An Ember's Tale

Chapter Thirty- Two

Ember didn't awake in the white void.

When she looked down, she was even wearing the same dress she had fallen asleep in. Ember wasn't on the ship sailing through the dark waters, nor was she passed out in a small cabin below deck.

She was in what seemed to be a small shack that seemed very familiar to her. Ember was tangled in thick comforters that she found warm and comforting. She hardly even wanted to get up, but she realized something was very wrong with the chill in the air.

Ember sat up slowly and realized where she was. She was in her home back on the Northern Island where she had lived with her Aunt before she had died. It had just been hers and Timothy after that, but Timothy was nowhere to be found.

This had been her home for most of her life- the one that had burned down into nothing but ashes before her eyes.

"How quaint..." Ember turned to find the shadow looking around the shack curiously.

His cold blue eyes scanned every shelf, every pot, even the one boiling above the fire, which he looked at with a particular disdain. He picked up a dusty book that Ember vaguely recognized as he flipped through the contents before throwing it in the roaring fire, setting it ablaze with a large flash of light.

Ember quickly got out of the bed when the shadow turned toward her. A flame appeared in her hand that matched the one's crackling in the fireplace.

"Stay back," she told him, but her words grew shaky when a deep, dark coldness swept through the small shack.

"Oh, Ember... Will you ever learn?" the shadow clicked his tongue.

The flame slowly began to turn into ice in Ember's hand. Her eyes widened as the flame froze over before completely shattering and turning into dust that flew around her before falling onto the floor.

She turned back to the shadow, and though she couldn't see his face- she was sure he was smirking triumphantly.

"While I do admire your bravery," the shadow's eyes gleamed. "You forget, I'm more powerful than you."

"The Fire Element created you," Ember told him with a fierceness in her tone that she didn't recognize. "It can destroy you."

"Someone has been talking to Fiammetta," the shadow clicked his tongue. He began to approach Ember, but she stood her ground. "Then you should know that I've had control over these powers for well, almost since the beginning of time. And you've what? Known who you truly were since the beginning of this week? You can't defeat me, Ember, though I admire your tenaciously."

"Then why are you so scared of me?" Ember smiled. "You've been trying to track me down since I was a little girl. You're afraid. Afraid that I'll do something. Maybe that I'll live long enough to master my powers? Or is there something you don't want me to find out..." Her eyes widened with realization. "Is that why you're so scared? That you don't want me to find out your weakness?"

Ember saw something flicker inside the shadow's cold eyes. It almost seemed like... fear, or maybe shock. But it quickly disappeared and was replaced by the same cold, dead eyes.

"You think you're so close, don't you?" the shadow moved closer to Ember until she could smell the death and fear that stuck on him like perfume. "So close to figuring out everything. But I can assure you- you only know what I want you to know. Who do you think let Fiammetta into your dreams? Everything you saw was because I wanted you to see it. You know nothing, Ember. You don't even know the full extent of the game I'm playing. I can assure you, every time you think you're getting close enough to revealing everything, another puzzle or mystery will pop up, leaving you wondering what is real and what is just what I want you to see."

Ember smirked, but she couldn't deny the fear that washed over her from his words. She had underestimated Akull before, and that was a mistake she couldn't afford to make again.

"I'm more resourceful than you know," she told the shadow, trying not to let her voice break. "I'll figure out your game."

"Oh, I'm counting on that, Ember," the shadow leaned in closer. "I'm hoping you figure my plan out before you reach me, but I highly doubt it. Like I said the previous night, the game has just begun, and you're nothing more than a pawn on my chessboard."

The scene around them shifted, and Ember no longer was in her old shack.

She was now standing on a giant blue and red chess board. She looked around to see large blue flames keeping Ember from leaving. She was standing like a pawn on one of the squares while the shadow sat like a giant before her, moving the pawns one by one.

Ember recognized one of the pawns he was moving- it looked like the General. She saw the shadow move the General toward a pawn that looked to be her parents. He used the General to knock over her parents as they fell off the board and into the flames.

The General was then moved to a pawn that looked like Ember's Aunt. He also knocked over that piece as it rolled onto the floor, past the flames, and shattered. The shadow then set the General down. He then took a pawn next to Ember, who looked like her brother. Ember gasped as Akull moved the pawn over to his side, where Timothy stood with wide, fearful eyes.

Akull then took the General once more and moved it past Ember. She looked over and saw a pawn that looked like Mark.

He moved slowly before knocking over the Mark pawn as it slowly rolled off the board.

Ember screamed as she ran to save Mark, but it was too late.

Mark rolled off the board and was consumed by the flames.