When Summons Echo

Chapter 4

The bed sheets shifted under his weight as Nikcree stirred. The sunlight shifting in through the cracks and breaks in the wall. The rays streaming through the heavy dust and ash that hung thickly in the air. Nikcree gathered the old bed sheets into his clenched fist and then he released it slowly as he began to wake up.

His eyebrows frowning at the echoing screams in his ears. Blurry faces and a burning kingdom. He couldn't escape the flames or save his people as he fumbled around the tormenting dream.

His eyes shot open as sweat dripped down his trembling body. The nightmare was over. He sat up in his bed and took in his surroundings.

His bedroom sweet hadn't changed much over the ages. Except for the gaping holes in the walls and ceiling as well as the scorch marks of an old fire. His curtains and paintings in his room where torn and fading beyond recognition. Getting out of the bed, dust drifted up from the mattress and retreated from his feet as they made contact with the creaky floor.

Nikcree walked over to where he used to wash his face in the morning upon habit.

Removing his hands from rubbing his sleep and bad dreams away, he found the basin and jug to be shattered into large pieces and barren. Cobwebs lacing itself around the sharp ajar edges. Nikcree sighed and decided to put some robes on. The hinges holding the sliding door of his walk in wardrobe gave way and fell against the wall. Unable to hold itself in place any longer. Nikcree grimaced as his new reality began to set in. His childhood home was destroyed and abandoned.

Selecting through his clothes, Nikcree couldn't find one suitable. Each of his clothings were fading, moth eaten and torn. Their jewels that lined the edgings were taken or broken. Holding memories that now only turned his mind to anguished over the lost. Nikcree was getting more and more irritated as the morning wore on. He grabbed the bed sheet off the bed and proceeded to turn it into a make shift clothing. Tearing it in places, he wrapped and draped it around his naked body.

"This will have to do." Nikcree said to himself as he inspected his new robes. He walked through the large hole in his door and into the bedroom hallway. The walls were scratched up and the elegant paint was peeling off. Cobwebs hung all over the dusty surfaces. The hall had a suffocating moldy, unclean smell as Nikcree walked down the hall. Where he could remember running down it as a kid with his brother, when Meddashia was still young and bright.

Guards and servants had lined the walls, bowing low as they passed them. Their father, the Supreme King of Meddashia walked the courtyard with officials, dukes and other born royalty from the kingdoms other his protection and rule. His ear to ear smile was warm as he welcomed both his sons into his arms. His deep chuckle echoed in the sun kissed garden as his sons talked over the top of each other. Their breathless nanny bowing and apologising as he had finally caught up to the young princes.

Nikcree sighed as he wandered the memory, the courtyard now overgrown and disheveled. Debris dotting the fragmented pathways and broken, bone dry fountain. A cloud of ash from the neighbouring volcano settling in the open space.

Nikcree felt his breath catch as the aching pain pierced itself further into his soul. He closed his eyes and continued down the dark, cold hall.

Every room and turn in the abandoned castle bringing up memories that tore at his heart with cruel, sharp, unyielding claws.

The thrones in the throne room, covered in thick layers and ash and dust. His fingers thoughtfully wiped off the the layer of age at the top of the Supreme Throne. An emblem of a dragon surrounded by a ring of fire revealed itself under his thumb as he removed the final pockets of dust that clung to the stone. He turned and looked down the wide steps to the end of the vast room. Imagining what his coronation would have been like. The room filled with every clan from all over Meddashia and every manner of upper class as the lower classes crowded the streets for a chance to see him afterwards.

There would have been a ball. He would have danced with fair maidens and been introduced to potential suitors to rule the kingdom beside him. He would have the final dance with his mother before she moved out with his dad to the dowager's castle in the mountains. He could have ruled Meddashia as his stern kind father had done, and seen Meddashia thrive until his old age. No of that mattered now. It was all gone, they were all gone. Nikcree closed his eyes as his heart finally shattered into a thousand pieces, till it was impossible to tell if he still had a heart beating in his darkening soul.

He opened his eyes, nothing but hatred clouded all the light from them. He stormed past the thrones to the room beyond. A balcony extended over the eroding city, overlooking the close vast mountain range and the Anire Volcano. This is where he knew he could regain the powers of the fire spirit and avenge his fallen kingdom. Then Meddashia will know who to fear and why the dragon clan was crowned the Supreme Royalty of Meddashia.

***

The scorching, smothering heat blew in bellowing gusts out of the cave entrance to the volcano. Nikcree struggle up the final, sloping steps to the entrance as sweat poured down his exhausted body. His rage and grief fuelling him up to the top. He huffed and drew long sighs, having at last reached the final check point of his journey. He stumbled on shaky legs as he pressed on to enter into Anire's scared dwelling. Choosing not to notice the growing aches and trembles in his muscles.

