Blood to Flame
Day of Flames, Month of the Fire, Year of Heart’s Flooding 1062
Passion burned in Sdacsa’i.
Taek’a buzzed with euphoria as he rose from the woman’s embrace, his seed spilled in her. She cooed her delight, her ebony skin gleaming in the torchlight spilling between the two ruined buildings. The revelry raged beyond, the clash of cymbals, trumpeting of horns, and the rill of pipes created a melody of disharmony. A dozen different songs blending together with the shouts of the celebrants.
In Sdacsa’i, passions did not have to be constrained. Only one oath mattered, and only a fool would take that one.
Taek’a lurched with drunken laughter from the woman, his loincloth half-covering his manhood as he stumbled into the debauchery. He hardly thought of the woman who called herself Sa’ina. It meant “Desire” in his Ki’manese tongue.
A fake name. But who cared.
The oaths to the Passions didn’t matter here. The duty to family, friends, town, and Ki’mana did not hold power. Sleeping with a girl, spilling his seed in her, didn’t mean he had to take her for his wife and care for her children.
He’d come to taste fire. The raw Passion without any oaths or rules constraining him. A last chance of freedom before the repercussions of his deeds crushed him. Before he added his melody to Wueda and settled down to manage her father’s bakery.
He didn’t have flour on his hands here. He had the scent of a woman’s passion. He inhaled as he lurched out into the revelers dancing on the edge of the desert. Here, the fertility gifted by the Heartspring ended and the fiery death of the Anvil loomed ahead. The dry scent of the desert brushed his nose. He felt the warmth from its sands even though the sun had long set.
A giggling girl, naked and smiling, pressed a drink into his hand before being dragged off by a pair of her friends. All laughing and stumbling. He inhaled the fruity scent of fortified strawberry wine, the alcohol almost drowned the sugary sweetness. He took a swing, his tongue and throat almost dead to the burning.
Once a decade, this town lived. Once a decade, any acts here were free of the weight. Passions didn’t have to be constrained. He felt a freedom he’d never had in his village alongside the Heartspring, the massive lake at the heart of Ki’mana. From it sprang the Three Mother Rivers, the blessed channels that spread the life-giving water across what should be arid savanna.
A bonfire blazed to his right. Women danced around it, the firelight painting across their ebony skin. Like Taek’a, they were Ki’manese, not pale-tan like the Tethyrians to the north, or snow white like the staid followers of Elohm across the sea. They were the Children of Water and Fire, of passions restrained and blazing.
He drifted to the women, entranced by their movements. Some wore skirts of beads that flashed and swayed, exposing parts of their body kept hidden across the rest of Ki’mana. Breasts heaved, oiled and gleaming. Men clapped a beat around them, drinking, singing, lusting. A feverish pitch burned through Sdacsa’i.
Something built. Taek’a could feel it in the root of his phallus.
Did Wueda come here? he wondered idly. You never announced if you were going to Sdacsa’i, and your family and friends would pretend you hadn’t left. She was a fine girl and would make a fine wife, but…
He smiled as a girl darted past chased by an older man, his snowy beard almost shining against his dark skin. His muscles sagged, but he still had the virility to chase her into the dark corners between the ancient walls of the city.
Taek’a finished off the rest of his fortified wine, the flavor of strawberries lingering on his lips. He looked for a pretty girl to kiss. His eyes cast around, flicking past two men locked in their own embrace. It was Sdacsa’i.
Nothing was forbidden on this night.
The song around the bonfire hit a feverish pitch. The women were swaying in ecstatic passion. The growing sensation he felt rippled through him, a deep, resonating harmony. All the Passions had their own tones. The Passion of the Wind, of the Earth, of Father and Mother. Here, the Passion of Fire reigned. The most destructive. The most fierce. The one most needed to be controlled, or it would destroy everything.
The one place where it could sing to its fullest.
