Ignite || Book One: Fire

Prologue

The palace is in absolute chaos.

Soldiers have previously stormed the castle, taking captives left and right and starting to light fires. Everyone is scattering, trying to evacuate people to safety while the palace emerges into even more destruction.

Amid the chaos, a tall and elegant woman sits calmly in the throne room, watching everything happen at once while she taps her fingers on the armrest patiently. Her hair is as black as night itself, all of it swept over her shoulder in a long braid. Her dark eyes flicker as her large raven wings shift ever so slightly behind her. Even from afar, anyone could see how much beauty she holds; almost a dark kind of beauty.

A small smile starts to slowly form on her unusually pale face when a few of her own selected soldiers brings in a struggling female down a few feet in front of her. The woman that was shoved down keeps herself from looking up at all costs, her light blonde and slightly messy hair hanging over her face. It was definitely obvious that the soldiers had just forced her out of bed.

"Dear sister," the woman on the throne starts. "Were you ever expecting for this day to come?"

The woman on the ground says nothing at all, her arms starting to shake in fear while she still continues to hide her face from view.

An expression of slight annoyance flashes across her face for a few mere seconds, but she quickly hides it with amusement.

"Answer me when I speak to you, Adelynn. You are now in a position where you must obey my orders."

Once again, she says nothing.

"Fine, we'll cut to the chase. Your children... Where are they? Where have you hidden them?"

Frustration takes over her when she refused to answer yet again. She stands up from her throne abruptly and gracefully storms down over to the helpless woman, anger obvious in her facial features. She grabs her chin by force and lifts her face up so she can meet her eyes, allowing her sharp nails to dig into her skin.

When she realizes that the woman before her isn't who she thought it was before, the other girl pulls her face away and weakly laughs.

"You were always a selfish, arrogant girl, Amara. Constantly blinded by uncontrollable envy. Lady Adelynn is our true queen."

"You fools! Did neither of you bother to check to see if it was truly her?!"

"She was asleep in bed, my que-"

"Silence!"

Amara grabs the soldier's throat and begins to lift the man up easily, choking him. Her eyes darken to a pitch black as wisps of dark smoke begin to slowly travel down her arm and engulf the struggling soldier's body. In a matter of mere seconds, the man evaporates into nothing but dust. Amara lets her hand fall to her side as it shakes with frustration and anger, a dark aura still remaining about her. 

"You!" She exclaims, pointing at the other soldier. "Go get commander Rowan. I'll deal with this pest."

The man nods in fear and scurries off, not wanting to be the next one to experience death from Amara. After he leaves, she glares down at woman that remains on the floor below her.

"You were one of Adelynn's maids, correct? Jessica, I believe. You were idiotic to choose my damned sister to be loyal to. Tell me where her and her children are and maybe I'll consider keeping you alive."

"Burn in hell."

"Oh, don't worry about that, dear. I'll have plenty of time before I even start to look forward to that."