For a moment Nikcree's vision went dark, but it was not a black out from pushing himself to hard. He had crossed the border into the fire spirits realm. The heat became bearable, and as his vision slowly came back Nikcree could make out a thick, lava waterfall. The cave had ledges leading out over the bubbling cazum of a painful death. A mirage painted images above the lava, and for a moment Nikcree saw someone standing above it. They turned and looked at him with piercing lava red eyes. Then they vanished.

Nikcree stood up, knowing he was in a life threatening space now. The elemental spirits being the most powerful and dangerous being who ever lived. Children of the gods that had fallen to the earth upon the separation of the moon and sun. Who were once believed to have been one; the island having no day or night at that time. Nikcree watched around every corner, waiting for Anire to reveal himself again. Everything in his body was shook with a fear he hadn't felt before. The urge to run and the urge to fight to his death.

Anire appeared behind Nikcree. As he circled him he left a small line of fire that danced in the dime light of the cave. The sudden light and chill that ran down Nikcree's spine cause him to turn on his heel. Although Anire had already vanished from his sight again. Nikcree was beginning to have second thoughts as he knew the exit was so close. Even if Anire grew angry at his cowardess and erupted the volcano, he was the only one in the kingdom. Either decision of flight or fight that toiled in his mind, the only out come would be his death.

Nikcree took a deep breath; remembering what he was taught about the great elemental spirits. Allowing his mind to remember why he was there and his goal he wanted to pursue to the end. A glowing, radiating heat began burning itself into his flesh. Knowing that Anire was directly behind him. Nikcree pushed away the rising urge to sprint off away from the only fire that could kill him and knelt down. Sitting back on his heels, Nikcree bowed his head. Anire tilted his head to one side intrigued that the mortal did not run away from him. Anire walked around Nikcree observing his still nature. Even though Nikcree was actually really scared and was concentrating with every nerve to not protect himself.

Anire knelt down in front of Nikcree mirroring him. Nikcree opened his eyes as he heard a voice like a wild fire speak to him. "You have chosen not to run away from me as so many of your ancestors had done. What is it that you seek from me that you would enter into my sanctuary and risk your life?"

Nikcree's mouth was dry as he gazed into the spirit's glowing red eyes. His voice was almost a whisper as he tried to force the words out. "I wish to enter into a bond with your holiness."

Anire sighed closing his eyes. "Do not flatter me mortal. My kind is powerful, but are not deserving of that title since we are no longer amoung the stars."

Anire drew a symbol between of them. "This is the symbol I will burn into your soul to create the bond within us, but it will not work if fire burns you. Anything I touch burns within seconds. If you have your great ancestors' blood, you will not burn."

Nikcree trembled at the thought of what Anire began to say next as he pointed behind him. "Allow yourself to fall in the the lava below. If you survive, I will grant your wish and be able to bond with you successfully. Sharing your body and mind with you until the bond has reach its expire."

Anire relaxed his hands on his knees, waiting to see if the mortal will pass the second test. Nikcree swallowed the growing dry lump in his throat. He didn't need to ask the spirit what would happen to him if wasn't able to survive it. Without hesitation, though, Nikcree got to his feet and walked over to gaping hole in the heart in the mountian. He stood at the ledge for a moment, allowing every emotion of rage, hate, loss, and despair to engulf him fully. He felt a moment of peace as his body dived off the cliff. The rushing burns of the lava waking him out of it.

He surfaced to see Anire looking down at him from the rock's ledge. Anire smiled pleased to see he had a new bond mate. He vanished and appeared in front of Nikcree, extended his hand to help him out of the lava. Nikcree, however, did not completely leave the experience unscathed. His mother being a water dragon and his father a fire dragon. He was not a thruabread. Parts of his face and body was burnt to a crisp from the lava. The unbearable pain cause him to shiver and twitch after Anire had set him back on the dry land.

Anire turned Nikcree to lay on his back. Holding him down, Anire worked carefully to draw the symbol on Nikcree's chest. Finishing it off, Nikcree became still and breathed in shallow breaths. Anire kissed the symbol and sat back on his heels. It had been three ages since he last bonded with a mortal. He had missed the thrill of it. The close relationship that develops. Anire smirked as the bonding completed. Nikcree's eyes shot open eyes filled with a glowing red light as Anire vanished into ash. Nikcree smiled. Now he was not alone. His wounds began healing into scars as he sat up, adjusting to his new reality.