He felt it in the root of his manhood. Everyone did. The rhythm clapped louder and louder. The fire burned and blazed. The flames danced at any one moment looking like frozen crystals of oranges and reds and yellows before they shifted to the next pose. The coals of the burning logs blazed bright. The flames roared to a feverish pitch. The ground rumbled beneath his feet.
She was coming.
The Avatar of Fire. The Passion of Flames given flesh. The time to pledge the one oath enforced in Sdacsa’i had arrived. The one action that was binding. The one drunken boast you never wanted to make here.
The harmonics hummed. The buildings rattled. Groaned.
The bonfire collapsed. Logs spilled towards the dancers. They screamed, fleeing. Coals spilled across the desert sands. Sparks danced through the air. Men yanked gaping women to safety. A silence descended despite the roar of the spilled fire.
The harmony ended.
“Well, well, well, look at all of you,” a voice purred in a strange form of Ki’manese, accented but not like any of the Relashim traders that passed through Taek’a’s town.
The woman who stepped up to the spilled fire had skin as pale as milk, her hair the color of spun gold. Her age was hard to say, at once young and bursting with hormonal passion, then mature and blessed with the wisdom of years. She held a silver goblet studied with garnets in one hand. She took a long drink, her ruby-red eyes flashing about the watchers.
O’csari had arrived. The Passion of Flame made flesh.
She finished her drink and threw the goblet into the fire. She laughed and pulled the nearest woman to her. Their naked bodies came together as O’csari planted a hungry kiss that made every watching male groan, Taek’a included. The woman shuddered, her ebony skin as dark as night against the Avatar’s flesh.
“Mmm, don’t go far,” purred the Avatar as she broke away. She whirled around and fire burned at her fingertips. They blazed up her arms as a harmonic ringing filled the air. The single note of a tuning fork plucked.
The cup in Taek’a’s had purred.
“Look at all of you,” O’csari said, her voice ringing through the night. In the dark around the bonfire, revelers gathered. She stalked around the spilled blaze, her pale flesh painted in dancing reds and oranges. “All this passion unleashed. You burn with it.”
She passed a woman, stroking her face with fiery fingers. The woman shuddered and touched her dark cheek, maybe to soothe a burn or to savor the caress of the demigoddess. The Seven Passions were sacred to Taek’a’s people. They could embody Avatars to enact their will, divinities with purposes mere mortals could never understand.
“Yes, yes, you blazed with it.” O’csari breathed deep. “I can smell it. Intoxicants on the air. Lust brimming in all of you. No focus. No control. You spend your fires without any purpose. Isn’t it wonderful?” She smiled. “All this freedom. Look at what you do with it.”
A strange shame rippled over Taek’a as he realized his manhood was exposed. He shifted his loincloth. Women tugged at the scant clothing they wore. Men squirmed in place, shoulders hunching as O’csari circled the blaze, eyes judging.
She shook her head, golden hair dancing down her back. “This? You can do anything in Sdacsa’i, and this is what you choose? To fornicate with any man or woman you find? To sing songs and stumble around in a fog of drugs and wine? To satiate your own passions with no concern for others?”
Taek’a swallowed. Silence reigned
“No one?” she asked. “No one wants to defend the pleasures you’ve indulged in? The freedom you’ve chosen?” She paused, glancing at a large man, his chest powerfully muscled. “Not you? You’re a strong one. What do you do?”
“Blacksmith,” he grunted.
“You know all about passions then,” she said. “Huh? Controlling the fire. Tempering heated metal. Is that why you’re here? Did you think you’d find satisfaction in dancing like the ephemeral flame? Swaying this way and that, blazing bright until you’re snuffed out.”
The man shrugged.
“Why aren’t you reveling now?” O’csari looked around. “You have your freedom. Do not let me stop you.” She liked her lips, eyes falling on some of the half-naked dancers huddling together. “Not when there are such beauties to enjoy unless… Unless you came here for the ultimate expression of passion.”
