Flames of Fury

Chapter 20

As much as I love keeping you guys in suspense, I do also love reading your comments.

Happy Wednesday!

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Ember

I don't want to leave Mags' side, we've grown impossibly close over these last five months and more than friendship I almost feel protective of her. It started as my job to watch over her, but I've come to genuinely adore her and her company. She's incandescent, and I know I haven't even seen the best of her yet.

I shake off the feelings of fear and distrust, after all this is her home, her queendom. If we're not safe here, then we're truly not safe anywhere.

I marvel at the palace as Queen Ianthe leads me and the other girl, Kat I think, through the halls.

"Magnolia mentioned you're a doctor, but I know a healer when I see one." Queen Ianthe says to me but continues walking forward. "I'd like to put you in the room next to hers, I don't think she'll mind. It would make me feel better knowing she had a healer nearby given her condition."

A sad sort of smile creeps across my face because little does Ianthe know that Mags and I were neighbors in the hollow as well. So being next door to her here suits me just fine.

Ianthe directs me to the room next to Mags', and then carries on down the hallway with Kat. Everything about the palace is so opposite of the hollow. It's bright, airy, and carries a boundless sense of space. The Hollow was cavernous and spacious in its own right, but that space was punctuated with the knowledge that the walls that blocked us in were inevitable. No matter how open the cavern was, it was suffocating in equal measure.

I can feel Mags' power in every detail of this place. The colors are indescribable, they're both blue and purple, but also only blue or only purple – a Schrodinger's hue. I take my time exploring the suite which is equipped with a full ensuite bathroom, private balcony, and a walk-in closet filled with clothes that appear to be about my size.

I'm about to walk out onto the porch when the temperature of the room rises by at least ten degrees in a matter of seconds. I open the door to see if there's a source and sure enough Mags is walking down the hallway towards me.

Relief trickles into her eyes when she sees me, but then she begins to crack.

No, not crack.

She breaks.

She falls to her knees in the doorway, a torrent of tears cascading down her face. I'm by her side on the floor in an instant, my arms wrapped around her so she can rest her head on my shoulder.

"Everything is so fucked up, Ember. I can't do this anymore." She sobs, clutching her hand to her heart in an attempt to keep it from literally breaking apart.

"Mags, what happened?" I ask her calmly.

"They betrayed me, they violated me. My own brother had my guardian go into my mind and erase a memory for his own selfish benefit."

She battles another uncontrollable sob. "And now they've done it to my mates! He erased me from their memories! I'm no one to them...I-I'm no one."

She releases a primal, agonizing wail. "Ember, please," she begs me through her cries, "it f-feels like my heart is b-breaking, it hurts so much. Please, m-make it stop."

I hold her tighter to me, I let her soak my shirt with her tears and her anguish because not even my powers can heal the emotional hurt she's suffering – I can't heal a broken heart. I do my best to help her body relax and help her breathing even out. With the stress she's endured in the last 12 hours alone she could very well throw herself into an early labor.