Heirs of War, Crown of Flames (2)

Chapter One

The screams came again, echoing through her mind as they were torn from a throat that didn't belong to her. She could feel them, though. Her voice was hoarse, and her chest ached from bawling endlessly for days and days. And the despair of losing count of those days.

The same dreams had been visiting Ariana almost from the first night she and Alec had escaped Kellen's dungeons. Always, the tortured cries. Always witnessing horrors beyond her worst nightmares. And always through someone else's eyes.

She wasn't sure how she understood this new perspective with such certainty, but she did. She knew the hands clawing at the ground to get away from her tormentors did not belong to her. Some nights the same whimpers would escape her lips, but the voice was never her own.

Most nights, Alec would wake her before her dreams reached their conclusion. This time was different; she could feel it. The dream dragged on and on, as if she was locked in the mind of this pitiful person.

The sound of a chain grinding against a metal hook only echoed the way her bones felt as her arms stretched above her head, the chains forcing her up and up until her toes dangled across a floor slick with her own blood. She cried out in agony when her shoulder slipped from its socket.

"Please," she heaved, her breaths ragged with the effort it took to speak through her cracked lips. "Please, I can't. I don't know why. I've tried, I swear."

"I know why." A shadow moved from the corner of the room, stepping into view. Kellen's long blonde hair reflected the light from the torches, giving the mistaken impression of a halo. She approached her victim with knowing green eyes. She looked into the girl's face and cupped a hand against her cheek. "Are you watching, child? Do you see how you have forced my hand? Return to me, Ariana, and this will all end."

Ariana's eyes flew open as she inhaled sharply. She looked around the cave she and Alec had taken refuge in—the third since their escape weeks ago—but he was nowhere to be seen. She pulled her knees to her chest, waiting for him to come back and willing her heart to slow its beating.

"It was just a nightmare. Just a nightmare," she told herself, but she couldn't shake thoughts of the poor soul trapped in Kellen's dungeons.

Maybe because, not too long ago, Ariana was that poor soul. And she could still hear the crack of the whip and the wet sounds of flesh being ripped from her feet on its impact. She'd never felt so powerless as she had when Kellen tortured her. At seventeen, Ariana had suddenly become aware of her own mortality and how fragile it truly was. Kellen had torn her apart, inside and out.

But Kellen had also awoken something inside Ariana. She reminded herself of this and adjusted herself into a cross-legged position, then held out her hand. In the blink of an eye, a flame appeared just above the skin of her palm. She tilted her hand as she examined it, felt the heat licking at her flesh, but in a comforting way. She knew this fire would never harm her. It was hers to command.

"I thought we agreed that you weren't going to do that," Alec said from the mouth of the cave. He had a sack slung over his shoulder and wore a dark blue shirt made of what looked like burlap over the lean muscles Ariana had been trying not to admire over the past few shirtless weeks on the run. He brushed his wavy brown hair out of his face, his gray eyes narrowed at the flame in Ariana's palm.

"No, you told me not to do it. I didn't agree to anything."

"What if you had lost control while I was gone? You could be dead. Do you not understand that?"

She curled her hand into a fist, snuffing out the flame. "I'm not an idiot, Alec. I started small. I've got to learn how to do this since I'm destined to rule the worlds, or whatever."