The fire on her fingertips swelled up her arms as the resonance grew louder. It hummed through the soil and rattled Taek’a’s bones. He stood transfixed by her. The flames reached her shoulders, dancing towards her head and caressing her blonde tresses. The tips of her fingertips seemed to blur like the tines of a tuning fork.
She’s humming, he realized, the harmony coming from her divine flesh.
“The ultimate resonance of passion is to give yourself completely to something else. Something beyond your selfish existence.” She whipped her gaze around. “You’ve fled your dreary existence to find freedom in this night of excess. You are tired of giving a little of yourself. To your parents. Your children and spouses. Your community. You think you want passion, that you’ll find it in this momentary pleasure. To truly resonate with passion, you have to surrender everything to the flames.”
Her eyes, almost glowing like ruby jewelchines, fell on Taek’a for a moment.
“Feed it everything you have until nothing, not even ash, remains.” She shuddered. “That is why you are here. You don’t want freedom. You want the slavery that comes from true passion. To be a servant to something greater than yourself. Do you have the courage to face the trial of the desert? To let the blazing sun consume you and the sizzling sands devour you? Can you survive the furnace and become something better?
“A Bloodfire?” someone called.
Bloodfires… The greatest warriors in the world. Unparalleled in their skill. They fought without fear because they had none. Every ten years, O’csari recruited for her fighters. Men and women who could take wounds that would slay Taek’a. Who could run for days on end? They never disobeyed because they gave themselves utterly to their master. They were the ultimate expression of Passion.
It terrified Taek’a that any could take the oath.
O’csari thrust her arms high.
“Are you cowards?” she demanded. “Are you too scared to give yourself to me. You didn’t fear surrendering to the wine you drank, the drugs you chewed, the lusts you enjoyed. You willingly threw yourself into debauchery. You have come close to the flames. They are waiting for you. Cast yourself in. Blaze with me and be reborn as something noble. Something beautiful. Give yourself unto me and find the ultimate freedom.”
A drunken man stumbled forward, his hair shaved in the manner of a Kiwuj Ki’manese. He wore a dirty, tunic-like thwab. “I’ll become a Bloodfire!”
The Avatar of Fire whirled. Flames blazed across her entire body as she sauntered to him. She cupped his face and kissed him. The fire burning on her fingers danced to the harmonic resonance surging through the air.
The fire melted into the man. He stiffened and gasped. She broke the kiss. “I accept your oath. Dawn, you start your journey.”
“Bloodfire!” a man shouted in salute.
“Bloodfire!” Taek’a roared with the others.
“I’ll be one!” a lean woman said, pressing from two others. She swayed with drink. “I’ll do it. Sounds easy.”
“As easy as being born,” said O’csari before seizing the lean woman’s face with burning fingers and planting the fiery kiss.
The resonance hummed.
Why would they do this? Taek’a asked as another man stepped forward followed by the blacksmith. Most die. Who could survive walking days through the desert without water or food? It’s madness.
“I can do it,” slurred a slender man who tripped as he marched forward, falling on his face on the sand. “I can swing a sword.”
“Anyone can,” O’csari said as she knelt to kiss him.
Are they too drunk to know? He felt the alcohol burning through his own veins. The fire intense. They’re abandoning everything. They’re families. Their homes. A life of making bread…
He stared down at his dark hands. Wueda would make a fine wife. She had a plump figure. Her father’s bakery was profitable. It would be his one day, and until then he would make loaf after loaf. Day in and day out.
You slept with her that night, he reminded himself. You spilled your seed in her. You made an oath with her that night.
He thought of Sa’ina and the other women he’d enjoyed in drunken romps since arriving in Sdacsa’i. It didn’t matter here that he’d enjoyed their bodies. Even if a child quickened, it would be their husbands’ responsibilities to raise.
If Wueda is here… He pushed that thought away. She didn’t chafe under the regimented life in their village. Every day the same thing, forcing himself to wake up before dawn to work in the bakery. To find his bed before dusk.
