Rising Ch. 04

She choked down the food half chewed in her mouth. Her hands became cold and her vision swirled. Methaniel held her steady, but she felt her body shaking more violently than before.

"Their bodies will be coming into the city within a week. You may claim them, of course. I'll pay for a proper burial, with full rights and honors to them," Methaniel told her softly.

She shook her head, wordless. His offer was kind, but not needed. The Winged folk did not go back to the earth, but to the sky.

Methaniel watched her closely. Her eyes had glazed over, her entire mind shut down. He would need to take her back to her quarters. Looking at her, at the numb insensibility plain in her features, he decided to give her some time to collect herself.

Time passed, moments bending uneasily into what seemed to be an eternity. Ahma sat and continued to tremble. Her eyes shone brightly as she gazed into space. Three tears slid down her flawless cheeks. No sobs or wailing came. She was too heart broken and stunned for them.

Just as Methaniel was about to collect her, he caught a whiff of something upon the air. He hesitated, inhaling through his nostrils.

Smoke?

A scream ripped through the hushed night, followed by a sharp crash and the sounds of a violent scuffle. A second agonized cry, then a third.

"No," Methaniel whispered, releasing Ahma's shoulders and rushing out into the halls. The haunting sounds of violence and death filtered into the room through the open door. A heavy, choking cloak of smoke drifting in thick puffs filled the room.

Ahma froze anew when she heard the smoldering crackle of spreading flames licking close and closer through the house.

The Wingling girl scrambled back, falling out her chair and onto her backside. Her brown eyes slid up to the ceiling, to the tell-tale orange glow. Before her horrified gaze the flames began to swallow and spread through the ceiling, violently chewing through the wooden roof. Their shifting, undulating forms crept along the ceiling.

The Master leapt into the room, his eyes quickly darting about, ablaze with their own inner flame. His wool shirt was ripped and an ugly cut bled at his side, spreading a trail of red down his flesh. A dagger was grasped in his left hand, bloodied and nicked from where it had scraped bone.

He spun and slammed the door shut, bolting it firmly. He grabbed a chair and shoved it firmly under the door handle, jamming it into place, the only thing he could think to buy them precious time.

As the flames spread and smoke began to slowly suffocate them, Methaniel rushed about the room and gathered things rapidly. He pulled on a new shirt after shoved a wad of cloth into his wounded side.

"We must leave now," he spoke as he quickly shoved whatever he could find use for into his traveling bag. "I don't have time to explain. All is lost if we are not gone, quickly."

He shoved his heavy boots on and belted his sword to his waist while he snatched up his riding gloves and shoved them into his pack. He tossed in a bulging pouch of coins as well. His brow furrowed as he turned to the unmoving Wingling girl.

"Ahma?"

Ahma's eyes darted around the room. She had a confused, scared look in her eyes, the look of a small, lost child.

In her mind, all Ahma could hear were the screams of her mother. Up until the soldiers lopped off her head, her mother had screamed, begging for mercy that never came. Ahma had stayed hidden in the feed shed until her brothers pulled her from the burning building. They dragged her from the flames and the death and the evil, horrible men. Fahl had one wing broken during the ordeal. Only later, when they returned to the charred remains of the small farmhouse that had been home to bid their final goodbye to their parents did they find how their mother's death had come.

The Wingling's had certain beliefs regarding death and the afterlife. When the soul left the body, it was said to ascend, rising to the heavens to serve Father Sky. A body without a head would never make the journey, however. The head was the guiding piece, and without it the way was lost. The soul wandered, aimless and blind, unable to see their way to heaven where Father Sky awaited his winged children. Without a head, their mother would be lost.

For one hundred days, amidst their mourning and heartache, Ahma and her brothers had prayed every night that their father's departing soul could somehow find their mothers soul and guide her to the heavens. Sometimes, when two souls were joined so closely, one soul would not ascend without the other, and could guide a blinded soul. They had all prayed the love of a mate would be enough.

Ahma whimpered. She hated her mothers screams. They echoed in her ears clearly, deafening her. She wanted them to stop. She hated the way the smoke choked her and the flames licked slowly closer to her skin. The sight of the flames burning through the roof had drawn her firmly into her horrible past. Now her world was reduced to that horrible night, sitting in the burning shed as all she had ever known was brutally destroyed by sword and flame. Blackness closed in around her, but her ears remained open, filled only with her mothers soul rending screams.