell to one knee. His balance wavered and for a moment he
wondered if even he would fall prey to the hungry beasts within the falls.
However, his precious, his darling friend, saved him. She wouldn’t let him go.
The tall silver-haired
man looked up at the landing several dozen feet above him. Fear, something very
foreign to Lazuris, crippled him.
