A Court of Flames and Myths

Ch5: A Dark Flame

The male that cried with me was beautiful, in a brutal sense. I watched as he was in the back of the room one moment and in the next his hand was on my head, cool to the touch. He didn't baulk as I felt my flames build once more. He just knelt in front of me with tears in his eyes and a gentle smile on his face. He said that help was coming, and that they could make the pain stop. He kept apologizing for what I did not know.  His words and touching gaze pulled on the inside of my ribs once more, before it added kindling to my heart.

"I have to go now, but my family is here. They can make it stop. They will make it stop, and they will get you free." His words were whisper soft when he placed a kiss to my forehead. I blinked and he was standing. As he turned around, I saw that only the male of stars had stayed, his other original companions had been replaced with two new females.

The one with tattooed hands, covered her mouth in awe and silver lined her eyes. She shimmered like starlight but I saw the difference in her power; a horned, furred and scaly creature wearing a beautiful skin. I saw the dawn in her deep golden hair, water splashed and ice spiderwebbed in her pale blue-grey eyes, a gentle wind held a barrier around her, and I saw the radiance of the sun that shined within her heart. What caught my attention though was the faint smell of spice and warmth, fire. It was a fire of light, stark against the dark flames that burned within me.

The winged male that knelt before me spoke. "Please," he cried. "Help her." Why couldn't he stay? Why did he have to leave? I didnt want him to go any where. The softness with which he showed me shadowed everything that had been done to me. I didn't care about the torture or the pain. I would let my body turn to ash as long as I didn't have to hear or see him break like this.

In the blink of an eye the golden bell fae caught him as he collapsed to he knees with his back to me. His wings, glowing and shining with red highlights before they settled onto the floor. The gold female was still crying when she looked behind her and then disappeared with him.

Hot anger charred down my senses, obliterating the pain entirely. I looked then at the other female that had appeared, her silver eyes bright with caution as she tentatively followed the tattooed one towards me. I heard her voice first, before I registered the careful concern on her face. It was the face of a mother, caring and open. The unfaltering kindness that I hadn't been given in a century, given so freely to a stranger. To me.

Warm wetness was on my face then, and those newly unlocked memories made me shutter as I remembered the similar feeling of my face lying in a pool of my own warm, sticky blood. The scent was of salt and agony, not the dark scent of iron and magic. Tears, I was crying still.

"My name is Feyre," she said cautiously. "We are not going to hurt you." I started crying again as the female continued to reassure me of the safety the blue shadowed male promised. Once she was close enough, she crouched down while the other female looked at the chains holding me in place.

"I have a magic that will help me work through the spells on you, it will not hurt you. I am going to use that to get the chains off of you, okay?" I blinked, the only response I could offer her as the depth of my shredded soul met her eyes. She stood and the sun inside her chest started to rise to the surface, making her skin shimmer. I watched, basking the glow, welcoming it into every crack and crevice inside me. I didn't know how long I had been strapped to this table but I knew then how much I had missed the sun. The memory of dry heat in summer as it baked into my bones, made me smile as I cried in earnest now. Her magic was like a balm, cleansing every sick spell that tried to survive within me.

I took a breathe and yet again there was no pain. In fact, there were no dark whisperings that stuck in my mind. The poison of the spells that had rotted my insides was indeed gone. I took another breath, and I could taste the wind and the rain as it sang to me from afar. Both of the females stepped back as a crack echoed in the room. When I didn't move, Feyre looked at me and nodded. Was it really that easy?