Born of Fire: The Dawn of Legend (96 page)

Just then, AnaSaya snapped out of her transitory state and looked around her, blinking feebly. “Wha…what happened?”

VorTak felt a surge of panic as he recalled what she had done to PeroDay only moments ago.
Such a terrifying power, and now one of these others has managed to bring one of the most powerful knights in the order to death’s door.
In fact, they all seemed to possess unusually high-powered flames, which he had dangerously underestimated. Now he was thinking of only one thing: escape. As shameful as it felt, he could not ignore that he was outclassed when pitted against all of them together. The TyRanx alone nearly did him in, and as afraid as he was of how the Grand Marshal would react when he would tell him of their defeat, for the moment anyway, he feared what he was currently facing significantly more. He knew he needed to make his move now, and fast, but with the added burden of PeroDay, he feared he would not be able to move quickly enough. That was when he saw them, two DarMorvora having come to investigate the source of what must have sounded like an enormous battle being waged. Looking back to the five teens, he bellowed. “You’re strong, I’ll give you that! Certainly stronger than the Grand Marshal gives you credit for! Now let’s see how fast you are!” Without even giving any of them time to blink, he breathed a ball of fire directly at the two unsuspecting DyVorians, who immediately turned their heads at the sound of the DraGon’s voice.

“Watch out!” Rex called out to them as he and the others proceeded to all fire a blast of their own in the hopes of being able to intercept VorTak’s.

Not wasting their diverted attention, he ignited his flame, and with a mighty flap of his wings, launched himself into the air with PeroDay hanging limply off him. With another pulse, he shot forward and vanished into the distance, just as LyCora managed to use a low-hanging tree branch to send the two poor predators sailing through the air and out of the way of the DraGon’s blast, which exploded on contact with the ground they had been standing on.

They all breathed a heavy sigh of relief, all of them except the two DarMorvora, who looked completely dumbfounded by what just happened. Now they all turned back to where the two DraGons had been only to realize that they had been duped into allowing them to escape.

“Well, there goes any chance of getting answers out of them,” Rex said angrily.

“What choice did we have?” ShinGaru asked. “Those two would have been killed had we not done something.” Turning back to see if they were indeed all right, he was surprised to see that they both had already retreated back into the thicket, no doubt to tell the others of their tribe what they had witnessed. Perhaps for the best, he thought, for the more people who knew, the greater the numbers that could potentially be organized to fight against any future attacks.

“That was odd, wouldn’t you say?” declared Rex.

“Odd was ten days ago,” replied EeNox. “This is insane!”

“No, I mean why would DayKar send two of his knights to kill us after that bitch made it clear that he wanted us to come to the tower?”

“Maybe it was his way of luring us out in the open away from anyone who could protect us,” ShinGaru offered. “After all, he already saw that even the combined forces of his army are still not enough to defeat one tribe, let alone the whole world.”

“Maybe,” Rex said, not sounding fully convinced. “But then why wait until now? He could have sent them any time since we left. Why wait until we’re as close as we are?”

“Aren’t we forgetting something?” LyCora suddenly cut in. “Or rather someone?” She turned, and the others followed her gaze until it fell upon the still and silent form of AnaSaya. She had not moved since the fight, but rather had collapsed down on her haunches where she just stared forward, taking long deep breaths.

Slowly the others approached, unsure as to what they had truly witnessed or if they themselves should be at all concerned for their own well-being. “Are you all right, AnaSaya?” ShinGaru asked softly, bringing his head close to hers. There was no response, not a first, but when he began to cautiously move in a little closer, she suddenly reared up and let out a high-pitched cry that made them all jump back in fright. So shrill was the sound that they could feel their eardrums vibrating.

“Ahhh! My ears!” EeNox cried out as he thrashed his head about furiously.

“My head feels like it’s going to explode,” Rex growled as he too swung his toothy skull madly about in an effort to throw off the sound.

At last the ear-splitting shriek came to an abrupt stop, and AnaSaya collapsed back down to the ground, silent and unmoving once more. At first, none of the others moved, either, fearful they might trigger another episode from her, and with the ringing in their ears making it difficult to hear something even directly behind them, they were none too keen on startling her. At last, however, they slowly moved in until they were right on top of her, and still no outburst. Calmly they crouched down around here while ShinGaru nudged her gently with his snout. “Can you hear me?” he asked in a calm yet noticeably nervous voice. Slowly AnaSaya looked up and nodded. “Good,” he said, breathing an audible sigh of relief. “How do you feel?”

AnaSaya did not reply at first, rather she just stared back at him, as if trying to discern the meaning of the question. “I…I didn’t want to, but…he just…”

“Take your time,” said EeNox. “You’re safe now. They’ve gone.”

“They?” she began before the memory of what had transpired came rushing back to her like a wave. “Oh, no! Not again! I didn’t mean for it to happen again!”

“What, AnaSaya? Mean for what to happen again?”

“She probably means what she did back there,” Rex said.

“Question is, what
did
she do back there?” EeNox replied.

“I think I know,” LyCora said in a reserved tone that betrayed some sense of sadness.