He’d grow slowly fat like her father had from nibbling on his own wares. He’d face the ovens day in and day out. This strange horror filled him as his future stretched out before him. He swayed, dizzy from the wine.
“Who else has the courage to surrender everything to the fire?”
Everything… His eyes lifted. He met her ruby gaze. A smile spread on her lips.
“I can see it,” O’csari said. “Say it. Make the oath.”
“I’ll be a Bloodfire,” he said, flinching from that stark feature. He never should have slept with Wueda. He’d been drunk for the first time on wheat beer, the music had been pounding, and the girl he’d wanted to dance with had instead chosen Bue’ab.
“I’ll be a Bloodfire!” he declared, his voice slightly slurred. “Better than being a baker.”
“Giving life is more work than taking it,” agreed O’csari before her blazing hands seized him. Fiery lips kissed him.
The resonance he felt early intensified. It shook his entire body. He shuddered as his bones shook. His flesh suddenly felt liquid. Porous. It was like the vibrations were energizing every bit of him, allowing him to become one with her flames.
They merged into his body.
She broke the kiss, and he collapsed to his knees, panting. Sweat dripped from his brow. Locks of ropy, twisted hair spilled down his cheek. He looked up to see O’csari collect the first woman she’d kissed, snag a flagon of wine from a man’s hand, and vanish into an alley.
“What did I just do?” he groaned, feeling the weight of his oath. The only one that mattered here.
*
The Bloodfire oath was not easily broken.
Taek’a felt it in his bones as he waited for the sun to rise with the others who’d made it. The fire lurked in him, waiting for him to uphold his word, or he would truly surrender everything to the flames. The lean woman rocked back and forth a few paces from him, her eyes wide with the horror at what she’d done. On his other side, the blacksmith wept, staring down at his broad hands.
“Every time I get drunk, I make a bad oath,” Taek’a said.
The blacksmith glanced at him, tears staining his ebony face.
“I mean, it could be worse, right?” Taek’a tried to focus on that. “We’ll be warriors. Invincible. Not forced to marry the ugliest girl in the village because we were too drunk to see straight.”
The blacksmith looked down, his broad shoulders rippled. The lean woman barked a laugh that turned into a croaking sob. She shook her head and rubbed at her temple.
“Headache?”
She nodded. “I’ve never been drunk before.”
“I know a great hangover cure.”
She groaned, “What?”
“Baking in the desert. We’ll be feeling the sun frying our bodies soon.”
She cocked her head. “Do you always babble stupidly in the morning?”
“When I’m nervous. Too drunk last night to be nervous but now…” He glanced out at the desert. The sun neared rising, the world lightened to iron grays. Sand stretched across the horizon. It was said to be nothing but dunes between here and Bue’csa’i. The fortress where O’csari trained the Bloodfires lay at the end of the peninsula.
“We’re not going to make it,” groaned the blacksmith. He flexed strong hands. “Passion’s curse this oath!”
“But it’s what you want,” the purring voice of O’csari said.
Taek’a glanced behind him to see her emerging wrapped in a robe of Demochian silk. It clung to her lithe, pale body, her ruby eyes almost glowing. A woman hugged her from behind, ebony face blissful, eyes glazed from liquor or chewing brown soothe.
“Passion has driven you here. Passions have hammered your life into the shape they now hold. Be free of them. Surrender them to the flames.” A cruel smile crossed her lips. “One way or the other, your lives have ended. You accepted my kiss. My flames burn in you. What will be left once they blaze? What will be born from your ashes?”
The blacksmith snarled and lunged at her. His bulk crossed the iron-gray sands in a flash, a charging rhino. A hum rippled through the world, the vibration of creation itself, the Passion of Fire roaring from O’csari.
Taek’a didn’t see her move. The woman hugging O’csari gasped, suddenly holding empty air. The blacksmith flipped through the air and slammed down on his back. It was an impossible feat of strength. O’csari weighed half of the blacksmith’s bulk and stood two heads shorter. She planted her foot on his broad chest.
