After many months of getting beta reads and advice from my group, I think I have achieved a final version of this book. It starts and ends much differently than the first draft I posted on here. It is the second book in a series so you might want to...
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The fire was bright blue, the flames rising and falling, then standing still and staring. Gold glowed in the embers. The blue color was beautiful, but unreal. It was like the entrance to another world.
Analise stared at the fire in disbelief.
I'm in Hell; this is the portal to Hell.
There was her damnation, flaming high, blue light flaring against the walls of the passage. This was her reward for vanity and pride and lust. Sloth, perhaps. That was four out of seven deadly sins she'd committed, tipping the scale in the Devil's favor. Her childhood lessons had proved true. She was to walk into the fire like a witch, and burn until she was pure enough to ascend to Paradise.
How long would that take?
Eternity.
She turned around to see the brocade curtain undulating and drifting away from the door she'd just passed through. Alarmingly, she could no longer see the door, for it had merged, seamlessly, into the wall. Not even the outline was visible.
Though it was warm near the fire, she shivered. The flames parted, and she saw something further on. A room, perhaps. She moved toward it. Hell or not, it was the only way out.
The passage to the flames was short, and ended at a bed of coals. It was a hearth. She was in the back of a fireplace that was large enough to stand in. Her vision darkened and she knew without a doubt that she was in a castle, and which castle it was. The fire had been built on the left side of the hearth, leaving ample space on the right to pass it safely by. Blue flames rose up, licking the roof of the fireplace, wafting blue smoke across the threshold. Analise could see, through the smoke, a room and, on the far, opposite wall, a violent and bloody tapestry depicting an armed warrior with the head of a dragon.
The fire seethed and crackled. Sparks flew into the air. Twisting her hair into a long rope with one hand, and gathering the skirt of her nightgown with the other, she stepped into the mouth of the fireplace, and then out into the room.
In the gloom of night and shimmer of firelight, the room appeared beautiful in its sparsely furnished splendor. The spacious floor was covered with layers of Oriental carpets; the curtained windows were tall and the ceilings high. Though darkness clung about the place, she could tell that the furniture was very fine, though long out of fashion, and slightly faded and dusty as if there were no servants in the house to clean it. The hangings on the walls, the swirling dragons painted on the ceiling were, unlike those in the crypt, still fiery with bright coloration.
"Castle Drag----I am in Castle Drag, but it looks as it must have been hundreds of years ago." The words hissed out under her breath, and with them, the disorienting feeling that she'd been here before. She saw herself in a red gown, jewels on her fingers flashing, her hair in long plaits, moving across a floor of black and white tiles to pass under the banner of a dragon. The feeling that came with this vision was of deep loneliness and sorrow. The shadow of the lady lay long upon the floor. Who could she have been?
I am walking into my own shadow...toward my own darkness... The words entered her mind unbidden.
As she crossed the uncannily familiar room toward a set of double doors, Analise felt she was the lady in the red gown, and even felt a long train dragging behind her over the floor. She tried to throw this untoward sensation off; she didn't want to be this person, especially if it meant being trapped in Castle Drag, forever.
Inhaling sharply, Analise continued toward the doors, and lifted the latch that held them both together with fingers that didn't quite feel like hers. The black iron hinges screamed, and the doors swung slowly open.
Across the scarred black and white tiles, a girl stood as if she were waiting. Ethereal as a drift of snow glowing in a haze of firelight, the girl was slight and small of stature with golden hair and large blue eyes under honey-colored brows. Dressed in the hues of blue poppies, the girl was beautiful, but aloof, her eyes narrowed with suspicion.
"Welcome to Castle Drag." The girl's eyes fixed on Analise like nails, yet she grinned and curtsied. Hers was a presence that could not be ignored.
