07-05-2015, 11:20 PM
KINGSLAY
In the distance there are fires that curl in amber spirals up and into the air, eating up the life-filled bark of ancient trees. The flames snap and crackle as they grow, as they devour, and the air soon becomes heavy and thick with ash and smoke and death. He could stop them if he wanted. He could have them wax and wane while the winds hissed, and then peter out for the effort, if he wanted. But he likes the way they consume. He likes the way they turn the forests to charred, black ash and rubble. He likes the way they take, and take, and take. The way they give nothing back.
It is the only light he will not smother – the flames.
The only thing he can let live, apart from the girl with the muddy, brown eyes.
He felt a kinship with her, once – with her muddy, brown eyes, and the slope of her hips, and the way she breathed his name as though he was someone instead of something. He feels a kinship with the fire and the ash, now. He is like the smoke he leaves in the wake of his burning body, dark, and silent, and suffocating. He could end you while you slept. He could end you while you dreamt of things much softer, much lighter, much kinder, and less scathing than he. He is not someone. He is something.
Something vile.
Something wicked.
Something lethal.
Like the smoke, he winds through the trees left standing. He curls through the trunks, and skims beneath the low hanging branches that turn to kindling at the touch of the flames along the ridge of his neck and spine.
He has come for her.
He has come for the promises she made once.
He has come because the girl with the muddy, brown eyes is still lost to the horizon and once – once, Straia promised to bring her home if he gave her what she wanted.
And so, he made the Gods themselves bend at the knee.