Flames of Fury

Xander

Well, that went as well as could be expected. I’m not dead…yet. The twins have gone after Mags, Incandis has gone after Kat, so I’m left in her office to wait. I wonder how long it will take the fire-healer to come back in here. I’m sure she thinks I don’t know she’s been out in the hallway all this time, but that’s my job – to know things, to know peoples’ whereabouts, especially around our Queen.

Of course, Mags doesn’t make it easy on me. Nothing has ever been easy with her. From the day she was born Incandis and I knew she was the very definition of a spitfire, and the centuries have only proven that fact.

“You took the fall for him.” The healer says from within the doorframe. “Why?”

There she is.

“Did you want to slap me first? It’s all the rage today.” Technically, Varian punched me, and Mags’ slap was more symbolic than anything. She could have hurt me if she wanted, but I don’t think that was her intention.

Ember’s expression remains stoic, she’s not responding to my attempts for levity. If anything her eyes narrow and harden further.

I give her a non-commital shrug, “he’s my best friend. That’s what best friends do.”

“No I don’t think that’s it.” She moves through the room to face me properly. “You had the chance to live completely in the truth, but yet you chose another lie. Why?”

“The same reason Mags left on her own five months ago. Some truths do more harm than good. I’m her guardian…in all aspects of her life. I protect her life, her honor, her heart. So if saving her brother from her mates is what it takes to protect their relationship then that’s what I do.”

I pause for a moment and turn to sit on one of the couches in Mags’ office. “Besides, I’m ultimately the one who wiped their memories. Regardless of whose idea it was, I was the one who did it.”

“How did that protect her?”

I let go of a heavy sigh because this is the part I’ll never fully understand. “I’m not going to pretend to be an expert, but they’re more than just sparks, they’re mates, their souls are bound. The twins were…dying.” I gesture for her to sit with me. “If she came home to find them dead, she would have blamed herself and she would have wasted away. Ergo, to protect her – to protect them for her – I had to pick between two shitty options. Wipe them or let them die.”

Minutes pass us by in a thoughtful silence. “She trusts you,” I say at last, softly so the silence cracks gently.

“What makes you say that?” Ember tips her head to the side in a very Mags fashion.

My mouth twitches into a smirk as the thought slithers across my mind.

“What’s so funny?” Nothing escapes Ember, she picks up on everything.

My smirk widens. “Nothing,” I chuckle. “I was just thinking of how much you remind me of her.”

Ember looks perplexed, grappling with whether or not my words are an insult or a compliment. For the record, they were meant to be a compliment.

“How do I know she trusts you?” I lean back against the couch crossing my arms across my chest and propping my feet up on her coffee table. “Because she let you within 10 feet of her.” I chuckle, Mags has a physical and emotional perimeter around her. You have to knock down both if you want her to like you.

“Because she credited you with helping her escape. Because whether you’re consciously aware of this or not, you’re drawn to protect her, to guard her. She’s your Queen now, too.”

I don’t tell her this to make her feel stuck, I tell her this to help her understand that for me it’s the exact same feeling. Mags is magnetic, and for us honored few we feel that pull, that instinct that calls to us to serve her. My pull to her was immediate, I come from a long line of guardians so the arrival of our next queen stirred something within me, especially since I was already close to Incandis. It came as no surprise that our bond formed.

For others, like those without guardian heritage, they may only hear the Queen’s call once she deems them worthy or useful. I suspect this is what happened with Ember. She won Mags over, won her trust and her friendship, and once that barrier was breached Mags’ metaphorical siren’s song called out to Ember.

Ember wrings her hands together in her lap not daring to let her eyes meet mine. “I think it’s just more like shared trauma.” She says quietly, shame slicing through her words no matter how hard she tries to hide it.

“Mags doesn’t get traumatized. She can take on more than most and still turn into your worst nightmare.”

“You weren’t there. You don’t know…” Her voice trails off and her eyes get a far away sort of look to them.

“What happened there, Ember?”

She doesn’t immediately snap out of her distant stare, she’s too busy drowning in her memories. I need to pull her out before she gets sucked under for good.

“Ember,” I lean in towards and put one hand on her knee hoping my touch can ground her.

Her head pivots like an owl’s, slowly and without disturbing the rest of its body, and her gaze fixates on where my hand is touching her leg.

“It’s not my place to tell you her story. But, ours are similar in many ways. And I can tell you that if she had stayed there even a minute longer he would have stripped away her spirit until she was just a shadow of who she is.”

“Who is ‘he?’”

“Illian. King of the Drow, a power hungry, soulless savage.” She tilts her head to look at me again. “You want to know what his plan was for her? He was going to pump her full of fertility meds that would force her to release multiple eggs at once. Then he was going to rape her, impregnate her, and quite literally grow an army of fey resistant Drow.”

She pales and looks like she’s fighting to keep the bile from rising in her throat like it is in mine. “He was going to force her to create his brood. Her sons would join his army and her daughters would be given as child-brides to those loyal to him.”

