The Chronicles Of The Council #1: The Sun's Tears

Chapter 39: Aebbé - Possibilities

Ardam Vaubadon set his rule in stone. With his iron hand, he executed all the traitors and rebels to his cause. He would raise cities to ashes because their leaders had refused to bow before him.

With every shocking, so-called fact, Aelfraed, blood of Ardam, gets tortured and battered on my behalf. Still, I am no closer to following in my father's footsteps, as Hoyt says. The doubt that doing so is a good path to follow, gnaws away as heated iron sears into my nephew's back.

As every day takes me to the same chamber where Hoyt awaits with more innovative ideas on how to extinguish the flames in Aelfraed's eyes, the routes always differ in length and direction. Some paths are more direct, and other more arduous. With no way of marking the tunnels, and no sun to indicate the direction we go, mapping an escape route is impossible. 

"Princess, you are learning to slow. You need to learn faster. We've wasted too much time! You need to master this. Do you not want to protect your family against the Darkelanders?" His shrill, impatient voice drills through my brain. "Put your hand in the flame." 

Mad. Absolutely insane. There's no way I'm putting my hand in the fire.

"Do it, or -," he reaches for Aelfraed's hand.

Before he can thrust it into the fire, I clench my eyes shut and put my hand in. The pain I expect to sear into my nerves never comes. Maybe the fire has been extinguished, or maybe I've misjudged the position of the fire and my hand is not in it. I should still be feeling the heat. I cautiously open my eyes, and they widen at the picture of my hand inside the fire - the flames playing around it. I turn my hand palm upwards, and then downwards as it remains unburnt. 

"How?" I exclaim in wonder.

"Now, grasp the flame."

"Huh?"

"Grasp the fire. Take it into your hand. Don't think about it princess! Just do it!" Lord Hoyt dips his own hand into the flames and takes it out, holding a ball of flames. "You are failing, because you think about it. Fire is part of who you are. It is your right by the blood of your father and his father and those before him. Your father has done you the greatest injustice by not teaching you this! "

The ball of fire grows until he needs to hold it with his second hand. The fire continues to grow until his arms are fully stretched, and just like that the fire collapses until it is a small fireball spinning at the tip of his forefinger. He snuffs the fire out with his thumb. "See Princess, you should not think. Just do it."

I look at my hand that is still in the fire.

How do I get the fire into my hand?

"Just take it."

So I grasp the flame. I scoop it into my hand and tear it from the fire. For a moment it dances in my palm.

In that moment I see many possibilities. I see it all - and what I see terrifies me to the core. Cities of ash flash before me. A country basked in flames as King Ardam stands on a heap of dismembered, scorched corpses spins in my head. I see myself on a battlefield void of life, lightning flashing around me. Then, as I remember charred bodies in an apple orchard, the fire fizzles out.

Things take a different turn from there. Lord Hoyt teaches me impossible things. Soon I am able to wield flames and form weapons from them. He still groans that I lack motivation and that my progress is too slow as the fire bends to his will in my palms. Aelfraed's beatings grow scarcer, until one day, he remains unscathed.

The same day Hoyt announces that he is satisfied with my achievements. "Aebbé of Ardam, I think we can say that the initial stages of your training have concluded. It is time to set the wheel into motion again."

As he walks towards Aelfraed, my throat constrict, and my breath hitches. My limbs feel like blocks of stone dragging me down the Inwir as I see the glint of his dagger. My mouth is drier than the desert the dwarves live in. Fear makes my mouth muddled as I watch in horror at what is about to happen.

He drags the dagger across Aelfraed's throat, crimson immediately spilling to the dark ground. My nephew gurgles and goes slack. His eyes, battered and bruised, glance at me through his thick eyelids as he offers me a lopsided smile.

My scream echoes through the cave.

"Send the head with the maid to Raven's Peak," Hoyt orders before they hack my favourite carrot curls from his shoulders.