"Kaeslyn - Deep Within" by Michelle Krantz

Clouds rolled across the empty sky, making the quarter moon’s frail light fitful. The shadows seemed to dance on the edge of her vision.

The clouds became thicker as the night wore on, until eventually they completely blocked even the most determined starlight. Kaeslyn had rarely seen such utter darkness. In the castle, there was always a torch lit, and even when they traveled, one was always near to hand.

Darkness seemed to swallow the miserable world, leaving only endless shadow. Torin and Tylora, asleep in their bedrolls, could easily have been taken for fallen logs or small boulders.

Tiny claws scurried beneath the underbrush. A bird gave a sleepy call, settling into its nest. The restless wind tousled the treetops. The nightlife of the forest surrounded her.

But the road was eerily quiet. It gave no sign of the pursuit she knew was behind them. Alaman was a man of intelligence. He would search for her. And when he did find her, he would probably kill her.

When dawn finally came, it was cloaked in shadows and mist. The clouds hung low in the sky. Kaeslyn was readying her horse, tying her bedroll securely behind her saddle.

"Anxious to leave already?"

Kaeslyn did not turn at the stranger’s voice. She gave one last vicious tug before answering him. "As you should be. They know by now that I am alive, or they are not as intelligent as I believed." She turned to face him only after she was sure that none of her initial startlement was still evident. "The hunt has begun, and I am the game. Best to put as much distance between them and us as we can."

They readied quickly, eating a cold breakfast of travel cakes. Kaeslyn did consume one, though more to appease Tylora than to sate any hunger.

Kaeslyn rode silently through the cold, cloudy day. The wind swept down from the mountains in the north, blowing bitterly against them. Tylora and Torin talked softly, hardly seeming to notice the wind.

The day seemed sharper to Kaeslyn, however; the gray sky more dreary, and the naked branches more stark against it. She could pick out more bird songs than ever before, though they seemed to have lost their joy. Even Torin and Tylora’s hushed conversation seemed to be atop the air instead of carried with it.

By nightfall, they had settled in a rocky outcropping. Large boulders surrounded a small glade, almost completely hiding it from the road. Another small fire warmed their food and their fingers, though little more.

After they had eaten, Kaeslyn lay on her bedroll looking wistfully into the small flames. Thoughts whirled through her head, as fast and fleeting as the flickering flames before her. She tried to avoid the more painful ones, but three days of constant blocking and no sleep to speak of caused them to float all too readily to the surface.

She rested her chin on her folded arms and closed her eyes for a moment. The image she had tried hardest to forget flashed before her mind’s eye. Every detail was etched as clearly as she if she still stood in the hall outside her father’s room.

Her father lay on the study floor, his lace nightshirt torn and bloody. Next to him, Antara’s body lay unnaturally twisted, eyes staring in horror from her nearly severed head. The sickeningly sweet smell of death filled the room as blood pooled around them.

Kaeslyn’s eyes shot open, greeted by the dancing flames before her. She gritted her teeth, clenching her fists in rage. Rage for both the assassination of her family and for her own foolish actions.

She sat up as grief and rage boiled inside her. Angry tears filled her eyes, transforming the flames an orange wash of color. Just as her anger threatened to break through her shell of calm, she fed it in a mad rush into the center of the hungry flames.

Not a moment after she had done so, the small fire erupted into an inferno that engulfed Kaeslyn. She had no time to think, no time to react. A scream from Tylora lasted only a moment. After that, all Kaeslyn could hear was the crackling –or was it cackling?- of the flames as they surrounded her.

The wall of flame behind her hissed angrily and exploded in steam. Suddenly, she was wincing at the sharp feel of cold water on her back. Within seconds, the flames were reduced to drowning embers and Kaeslyn stood dripping forlornly.

Tylora stared at her with emerald eyes wide in shock. Torin, on the other side of her, looked nearly identical.

Kaeslyn stared back at Tylora, absently reaching over to touch her sleeve. She looked down in horrified amazement to find that it remained only in charred fragments below her elbow. The rest of her clothes were just as tattered, her dress now indecently up to her knees. She looked from Tylora to Torin in astonishment, then back to Tylora. Fear turned to pity in the young woman’s eyes.

Kaeslyn’s knees buckled beneath her and she collapsed to the ground in a heap. It was almost as if the fire had burned the last of her strength out of her. She felt Tylora’s arms around her shoulders. "I am alright," she said automatically.

"Of course," came Tylora’s equally reflexive reply. She placed a hand on Kaeslyn’s elbow and sucked in a sharp breath as she helped Kaeslyn up. "You’re so cold!"

Kaeslyn shuffled into her bedroll. For the first time since they had left her home, she wanted to sleep despite the dreams she feared would come. Torin had other ideas.

"Kaeslyn, what happened," he demanded, kneeling next to her. With the fire out, his face looked cold and hard in the brief rays of moonlight that penetrated the clouds.
"I don’t know. I was just… inside the fire," she managed to say around a profound yawn.

"Yes, but what were you doing," he prompted harshly.

"I was… looking at the fire. I don’t know what happened," Kaeslyn insisted. No matter how tired she was, she was not going to tell him she fed her anger into the fire. That was ludicrous. As if she could have control over fire itself. Even the priests of Martaro Fire-Blessed could not often claim that.

"Torin, enough. Let her rest," Tylora cut in. She leveled a stern gaze at him, and he relented.

Kaeslyn closed her eyes and was asleep almost immediately.

She woke suddenly in the pre-dawn light, her heart racing, and unconsciously groping for something that was not at her hip. Had she had a sword? Nightmare. The dream blurred into a burst of terror.

She closed her eyes, concentrating on slowing her pulse and breathing. It was then that she noticed that her clothes were still wet from the night’s dousing.

She rose to go to her packs and nearly toppled over as her legs protested her weight. Strong arms caught her and kept her upright. Arms much stronger and larger than Tylora’s.

Though she still felt drained, she pushed away from Torin’s arms and carried herself with as much dignity as she could muster.

"Is it beneath you to accept help when it’s needed," he asked quietly, but got no answer as he moved after her. His steadier gait and longer strides brought him to where her packs had been laid out well before Kaeslyn.

When she did reach them, he squatted next to her. "Eat," he ordered, shoving a travel cake at her.

Her stomach awoke with a vengeance at the first whiff of the honeyed rice cake, telling her vociferously that she needed food. She stared, almost glaring at him for a long moment before taking the travel cake. "I can tend to myself."

Torin merely raised an eyebrow and went to his own packs.

Kaeslyn found the spare set of clothes she had packed and headed for the nearest patch of bushes she saw to change.

It was then that she was able to see the extent of the damage the fire had done. Her skirt had been burned like so much tinder up to her thighs and the arms of her blouse well above her elbows. Yet, aside from what the smoke and soot had done, the parts closest to her body were untouched.

And that is what baffled her. Or at least part of it. While her clothes were burned away, her skin was unfazed; not a burn to be found.