“Sun is about to rise,” she said. “Burn here or burn in the desert.”
“Let me go back!” the blacksmith snarled. “I’ll make their passion-cursed pots and pans. I’ll slave before the furnace. Release me!”
“But you gave your oath.” She leaned over. “There are consequences to everything. I used to think differently, I did. I believed in Anidze. We thought we could change the world, and instead we shattered it. We ruined it all.” Her lips curled in a smile as confusion rippled through Taek’a. Anidze sounded so much like A’nimize, the deadly manifestation of the Black Passion. The dread one that caused strife and discord, which had ruined the world in the distant antiquity, fracturing the peoples. It was why oaths were important.
A word spoken held power. A deed committed held repercussions. He could feel that truth in him.
“Passions must be channeled, and if you do not have the self-control to manage it yourself…” Her eyes flicked to Taek’a and the others. “Go or die with him. Perhaps you’ll be reborn into something with purpose. Something strong and powerful. Perhaps you can be free of it all.”
“A Bloodfire?” I asked.
Her smile flicked across her lips. “Maybe. We’ll see. Succeed or fail.”
Taek’a felt the harmony in him swelling. He glanced at the desert before him, gray, almost cool and inviting. The hairs at the back of his neck stood up. He ran a hand over his hair dreadlocks. He thought of Wueda. Is this better than marrying her?
No.
He jogged out into the desert, the others rushing with him. Flames erupted behind him. The blacksmith howled in agony, his screams flogging Taek’a. His legs found endurance. Despite the queasiness in his stomach, his pace quickened. He ran as fast as he could. His sandaled feet smacked on the sun-baked sand. The muscles rippled beneath his dark skin. The pounding in his head intensified. The taste of blood soon filled his mouth. His side throbbed.
He ignored it. He pressed into the desert.
The sun rose behind him. He felt its fire kissing his back. It spilled over his skin. A coating of sweat gleamed over his flesh. Scrub brush passed him by as he crossed the sandy soil. Lizards scurried into cover and desert thrushes chirped from thorny bushes. Grasshoppers bounded with him, their bodies as tan as the soil.
Finally, his endurance failed. He stumbled to a gasping halt. The sun’s heat already hammered at him. The air danced and wavered on the horizon, showing deceptive pools of refreshing water.
Thirst attacked him.
He looked around and saw none of the others. He glanced back behind him and only saw his footsteps disturbing the sandy slope of a dune. His head cast about while the pulsing rhythm of fire buzzed through his bones.
It pulled him onward.
“You’ll be a warrior of legend,” said Taek’a as he stumbled forward. His feet kicked at the sand. His chest heaved. He licked lips, finding them cracked. He panted, his mouth dry. He rubbed his tongue across the roof of his mouth, struggling to generate moisture. “A mighty Bloodfire. Won’t that be something?”
“Of course, have to be consumed by the desert,” he answered himself.
“True.”
The sun’s heat intensified as he spoke to himself. The sheen of sweat on his body evaporated by noon. None replaced it. When he stopped to urinate, a weak stream of dark yellow spurted out. It hurt. He kept rubbing his tongue against the roof of his mouth, struggling to find any moisture.
His steps grew woozy. He stumbled and swayed, panting. His heart screamed in his chest. He felt it pounding with a frantic rhythm. He sucked in breaths, the air as hot as a baker’s oven. He coughed and wheezed. The sun kissed every inch of his body. His skin broiled in it. He shook his head, the world stumbling about him.
“Someone has to make it through this,” he muttered, his bones buzzing. “I’ve seen a Bloodfire, remember?”
“The Water’s Gift Festival?” he asked himself.
“Yes, yes, the big chap with the huge sword. All the girls swooned over him. More than a few tried to entice him into a marriage.”
“Not that he cared. Do Bloodfires even care about pleasure?”
“Don’t care about anything, do they? Not surprising, feel like I’m getting wrung dry.”
