Page 12 of Fear the Flames
“I’ve lived as a ghost for fourteen years; I can easily slip back into the shadows. You’ll never hear of me or see me again.”
“As I told you before, I will find you in any corner of this world.” He takes a step forward, eyes blazing with unrelenting promise and challenge.
“Don’t let it come to pass, and you’ll never have to fail.” I tilt my chin up, not backing down. “Does arrogance taint every word you speak?”
“It’s not arrogance when I always follow through. Besides,” his eyes dance over my face, “you won’t leave.”
“Your presence is quite insufferable,” I challenge, taking a step closer to him. We’re a breath away from being chest to chest. “That’s enough motivation to run.”
“Yes, and you’re just a ray of sunshine, angel,” he shakes his head. “You won’t leave because I can see on your face that you want revenge just as badly as I do. You want your dragons, and I’m the only person willing to help you get them.” I force my lip not to curl at the mention of him helping me. I hate asking for or receiving help. I’d rather suffer in silence. It makes me feel like a burden, but with Cayden, it makes me feel inadequate.
“You may be the only person that can help me, but I’m also the only person that can help you,” I state. Our faces are merely a few inches apart, neither of us retreat.
“You’re not the only person that canhelp me,” he bites out the last two words. Clearly, he’s also not fond of help. “You’re the only one that’s worth it.”
His words steal whatever retort I mentally prepared, and I become acutely aware of just how close he is to me. I fight the urge to step away from him and stay rooted in place. I don’t have it in me to retreat with grace; I relish in my stubbornness. We stay like this, face to face; the only sounds to be heard over the roar of my pulse are our mingling breaths and the distant drums. He takes a slow step back after lingering in front of me for a few prolonged seconds, keeping his eyes on me.
“Do you remember what the book looks like?” he asks.
“Yes,” I confirm. “But I told you that I don’t know how to translate it.”
He waves a dismissive hand through the air before tying the reins of his horse around a tree trunk. “My head of intelligence can find a way.”
One of the three others that will know about the heist. Saskia, he said her name is. It’s a foreign feeling to hand off work to someone else; usually, I’ll fuel myself with caffeine and find a way to figure out whatever I must. But, if she’s the head of intelligence, then she probably has skills that I don’t—ways to decipher details that take years of thoughtful tuning. I would only be crippling the mission by keeping the book to myself. The sense of failure that swarms my emotions makes me want to scream.
“They keep the book with the high priestess. They only use it at the beginning of their rituals, so the book should be in her tent by now,” I say to distract myself from my raging emotions. “Oh, and let’s try not to kill anyone.” Cayden falls into step beside me as we walk in the direction of the drums.
“I won’t unless I have to,” he mutters. Ialmostsnicker but keep it to myself. “Do you have any qualms with punching? How about kneeing? I know you enjoy kneeing.”
“My only qualm is you,” I say while giving him a cutting stare.
“Ah, but you have to think of me in order to dislike me,” he whispers as we make our way to the edge of the camp. Tattered tents peak between the trees, and flickers from a large bonfire illuminate the dark forest. Around fifty people, maybe more, surround the bonfire in a large circle.
Leaning over, I inch my face closer to his, but I’m careful not to touch him after noticing how he also reacts to unprompted touch. “Murderous, blood-drenched thoughts,” I whisper before sinking to my knees beside him and pulling back some branches of a thick bush.
“My favorite kind,” he winks at me and turns his head, mirroring my actions and scanning the camp.
The high priestess stands on a large rock, elevating her above the rest of the crowd. She chants a prayer in an ancient language while holding a chalice above her head. Her red robes slide down her arms and bunch around her shoulders before she drops them and splashes something into the fire, sending the flames blazing high into the sky, taller than any fire I’ve ever seen. The scent of burning embers mixed with incense filters our way. She holds her upturned palms to the sky while bowing her head toward the flames.
“Goddess, hear us!” she shouts as embers begin to crackle at the base of the fire. I lean further into the bush, eager to get a closer look at what’s happening.
I jolt back when a blinding orange light illuminates the fire and smack a hand over my mouth to muffle a shriek. My eyes stay glued to the flames, something is forming in there; I can see it from here. It looks like…a flapping wing. The priestess raises her voice in a powerful scream, and the rest of the cult sits back on their heels, eyes drawn to the sky. A flame shoots upward, followed by four others. The flames morphed into the image of five small dragons. Their fire-filled bodies flap around the bonfire, circling high over the prayer circle.
“That tent has the triple flame symbol, none of the others do,” Cayden says beside me.
“Okay,” I reply, still looking at the sky. I know we need to move, but I can’t look away from the magnificent display of red and orange figures the priestess conjured.
“We should move quickly; I don’t know how much longer this ceremony is going to last,” he adds. My eyes drift away from the flames and follow his finger. Sure enough, at the center of the other tents stands the tent of the high priestess.
I get to my feet and follow him along the shadowed tree line. Cayden unsheathes the broadsword from his back and my fingers close around the handles of twin daggers. We continue our path in the shadows until we’re directly behind the cluster of tents. I can’t see the ritual as clear from here, only bits and pieces of it from between the cluster of tents. They aren’t organized in neat lines; it’s more like a mixture of tattered linen wherever people decided to set up their shelter.
We break the tree line with steps so light I can’t even hear them pat against the grass. I press my back into the first tent we come upon, and the reality of what I’m doing finally sets in. I feel the pressure of hysterical laughter building in my chest as I stand side by side with Cayden. I’m stealing a book I can’t even read, with information about dragon links, with someone I don’t even trust. I press my lips together so I don’t crack at the absurdity of it all. Cayden gestures for me to follow after he’s sure the coast is clear. We keep this pattern, each of us taking turns to listen before advancing further into the camp. It seems like every inhabitant is at the ritual.
We come upon the back of the priestess’s tent and slip inside after Cayden peeks through the flaps. It’s darker than I anticipated; the decent size space is only illuminated by a few candles. A floor bed lays at the center of the tent, topped with linen and wool blankets. That’s the only real piece of furniture in here, other than the prayer table by the entrance and a few trunks strewn throughout the area.
“Keep watch,” I command while hurrying over to the display. I remember the title from the last time I snuck in here,The Flames of the Dragon.It was the only thing I could translate… mainly because there was a picture of flames and a dragon on the cover.
I should be a scholar.
