Wildfire

Eighty Six

Having my eyes freed from their blindness entirely is both a blessing and a curse... It makes it so much easier to flee when I am able to see where I am going... But it is all the more terrifying being able to see what we are running from... The white-hot flames of my father in law as he does his best to smite the guards that have faithfully protected Emrys and I thus far...

None of us did anything to deserve this and yet he insists on carving an even bigger path of destruction than he has already caused in all of our lives... He could not leave well enough alone and leave the Kingdom in the hands of his more than capable son. There is not a single reason for him to cling to power and yet here he is causing such a stir after collapsing the roof of the second to largest ballroom as though this palace was not once his home a few days ago... As if he didn't spend his entire life under its onyx ceilings dreaming about what life would be like... And what life should have been like... No... 

He seems perfectly happy destroying everything he touches from his bond with his own child to the home that has served as both this kingdom's greatest mark of pride being carved into a hillside turned molten mess by the royal families very own flames, but also as the home to its history's greatest tyrant... Who seems not to want to give us a single moment's peace. 

There is so much rage boiling within him so unnecessarily that I myself cannot seem to find a single spare drop of it to be angry on my own behalf that he has so easily stolen so much joy in what should be the happiest days of my life... I had finally been accepted somewhat by my peers... I had found myself a husband who wants nothing more than to fill our lives with the happy sounds of laughter and the pitter-patter of little feet running around this palace when there has been such god awful silence for so long... We simply wanted to enjoy our life together and let the kingdom start to enjoy life as well instead of loosing citizen after citizen to untimely endings delivered by Xiang's cruel sense of justice, or the ships leaving each port every other day. The people here have not had a break in so long... I have not had a break in so long... 

I know that the logical thing would be to leave this place and find somewhere to lick our wounds and regroup long enough to figure out how to take the palace back... I know that we should get as far away from here and Xiang, his beast letting loose flame after pouring flame into the halls that once served as his bed chambers... So much drama... 

I know that we really should not even take the time to look behind us every time we feel a lick of heat from flames that have ventured too close... 

I know all of this and still, I find myself planting my feet and refusing to take a single other step in the direction leading away from the man so very intent on making me pay for the crime of having the nerve to love his son with my life much to my husband's surprise. 

I will not run from my home. 

I will not be run from my home. 

My Husband.

 Will not. 

Be run. 

From his home. 

This is our home. 

And...

We are not running from our home. 

Not now. 

Not from Xiang. 

Not from Cho. 

Not from anyone.

 

...

Emrys

...

I reach for my Moon Beam but he shrugs himself out of my hold faster than I am able to reposition my hands... And then he is running in the direction of my father and Indra and Bohdi as they try and buy us time to escape and regroup elsewhere... And I have no other choice but to follow him to try and pull him back into the safety of my arms as he tries something so stupid as to sacrifi...ce... himself...

Not sacrifice himself...

Before my eyes, Rayne loosens the ties on his robes and they fall away from his body while its in motion, and for a moment I fear that he truly has lost his mind... Shifting completely while indoors is insanity... Any full-grown beast would easily be wedged and impossibly stuck in the narrow corridors, which is the only reason why my father is relying on flame and flame alone at the moment now that he's inside... Or rather... Almost any grown beast would become stuck in the narrowed halls... 

My Queen though? 

My wonderous... Glorious... Brave Queen... Is a runt. 

Small and slender...

Quick by nature... 

And his mind is one of the most cunning I've ever come across when applied properly...

And perfectly suited to be a nightmare to a man like Xiang who has always relied on his brute strength and the fear it garners to control people.

I had never considered it as any kind of plausible option before this moment because he is so outwardly delicate... But he did fight me when he thought I had been the Hirai family returned to assault him... He had struggled and fought and if I had been anyone other than who I am I would have been reduced to naught more but ash from heat that he had mustered with his last conscious breaths.

I've not yet had the chance to see my beautiful wife transformed... But the shift is elegant and effortless as he glides forward and lets his body thicken and elongate while his sinews snap and muscles rearrange themselves...

His flowing mane finds itself stretching along his spine like liquid starlight down his neck before blending into the musculature of his broadened yet still slender shoulders while his skin fades into the most spectacularly golden scales that I dare say anyone has ever laid eyes upon, his eyes luminescent in a way that I think he might see through Xiang right down to his very soul and be able to judge the man in a way that the rest of us will never be able to...

All I can do is follow him as my Queen defends his territory... And derive the deepest pleasure possible when Xiang looks up from his foolishness of trying to corner Bohdi and notices the slender threat of a beast whipping its way through the air on the quietest set of wings, talons open and ready to pry his very eyes from his skull before reducing him to the level of nothingness he deserves.