Empyrean

Chapter 21

Chapter 21-Eris, Serena

Roof of the Palace

Before Dawn, 9th of Pachon, Year 612

            I have smelled this one time before. It’s in one of my oldest memories. I read once that smell is the sense we remember the best. My eyes aren’t open. I don't find a reason to open them. I am a friend to the fire and have had this dream countless times. The smell of smoke doesn't bother me…unless it’s real smoke.

            My eyes rip open and I am immediately waking up Echo. Serena and Fenix are both gone. Echo still doesn't seem to grasp the magnitude of the situation. “Eris? What is it? It’s so early!”

            “Not early enough for fire. Let’s get out of here. This whole place is coming down.” I am squatting low and putting my hand  over my mouth so she will echo my manner. I hold her hand and start for the door. Echo grabs my hand and points back to the bookcase. I instantly know what she means and ask her in sign language which book she wants. She replies that she wants Les Fleurs du Mal. I know she hasn't read it yet and was planning to. I push her out the door and crawl on the ground to the back of the house and grab the book. I hold my breath for the final sprint-crawl. The heat and the smoke make my eyes water. I flashback to when they burned down my home in the Orange, the memories of the bodies that I crawled over. I can see them now, all the people that I barely knew, but I know loved me. I am crawling over charred bodies with blood seeping out staining my hands. I’m holding the book containing all evil written in simple French.

            I can’t make it. I collapse and throw the book out the doorway where I know Echo is waiting. But that is the last I think of anything else but the heat. I just take off my nightgown, not without difficulty, and throw it into the blaze of what used to be walls. I lay there with my eyes closed waiting for a death I suppose. I wait for a miracle, something that would just come and kill me, help me feel cool one more time. I feel the flames tickle and lick my toes. I bend into a fetal position.

            I hear a scream from somewhere outside. I would have thought it was Echo’s, but it was definitely male. Then I hear another one, female this time, then another and another. I start to count them. I hear twelve distinct voices before I am lifted up into the air by some external force. I don't dare open my eyes. This may, after all, be death. I want to be surprised by whatever’s next, and if there is nothing, I have seen enough of the world. I want no more.

            Then, when I finally accept my fate, it decides to turn. I feel one liquid tear of the gods hit my skin and then sizzle off of it like spit off the road on a hot day. But then I feel more, and more until my body is inundated in cool fresh rain.

            I am still in the air for a few seconds while two voices discuss what’s to come next. Eventually a conclusion is reached and I begin to float again. But instead of up, I float across and down. I know I am not dead. I can feel the hands holding me in the air and the rain landing on my cheeks. I know the path that Fenix is taking down to the ground below. But still I don't open an eye. I think that right now it would be much easier if I were dead.

            A couple of minutes later I am set down on top of Fenix’s shirt under the canopy of wood that kept our codes dry. I presume he puts me on his shirt so my burns don't gather dust. I keep my eyes closed.

            “Eris!” Fenix seems to scream into my ear. I am yanked back to reality and scream like I had just been given the spank of life. My upper body and head jerk up and my nose ends up crashing into Fenix’s head. It definitely hurts me more than him. “Glad to see you energetic.” I must look like an idiot.