The price of fire
1984 Words
The guards struck him down with the butt of a spear. Morgana screamed, fighting against their grip. Tyran only smirked. “So this is the lover who defied prophecy. How poetic.”
He turned to his guards. “Take him to the dungeons. I have questions for him… later.”
Morgana struggled as Lucius was dragged away, her voice breaking. “No! Don’t you dare hurt him!”
Tyran ignored her cries. “And as for you, my dear,” he said, gesturing to his attendants, “bathe her. Dress her. She is to dine with me tonight.”
That evening, the castle was bathed in candlelight.
Morgana stood in a chamber draped with velvet and gold. The servants had dressed her in a gown of black silk that clung to her body like shadow. Her hair, now clean and perfumed, fell in waves down her back but she felt no beauty in it. She felt like a weapon polished for display.
When the doors opened, Tyran entered in a dark tunic embroidered with silver threads. “You wear fear well,” he said, circling her like a predator. “But you should not fear me, Morgana. I am not your enemy.”
“You enslaved me,” she said coldly. “You chained the man I love.”
“I preserved you both,” Tyran countered. “The Oracle would have slain you. The beast would have devoured you. I offer protection and a chance to fulfill what your mother began.”
Morgana’s voice cracked. “My mother wanted to save our kind, not serve a tyrant.”
He smiled faintly. “Every tyrant begins as a savior.”
He poured wine into two goblets, his movements graceful, deliberate. “Do you know why the beast awakened?”
Her eyes flicked up to meet his. “Because of us.”
“No,” Tyran said softly, stepping closer. “Because the Oracle lied. The prophecy wasn’t about punishment, it was about rebirth. The beast awakens not to destroy, but to choose its vessel. To grant immortality through blood and desire.”
Morgana frowned. “You’re saying… Aliath needs a host?”
“Exactly.” His voice was a whisper now, dangerously tender. “And it will not rest until it finds the one worthy of its power. You, my dear, were born for that purpose.”
Her breath hitched. “No… you’re wrong.”
“Am I?” Tyran asked, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “Tell me you haven’t felt it, the fire beneath your skin since the beast’s awakening. The dreams that aren’t yours.”
Morgana froze. He was right. Since the night the earth trembled, she’d felt a strange warmth coursing through her veins, a heartbeat that wasn’t her own whispering her name in the dark.
Morgana… come to me.
Her hands trembled. “What are you saying?”
Tyran smiled, cruel and triumphant. “That your love didn’t just wake the beast, my dear. It bound it to you.”
That night, as the castle slept, Morgana’s dreams bled with fire.
She saw herself standing on a field of ash, the sky torn open, and from the heart of the flames rose Aliath, vast and terrible, eyes burning gold. Its voice filled her mind.
You carry my heart. You are my rebirth.
She screamed and woke drenched in sweat. The torches in her chamber flickered violently, as if answering her terror.
The door burst open, Lucius stood there, bruised but alive, sword in hand. “Morgana!”
She ran to him, tears spilling down her cheeks. “You escaped, how?”
He didn’t answer, only crushed her into his arms. “We have to go. Now.”
But before they could reach the window, the room filled with light, blinding, searing, divine. Tyran stepped through the doorway, blood dripping from his palm where runes had been carved into his flesh.
“Did you really think I would let destiny slip away?” he said, voice echoing with a strange, layered tone. His eyes glowed faintly red. “You are not leaving, Morgana. The ritual begins tonight.”
Lucius raised his sword, but the air around Tyran shimmered. The king was no longer entirely human, the beast’s power had already touched him.
Morgana’s veins burned. The floor beneath her cracked. Her scream split the silence as golden light poured from her eyes. The windows shattered, the walls trembled, and from the depths below, the sound of wings thundered through the castle.
Aliath was coming.
Drawn by her power, by her love, by her curse
And when it came, it would not come for vengeance
It would come to claim its queen.
The beast had risen.
Aliath tore through the skies like a crimson storm, its wings molten with rage, its roar echoing through every corner of the kingdoms. Flames licked the heavens, and shadows stretched across the land as panic spread like a plague.
Theresa of Celerius stood at the gates of her manor, trembling, her gown soaked in tears and ash. For eighteen years she had prayed for a child, begged the universe for a daughter and now that same universe had come to collect its debt.
She could hear the creature before she saw it, its thunderous wings, the scream of wind, and the faint metallic scent of blood carried from the villages it had already burned. Her guards were long dead, her home aflame. Still, Theresa did not run. She sank to her knees in the mud, clutching the pendant Morgana had left behind, and whispered to the darkened sky.
“Spare her… please… take me instead.”
The heavens answered with fire.
Aliath descended like vengeance itself, its eyes glowing like twin suns. The ground split as its talons struck, and Theresa looked up into its monstrous gaze. She saw no hatred there, only inevitability.
