0. The Fire

The Fire

Part 0

She can’t breathe.


The smoke, tinged a sickly yellow with the Surya family’s magic, coils around her trembling body like a hungry snake. Despite its incorporeal form, it renders her limbs completely immobile, so hot that it feels like she’s been stuck in a furnace. Her tongue tastes of ash, and she can’t tell if the burn in her throat is from her own bile or that man’s foul magic. “Mother!” she cries hoarsely. She needs her voice to be heard over the sounds of raging fire and thundering footsteps, so she screams louder, even when it feels like swallowing a million little needles. “Mother! Father!”


“Arané!” Mother screams back. “It’s okay, my moon, just—”


“Shut it, you blasphemous bitch!” A crackle of magic, then searing heat, and suddenly Mother is howling in agony, a sound so chilling that she never, ever wants to hear it again.


She can’t see. She can’t move. She wishes she could. Why is this smoke so thick?


“Now, I’d set you barbarians free, let you behold the destruction of your home, but sadly, some of us are ill-mannered.” Phoenix Surya laughs that ugly chortle of his, then the sound of a magical pop! is heard, quickly followed by Father’s pained moan and the scattered cackles of Phoenix’s men. The spark of rage said noise stokes threatens to overtake her heart wholly, but she holds back. Acting out now would only mean worse for Father and Mother.


Phoenix lets out another slimy hah! and announces with bravado, “Instead, I’ll just let you smell it. Smell the wood as it burns to cinders, your paintings as they turn to ash, your dark scrolls and putrid potions, everything you own, as they fizzle to nothing!”


His declaration is met with hoots, hollers, and the claps of palms on backs from his gaggle of minions. She wants to scream. She wants to rip out of these smoky chains and grab the dagger hidden in her boots. She wants them dead.


“T-then what?” a voice calls out weakly from the other side of the foyer. It’s so hoarse that it takes a few heartbeats for her to recognize it as Father’s. “We… We are still members of the High Council! You c-can’t execute us! Not without inviting the condemnation of the whole—”


“Execute?” Phoenix splutters incredulously. The condescension dripping from every syllable makes her fists clench. “Lord Ignisia above, how have we managed to let such simpletons weasel their way onto seats of the High Council?! Old man, I’m afraid a much more dreadful fate awaits you and your wretched kin.”


Her heart drops into her stomach upon hearing those words, the blazing rage from before shocked into icy foreboding. There is only one fate worse than death for a sorcerer, and she’s only ever heard about such an event from history class.


It seems the same realization has dawned on her parents, because then she hears their frenzied, desperate pleas for mercy. Are you mad?! You can’t do this! Just kill us! Our Goddess will avenge her devotees!


All her life, she has been taught to revere the Maiden of Shadows. Every morning before class, she places an offering of assorted insects in the darkest corner of her room, some found dead, others caught and given a swift end with the hilt of her dagger. Every night after dinner, she and her parents croon prayers in ancient Noctisian, hands joined together as they face the moon from the window in the mansion’s tower. Not once has her faith wavered. Not once has she doubted her namesake, Araneae, Goddess of Shadows, even as the nobles are determined to wipe Her legacy from the face of the realm, punishing and martyring Her remaining worshippers.


Yet in this moment, as Mother angrily invokes the Maiden’s name, so sure that She will bring them salvation…


‘Will She?’ whispers something in the recesses of her mind.


“Silence!” Phoenix bellows, halting that train of thought to a screeching stop. “Your Goddess,” he spits out the word, as if it sours his mouth, “is a lying, scheming whore, and you zealots are about to reap the results of your blasphemous tomfoolery… now.”


Suddenly, the smoke takes on a warmer hue, shining like glistening gold, and the invisible bindings seem to squeeze tighter, making her gasp as her entire body flares up in hot, searing pain. It’s a type of magic she’s never, ever felt before, overwhelmingly heady and dripping with power.


Interdimensional magic. It has to be.


“No!” screams Mother.


“You’ll pay for this!” roars Father.


She stays silent. What is there to say?


Phoenix’s mad cackles echo throughout the room, and mixed with the haunting shrieks of enchanted fire, rapidly eating away at the Purnama House, it sounds demonic. “I, Phoenix Surya, heir to the Surya legacy, declare the entirety of the Purnama family guilty of treason and blasphemy,” he declares triumphantly. “As punishment, you will all be banished from Lucerna and live out the rest of your days in the Realm of Solum.” Of course the bastard pauses for dramatic effect, much to the amusement of his men. Golden-haired asshole. “I shall now commence the Interdimensional Travel incantation.”


Suryas do not chant. No one of noble blood does. All members of the highborn families have been blessed with such an affinity for magic that they can conjure it with the wave of a hand, the snap of fingers, or even nothing at all. However, spells and rituals of drastic caliber will still need the assistance of a verbal catalyst, even when performed by a noble.


This is the first and last time she’ll hear a Highborn chant.


Phoenix’s melodic voice, practically singing the incantation, becomes static in her head. Her parents’ screams, too. She’s thinking of Solum now. A realm devoid of magic. Will the Goddess’ power still be able to reach them there? Or are they beyond saving as soon as they’re thrown out of Lucerna?


Suddenly, she feels her invisible bindings loosen, and the smoke clouding around her dissipates, revealing the torn-apart foyer of their mansion. She feels a nasty heat on her back, so the fire must have already reached the front of the house.


“Arané!” Mother and Father shout simultaneously.


She can’t look at them. Not when her gaze finally locks with the golden-green eyes of Phoenix Surya, filled with malice and disdain. His mouth twists in a satisfied grin and his long golden hair whips and flows around his face, almost like a hungry lion.


Just as the teleportation magic swallows them whole, she whispers. To anyone who might hear. A promise of vengeance to Phoenix, and an oath of homecoming to Lucerna.


“We will return.”