Memories plague me.
I’m standing in an amphitheatre. I can hear the roar of the crowd urging us on. I can feel the heat from the flames raining down from above. I can see my cousin, Ember, smiling. I can’t hold her off any longer. She’s winning. She’s winning, which means I am losing. I collapse to my knees but force myself to stand. I will not kneel. Not before her.
Worry not, cousin. I accept your surrender just as I will accept your fealty.
Anger and shame twist my insides out of shape. I was aware of it, even then – the knowledge that I was experiencing a moment that would haunt me for the rest of my life.
Though it is a pity, Ember continues.It seems you’re just as pathetic as your sister.
Rage. Heat. Tongues of flame so agonizing I wished for death.
Then nothing.
I’m shaking so violently I hear bones break beneath me. My mind is filled with fire. Crackling, smoking, burning away my future.
Fire.My gift, now my curse.
Another memory surfaces. I see a wall of flame creeping ever closer as I try to make sense of my riddle.
I am something that is felt but never touched.
You will find me at birth, I am present at death.
Submit to me and I’ll hurt you.
Resist me and I’ll hurt you more.
If you use me, I can make you strong.
Learn from me and I can make you wise.
Numb me, fear me, conceal me, but never escape me.
You carry me with you every day of your life.
Tell me, Flint Flameborn – what am I?
The fire was close enough to blister when the answer came to me, a spark fizzling to life in the dark.
Pain.
Another surge of tremors takes hold and I squeeze my eye shut, my outstretched hand grappling for the nightlight.
A final memory reels me in. It’s my first trial this time. I’m sprinting the circumference of the stone arena, collecting flames as I go. If I’d broken my concentration, I would’ve scorched the skin off my palms. But I was Flint Flameborn, a son of House Harglade, Heir to the Ignitia throne. I was playing with fire before I learned to talk.
Only now, that boy is gone.
He might as well be dead.
8
Blaze
Something is crawling up my back. Lots of somethings – a series of sharp little pinpricks. It stings. Or maybe it doesn’t. The problem is, I can’t tell what’s real any more.
I’m lost in the darkness, but there’s so much I can see. I see myself in my bedchamber in Harglade Hall, with its thick scarlet curtains and large four-poster bed. I watch as the red-silk sheets begin to wrap themselves round my wrists and ankles, pulling from all sides. I open my mouth to scream, only I’m not the one screaming. It’s Amaryllis, the Terrathian Heir, her limbs bound by vines that stretch and stretch until …
POP.
