Joely Sue Burkhart

I haven’t done a snippet of the novella, The Fire Within, for quite a while, so I thought I’d share a little dream sequence.  Dreams aren’t just simple sleepy-time visions in this world, as you will see.  Darius is the High King of Shanhasson, the throne stolen from the legitimate blood line through murder and treachery.  His sister, Eleni, talked him into letting her travel to Keldar to seek allies, where she plans to escape.  War approaches Shanhasson, and Darius is desperate enough for more troops that he allows Eleni to flee.  She’s never far from his influence, not when he can walk in her dreams with his dark power.  She seeks sanctuary with Zahak and/or his brother, the leader of his tribe.

She walked on blood-red sands swept across a blasted land riddled with ravines. A full moon blazed down in the velvet sky, lighting the strange landscape. Ahead, a twisted black Spire pierced the sky. She wanted to run as far away from that Spire as possible, but it sucked her ever closer, her feet heavy and dragging through the sand.

Something in her blood stirred at the sight of that dull-black rock, like worms wriggling in a corpse.

At that thought, Darius appeared, walking across the cracked ground as though he were emperor of the world. She waited for the familiar flood of adrenaline, the rushing of blood in her ears, the vicious clenching of her stomach. Yet all she felt was a spreading warmth in her veins.

Tea. Fire Tea.

Keldar is a hard land.

She remembered Zahak, the feel of his arms sliding around her as she fell. The raw silk scent of his skin, dust and spice and sweat and man. He’d lived hard years of suffering and warfare, of drought and blazing sun, without ever attaining cruelty or malice in his eyes.

A dry, hot wind lifted her hair, swirling strands into her face. She tasted something foul on her tongue, dry and powdery like desiccated corpses. A faint whiff of death tainted the wind, which grew ever stronger, darker, until it crawled through the air like shadowed fog.

Suddenly, she realized the wind and the stench of rotting flesh came from her brother. He was miles away in this dreamscape, yet she saw his face clearly. The cruel gleam in his eyes sliced her mind into ribbons.

“What a strange place you brought me to, dearest. But I like it. I like it a great deal. In some ways…” Standing in the shadow of the Spire, he sighed, a deep rumble vibrating the ground like thunder. “I feel like I’ve come home.”

Closing his eyes, he stretched out his hands. One palm caressed the dull black stone of the Spire. The other reached toward her. Smoke exploded from his palm, thick and blacker than the night.

Fire blazed higher in her stomach. Every instinct clamored that she should run. If that foul smoke found her, she would never be the same again. She would never wake again. The moon disappeared, swallowed by the tar spewing from the spire and Darius.

Death and shadows were everywhere, stretching out across the sands.

Despite her fear, she found herself standing beside him, gagging at the rotten stench filling her nose. Her ears hurt from some silent agonized scream shrilling just beyond hearing. The Spire was evil, Shadow, she knew it, as surely as she knew Darius reveled in the sense of pain and suffering in this place.

“What do you know? Have you won the allies we seek?”

She swallowed, steeling herself to lie—or at least to omit as much as possible. Every fact she kept secret was another weapon to use to protect herself. “A Keldari warrior bought me from the trader.”

“What does he want with you?”

Her heart thudded in her chest, sweat trickling down her back despite the goose bumps crawling down her arms. “I don’t know yet. He—”

Casually, Darius dropped his hand onto her shoulder, and she tensed, waiting for the pain. Pain always came when he touched her. Revulsion slithered through her, her heart slamming against her ribs, trying to escape the cage of her body. The taint in him was stronger than ever, a thick black slime that oozed from his skin.

His eyes were swallowed with Shadow. Smiling, he tightened his grip, his thumb pressing painfully against her collar bone until she feared it would break. She hated this numbing terror that blanketed her mind. She hated the useless sense of duty she still felt for him after all these years. How often would he hurt her before she realized he cared nothing for her?

“You will do exactly as he orders. If he wants to bed you, you will do so as enthusiastically as you went to that Duke’s bed last fall.”

A blazing inferno burned inside her, bubbling up like a volcano. Surely the Spire must be affecting her, too, tainting her, corrupting her emotions. Yet the fire felt good, right, a fierce beacon in the night that blazed in her heart. She had no idea where such courage had come from, such defiance, but she embraced it.

Darius held her close, leaning down to sneer in her face. So she planted her fist square on his nose.

With a roar, he flung her sailing backward through the air. Fire roared higher, wrapping around her, carrying her away into the night sky. Distantly, she heard her brother scream, but flames engulfed her. Hungry, searing fire burned her to a crisp.

I don’t care.

Fire obliterated the world.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 14th, 2008 at 6:16 am and is filed under Friday Snippets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.