The Stone Of Fire

Chapter 1 - Iliana

The little girl laughed as the ball of black fire danced across the room in a majestic orb. Her laughing abruptly cut off as she realized that she just made a sound of joy. No laughing, she had to remember that.

She shut her mouth into a hard line and remembered something her father told her:

"Devoid yourself of all emotion, Alana. It will only get in the way."

She remembered that line, it was right after he took her pendant and destroyed it. It was the only remaining artifact that was left of her mother. The pendant accidentally stood out when she was training and her father saw it, came across the training field, and ripped it off of her neck. They were both shaking, him from anger and her from fright.

"Do you not have any shame?" he had yelled into her face. He, too, had summoned the black fire that day to burn the pendant. It was the most powerful form of fire on the dark side.

Like father like daughter. Now the girl herself was summoning black fire. Remembering the thought, the young girl got angry. She decided to take it out on the servant walking by the room.

Poor him, she thought, wrong timing.

Closing her eyes, she willed the black fire and thrust it forward... right into the servant's heart.

He dropped the platter and collapsed on the floor, writhing. He was obviously in pain, but the vile little girl did not care. She walked over to his body. Black veins spread over his now bald head as his eyes rolled back into his head. He began coughing up visible wisps.

"Hey, you!" she screamed at the poor servant. "You made a mess, so CLEAN IT UP!"

She knew he could still hear her. She began to pull the wisps out of his mouth faster. The wisps were his soul. He was dying slowly, so the evil girl decided to make it happen faster. She would show her father later.

"Alana! What did I say about torturing the servants? Especially in the hall?"

Or she could tell him now. "Sorry, father. I couldn't help myself."

"Couldn't you?" he sneered.

"I got myself my first soul."

"Those are for the Screams. You don't even have a wand as yet. Now, who's going to clean up the body? Didn't I tell you we were running low on servants?"

Furious beyond belief, Alana summoned regular fire and quickly cremated the man's body.

"Now all you have to do is clean up the ashes. Get a Scream or servant to do it," she snapped, and headed up to her room. She closed the door with a slam.

SLAM! The door to my room opened with a loud bang as someone stomped in. I barely had time to react as the covers were violently ripped from me.

"Hey, get up!" yelled my older step-brother, Fallon. "Breakfast is not going to make itself!"

He picked me up by my hair and left me sitting upright, in my bed. He gave my hair one last tug for good measure before yelling into my ear, "You have ten minutes, so I suggest getting up NOW!"

Gee, thanks. Yeah, you didn't need to make me deaf, you know. Or bald. But I didn't dare say that. The last time I had spoken out to him, I got my punishment when I was in school. Let's just say that the bright purple goo never came off of my clothes and took a full week to fade from my hair.