“Every drop squeezed out.”
His words trailed off as he stumbled forward into the setting sun. He blinked at that, his thoughts molten. It shone on him, half-blinding his eyes. His back and shoulders throbbed. His skin felt pinched taut by a thousand tiny fingers. He licked cracked lips oozing sluggish blood.
He tripped.
Pain flared through his toe. He gasps, stumbling and falling on the sizzling sand. He sucked in a breath, rolling over onto his back. He screamed in agony at the pain bursting across his blistered skin. He staggered to his feet, swaying.
Stared at the skull he’d tripped over.
Sand spilled out of one of the eye socket. More gagged the mouth. It was human, the exposed parts bleached white, the buried stained a dirty brown. He groaned and picked it up.
“Look at you,” he said. “What happened to your flesh? Burst into flames?”
A mad cackle rasped from Taek’a. “Tried to turn your blood into fire, eh? That’s what I’m doing. Feeling it boiling out of me. Soon, soon, I’ll blaze!”
He turned and stumbled forward again, marching into the sunset, a skull gripped in hand. Sand tumbled off his back, spilling over the oozing blisters cooked into his dark flesh. The sun vanished. He’d survived the first day in the desert.
“One down,” he muttered. He chortled again, his mind broiling. “See, did better than you, huh? Can’t fail. Can’t be like the blacksmith. He burst into flames…” A mad idea popped into Taek’a’s sun-addled mind. “Is that you, Blacksmith? Did you blaze here? Where did it happen?”
He staggered as the world cooled around him. Darkness deepened. He collapsed onto his chest and sank into dreams.
A dark, warm confine held Taek’a. He felt safe, curled up into a ball, his knees pressing into his chest. Whatever held him rippled and shifted. It squeezed him tight like a babe wrapped in swaddling.
“Are you strong enough?” whispered a woman. “Birth comes in blood and pain.”
His eyes snapped opened.
The sun cooked him. Heat danced around him. Movement cracked pain across his back, muscles rippling splitting open blisters. Thick puss oozed across leathery skin, quickly congealing in the heat. He clutched the skull and staggered to his feet.
“It was a wild night,” he babbled to the skull. “You know it. You were there.”
I was, answered the skull. He spoke with the deep timbre that reminded Taek’a of his father. Good harvest. A night of bounty. Many oaths were sworn.
“Wrong oaths,” Taek’a muttered. “Wueda nice enough girl, but Obra’a… Now there was a girl to marry.”
She danced with Bue’ab. What was so wrong with Wueda?
Shrugged. He stumbled towards the west, the sun flogging his aching back. His heart screamed in his chest, struggling to pump his thickening blood. He shook his head, the skull floating beside him. Ropy locks of hair spilled around the bleached-white bones of her face.
Wueda’s hair
Yes, what was so wrong with me? Wueda’s skull asked, mandible moving, teeth clattering together.
“Just… Just…” Taek’a shook his head. His ebony skin had a waxy complexion where it wasn’t blistering from the sun’s burning touch. “It’s not fair. One drunken mistake, and I had to marry you.”
I know, Wueda’s skull said. If I had been sober… Well, I was willing to make it work, but you were a coward. Too afraid of your passions. It’s why you’re going to fail. You’re not going to make it.
“Show you,” he muttered and staggered forward.
The day passed in a haze of hallucinations. Skulls drifted around him, laughing, jeering, cheering. He struggled to speak to them, but his tongue didn’t seem to work. It felt shriveled in his mouth. Everything about him felt reduced.
He fell to his knees, not even feeling the searing heat of the sand. He crawled forward, staring at the horizon, at the ball of the setting sun. Skulls danced around it, a spiraling circle feeding the fiery orb. He would join them soon if he stopped.
His blood boiled away. It poured out of his pores, a red steam. His heart hurt. Every beat a struggle to pump congealing gunk through his veins. He dug at the sand, pulling himself forward another pace. He wanted to laugh. To cry. To… to…
Remember.