The beast opened its maw, and in that instant, Theresa thought she saw her daughter’s reflection in its fiery throat. Morgana, laughing as a child, her tiny hands wrapped around hers. The image faded as quickly as it came.
Then came the fire.
Her scream was swallowed by the roar of the flames, her body turning to ash that scattered across the ruins of her home. And with that, the last of Celerius fell silent.
Far to the east, Morgana awoke in King Tyran’s castle to the smell of smoke. distant, faint, but enough to stir something primal within her. She bolted upright, heart pounding, a hollow ache blooming in her chest.
Lucius was already awake, pacing the edge of his cell, his shirt torn, his body bruised. The night before, the king’s guards had dragged him away for daring to touch the woman their ruler called his possession.
Now the castle trembled beneath an unseen storm.
“Lucius!” Morgana cried, pounding on her chamber door. “Where is he? Let me see him!”
Her maid tried to restrain her, trembling. “My lady, please! The king ordered”
“Then disobey him!” Morgana’s voice cracked, the air around her seeming to shiver with something beyond mortal grief. “Take me to him or I’ll burn this castle to the ground myself.”
And for the briefest moment, the candles in the chamber flared, bright, unnatural.
Down in the dungeon, Lucius leaned against the cold stone, his thoughts dark and restless. Every heartbeat whispered her name. He remembered the softness of her breath, the warmth of her lips, the way her touch could silence even the ghosts in his mind.
He would have given anything to see her again.
But above him, the world was burning.
The first tremor hit like an earthquake. Dust rained from the ceiling. Then came the cries of guards, the clash of steel, the terrified shouts of men who knew they were about to die.
Aliath had found them.
The king stood at the head of his soldiers, sword drawn, the banner of his house billowing behind him in the smoke. “Hold the line!” he shouted, though fear bled into his voice. “For your king…..
stand!”
The castle gates shattered beneath the beast’s claws.
Aliath was not merely a dragon, it was hunger given form, ancient and knowing. Its scales shimmered like forged blood, its eyes two burning suns. The king’s archers loosed a storm of arrows, but each one melted before touching the creature’s hide. The soldiers charged anyway, their courage born of desperation.
Aliath answered with fire.
Within moments, the courtyard became a sea of flame. The king’s men fell one by one, their armor melting into their skin, their screams lost in the inferno.
Morgana ran through the smoke, her lungs burning, her hair tangled and wild. The sky bled red as the beast’s wings beat overhead. She saw the king fall, his banner turning to ash and she saw the dungeon tower crumble beneath a rain of stone.
“Lucius!” she screamed.
And somewhere beneath the ruin, he heard her.
Lucius forced himself through the wreckage, coughing, bleeding, his arm twisted from the fall. The iron bars that once caged him now lay shattered. He stumbled toward her voice, toward the sound that had become his reason to live.
He found her at the center of the courtyard, framed by firelight, her gown torn and eyes full of terror and defiance. When she saw him, she ran.
Their hands met amid the smoke.
For one fragile heartbeat, the world stilled.
Then Aliath roared again.
The force of it sent them both to the ground. The beast’s shadow swallowed them whole, its wings blotting out the stars. Lucius rose first, pulling Morgana to her feet. “Run!” he shouted.
But Morgana didn’t move. Her gaze was fixed on the creature’s eyes, those endless, golden eyes that seemed to see through her.
A voice spoke inside her head, deep and cold.
You are the flame that woke me.
She gasped, clutching her chest. “Lucius, it speaks!”
“What?”
“It knows me,” she whispered, trembling. “It….. it remembers.”
Before he could answer, a blast of wind threw them backward. They crashed into a fountain, the water hissing as it turned to steam. Morgana felt something stir inside her, like a pulse that wasn’t her own, an echo of the beast’s fury.
“Go!” she screamed at Lucius. “Please, run!”
“I’m not leaving you!”
Aliath lunged, its claws slicing through the air where they had stood. Lucius dragged her toward the gate, their steps slipping on blood and ash. The king’s banners burned overhead, falling like dying stars.
Somehow, they made it past the wreckage, stealing two horses from the stables before the next wave of fire hit. Behind them, the castle collapsed into a glowing ruin.
They rode hard through the forest, their faces streaked with soot, their hearts pounding in unison. The wind howled with the beast’s distant roar.
Lucius reached across his saddle to take Morgana’s hand. “We’ll find a way,” he said hoarsely. “We’ll stop it together.”
She didn’t answer. Her eyes were distant, her mind trapped in that whisper that still echoed through her skull.
You are the flame that woke me…
She looked to the horizon where the firelight danced, and for the first time, she felt it, the connection. The beast’s heartbeat was her own.
Tears streamed down her face as realization dawned. “Lucius… every step we take, it follows us. It doesn’t want to destroy the world. It wants me.”
Lucius’s grip tightened. “Then we’ll keep running until there’s nowhere left to run.”
She turned to him, her voice breaking. “And when that happens?”
“Then it’ll have to go through me first.”
- Writer