I can feel the burning beneath my skin, my flames sparking to life at her words. With the exception of the day she left, I haven’t lost control of my fire in centuries. But here I am again bursting at the seams to burn.

“Why the fertility meds, what’s that about?”

“To increase the chance of multiples. If she were to have twins, triplets, quads even, it would expedite his plans.”

My teeth are grinding against one another trying to keep the flames in and I have to grit out my next words through a clenched jaw. “The twins she’s pregnant with now…he did that to her?”

Ember shakes her head no but I feel only slightly relieved because if he didn’t get her pregnant then who did?

“No, she was pregnant when she arrived.” She widens her eyes and lifts her brows waiting for me to put the puzzle together myself so she doesn’t have to say it for me. “...Ro and Varian.”

If I didn’t love Mags so much I’d kill her myself. Lying to me and running off is one thing, but to knowingly put herself and her babies at risk like that is entirely another.

I don’t school my emotions fast enough, Ember reads my face and picks up on my thoughts immediately. “She didn’t know she was pregnant, Xander. She didn’t even believe me at first, not until I showed her the ultrasound.”

“Why didn’t she just kill him?”

“If she used her fey fire to kill him, her babies would have died along with him. She wasn’t willing to risk their lives. And then to make sure she didn’t intentionally kill any of his offspring with her fire, he held the safety of her twins over her head. As long as she didn’t use her fire, her twins would be safe.”

Fucking hell, Mags. I’m beginning to understand that there’s no way that could have gone differently. Mags would have done anything to protect her mates’ babies and from Ember’s tone I get the sense that she did go through a fair amount while she was there.

It’s killing me that I can’t just pop into her room right now, pull her to me, and have her unload the horrors of the last five months. My hands comb through my hair with an unhealthy combination of anxiety and frustration.

There’s a warmth that settles over me, like when you lay out in the sun after taking a dip in the ocean. It only lasts a few seconds but I feel my anxiousness melting away beneath the glow.

“She spoke about you a lot.” Ember says softly after a minute.

“About my charming good looks I hope.” I try to smile but I doubt it covers the sadness and hurt I still feel over her leaving and being gone.

This time Ember is the one who tries to hide a smirk. “What’s so funny?” I say mirroring the words she used earlier, which of course she catches, and parrots my response right back to me.

“Nothing, you just reminded me of someone.” Her smirk widens before it turns to a frown. “She was worried none of you would ever forgive her.”

“Yeah, well…” I exhale a sigh. “Now it’s my turn to wonder if she’ll forgive me.”

“If I could suggest one thing?” She looks at me with stunning sincerity, her tone isn’t sarcastic or patronizing. “A sentence of time served? Possibly for both of you.”

“Mm,” I rub my chin in thought, considering her words. “We shall see.”

I relax into the chair, I want to talk about something other than possibly losing my best friend for good.

“What’s your story then? How did you end up defecting to our side?”

She gives me a thoughtful nod, like she’s strategically filtering and censoring the story she’s about to tell me. “I’m not a Drow. My colony was raided a few decades ago, my family slaughtered, and I was taken back to Drow Hollow as a captive. Illian hunted me for my healing abilities.”

“I’ve kept my head down, quietly helped the growing resistance…and then Mags arrived.” She shifts on the couch, leaning sideways against the arm rest and tucking her legs up and to the side. “I never gave any thought to escaping until she came along. I’ve never seen a woman as fierce as her.”

Ember’s smile splits into a stunning, full toothed grin and chuckles at a memory. “The day she woke up in my infirmary she stabbed Illian’s right hand man around his heart with her own claws. She had no fear. I envied her immediately.”

She falls silent again, lost in thought, the smile playing at her lips fading into a comfortable neutrality. “What memory was it that you wiped from her?”

I can’t keep the shock out of my expression, her question catches me so off guard. I wonder if I should tell her, she was the one who told me that it wasn’t her place to share Mags’ experience in the Hollow, maybe it’s not my place to share her memories.

But at the same time if I know Mags like I know I do, she’ll downplay what happened and lock it all away. “I’ll tell you about the memory if you tell me what happened to her there. She’s stubborn and proud, so the truth may very well die with you.”

She nods once, her expression neutral. “Alright, you first.”

“Training accident a hundred years ago. Incandis shattered half of her face. He begged me to wipe it from her so she wouldn’t have to relive that moment every time he refused to train with her thereafter. I wasn’t as close to her then as I am now…not that that’s any excuse.” My voice is small towards the end.

Ember stands up from the couch and walks calmly to the door. She opens it up and it’s then that I realize she’s going to walk out of here without holding up her end of our deal.

“Hey, you said —“

“He tortured her,” her hand grips the edge of the door holding it open, standing with her back to me. “He’s a dream walker, he can infiltrate your mind and you’re powerless to stop it. Beat you, rape you, kill you… your pain is his power.”

I get the sinking feeling that Ember knows exactly what Mags went through, the kind of knowing that comes from first hand experience.

She turns her head to the side, eyes downcast towards the floor. “He violated her mind, and then she came home and learned that you did the same exact thing.” Her whispered words chill me to the bone, leaving a permafrost of regret up my spine.