Taek’a collapsed into a ball. He dreamed he was in a womb, the comforting presence squeezing around him. Flames danced around him. They burned, hungry to swallow him. His bones yearned for it. For the end, but he was still safe here.
Protected.
He sucked on his thumb, his body held tight.
Do you have the strength to see the Eternal Tone? the mother asked him. Her voice echoed from all directions. To harmonize with pure fire. Your blood is gone. Sludge oozes through your veins. Do you feel it? The darkness? Do you want that?
He did not. Fear ripped through him. He trembled in the womb, the last of his passion raging in him. That was the last bit of him that existed. It had a name. Taek’a. He would have to surrender it to be born. He would have to give up everything to emerge from the womb.
His heart labored. He could feel the pain that living cost him. It was proof that he wasn’t gone. That he still breathed. If he gave up his last passion, it would take away his will. He would be bereft of it.
Terror rippled through him. He didn’t want to stop being Taek’a. He was scared of giving up his identity. It was his core. The flames burned around the womb. The fire wanted to devour his essence. If he were born, he would die.
He couldn’t surrender.
“NO!” he screamed and clutched onto that last bit of life. He held it into his heart.
His blood caught fire.
He gasped as he felt his will, his desire to live, surging through his veins. The thick sludge that had become his blood, almost desiccated of any moisture, burned with hunger. It spread through his body. His heart pumped living flames through his network of arteries and veins. They spread, consuming everything.
Taek’a’s memories became the fuel for his life. His body grew stronger, sustained by his own passions, a never-ending inferno. He wouldn’t die. He wouldn’t pass from life into death. His flesh would survive.
You swore an oath, a voice whispered. To give it all up.
Taek’a’s awareness quivered at that revelation then it was gone, devoured by the fire now sustaining his body. His identity reduced to ash. The flames spread through him, merging with him. He became a living flame. The heat of the desert did not matter. The sun did not hurt. He didn’t need water when he had fire burning through his veins.
He opened his eyes.
“I see you failed,” a disappointed voice said. A mother’s voice.
She stood over him, her pale skin framed by blonde hair, her red eyes soft. She touched his ebony face. The caress was tender and gentle. Pain swelled in her eyes as she stroked down to his thick lips. Her flesh felt cool, almost icy, on him.
“They always fail,” she said. “No one can surrender everything to the flames. You tried. You were close. You came far, but it wasn’t enough, was it? You didn’t want to stop existing.”
“Who am I?” he asked, his voice a rumbling monotone.
Her head cocked. “Why, a Bloodfire. A failed ascension. I have to keep carrying my burden.”
The Bloodfire blinked eyes.
“You don’t understand. They never do.” She sighed and rose. “You need a name. How is… Ni’mod?”
Ni’mod shrugged. He flexed fingers, feeling the heat pulsing beneath his veins. A harmony sang inside of him, fiery and hungry. It demanded to be unleashed. It wanted to roar from him, to blaze and burn.
“Come, Ni’mod,” she said. “I think one more made it far enough.”
As Ni’mod rose, his naked body hole and hale, he noticed a lean woman standing with a blank expression. He didn’t give her a thought. He turned and followed the pale-skin mother as she marched across the desert, lit by the setting sun. Ahead, another figure lay curled up in a fetal position, rust-red steam rising from dark skin.
Ni’mod walked into his future without care. Whatever burdens drove him into the desert were gone, consumed within his fiery blood. Only his life remained. The last passion he’d clung to. His final act of selfishness.
END
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Blood to Flame takes place in the Jewel Machine Universe!
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Death rides in the Cyclone!
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Ary knows their danger first-hand. As a child, they broke his family. Now he has a choice to make. Can he find a way to defeat them when so many before him have failed?
When the storm clouds come, what will Ary do?
You’ll be enthralled by this epic fantasy story set in the skies above the Storm because the characters will keep you hooked.
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