“Oh?” said Rex, cocking his head to the side to look at her.

Slowly she moved in closer to AnaSaya, who was now trembling and muttering incoherently to herself. “That’s why you couldn’t kill that DraGon the night of the attack, isn’t it?” she said, tilting AnaSaya’s head up with the tip of snout to meet her eyes. “You were afraid this would happen.”

“Again,” EeNox said. “Someone want to tell us what ‘this’ is?”

“We all know that the lavender flame has the power to heal greater than any other.”

“Right.”

“Ever wonder why?”

“Because they have the power to directly connect with any living thing’s flame.”

“That’s right, but doesn’t it sound reasonable that with the power to give life, one could also, say, take it away?” The others looked at one another, each of them exchanging uncomfortable glances. “My mother told me stories of DyVorians from ancient times whose mastery over their lavender flames was so great that they could hold one’s flame in place within them to keep them from dying just as easily as they could tear it out.”

“But that would make them the ultimate killers,” EeNox replied, sounding shocked. “How do you fight someone who in the blink of an eye can rip the life out of you?”

“Exactly,” LyCora said, glancing back at AnaSaya. “Of course, no one alive today has ever seen anyone with that kind of power, but there have been some rare cases of what we saw today happening.”

“Which is?” Rex asked.

“I could feel him,” came the soft and fragile voice of AnaSaya. All eyes were suddenly on her. “Feel him inside me…his flame being pulled into me. I wanted more…I couldn’t stop myself. Once I started…I just…needed more.”

“Some scientists theorized that DyVorians with the lavender flames sometimes develop a type of neurological disorder that cause them to drain the flames of others during times of extreme duress,” LyCora explained. “It’s basically like a reflex, uh…a survival mechanism for lack of a better explanation.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” said ShinGaru, eyeing AnaSaya curiously.

“Nor have I,” added EeNox.

“Like I said,” LyCora explained. “It’s supposed to be extremely rare. So rare, in fact, that before today I didn’t think it was real.”

“You mean your mother never encountered something like this either?” Rex asked.

“No. She just heard the stories from her elders and passed them on to me.”

“You mentioned something about scientists. Does that mean there are others who have a different theory?”

LyCora nodded. “Some have proposed that those who exhibit this behavior are of the same lineage as these lavender flames of legend; not strong enough to control it like they once did, but able to manifest a similar power under certain conditions.”

“It does offer up some validation to the legends,” ShinGaru said. “Then again, that hardly seems surprising when you take us into consideration.”

LyCora turned and brought her body gently down against the other girl’s. “AnaSaya,” she said softly, to which the other girl did not reply. “AnaSaya, please look at me.” Slowly, the pair of bright lavender eyes turned to meet hers. “I’m sorry for what I said to you before, for the way I reacted. I had no idea of the razor’s edge you were walking. All this time, trying to keep something so dangerous at bay and feeling like you couldn’t tell anyone…any of us. I can’t imagine…well…I’m truly very sorry.”

Hearing LyCora’s words, Rex could not help but think of himself and his own dark secrets: EliCia and the shadow, both always vying for control of his mind, of him. What would truly happen if one or the other won out? What would become of him or rather what would he become? AnaSaya, who now spoke again, interrupted his thoughts; this time more clearly.

“It only happened once before,” she said, trying not to let her emotions get the best of her again. “I was nine years old. I had wandered off too far from home and gotten lost. I remember feeling so scared. It was the first time I had ever been away from my mother like that. I must have been crying because a CeraVora found me.” She paused as she felt the familiar pain from the memory of that morning come back to her. “He wasn’t trying to hurt me,” she said in a pain-stricken voice. “But I was just so scared that I reacted and…and…”

“You did to him what you did to that DraGon,” Rex said.

“I didn’t want to hurt him! It just happened all of a sudden and I couldn’t stop it! My flame was acting on its own! It just kept going and going! Don’t you understand? It wouldn’t stop!
I
wouldn’t stop!”

“I do understand. Better than you would think, actually.” Kneeling down he gave her the opportunity to look directly into his eyes, and become transfixed by the relentless hold they had over her. “I saw you, AnaSaya, watched how you reacted—but more importantly, why you reacted.”

“I…I don’t understand…”

“You didn’t try to kill that DraGon because you were scared, you did it because you were angry.”

AnaSaya looked away, shame now befalling her. “You’re right. I was angry. No. That’s not right, either. What I felt was something altogether different than just anger. The way they just take life, like its nothing. It’s all a game to them. Just a game! I understand they want us for something, but why kill the others? I just saw the body of the KarVora and then thought about everyone they killed in KaNar…everyone they will continue to kill until there’s no one left, no one but them. I just couldn’t hold it back anymore…I snapped.”

“How did it feel?” Rex asked.

“That’s the part that scares me the most,” she replied frantically before quickly subduing herself to a more crestfallen demeanor. “It felt good—really good. What does that say about me?”

“That you’ve had enough and you’re not going to just lie down and take it anymore,” Rex said, standing back up. “You’re not the first and won’t be the last. Like it or not, you showed them today that they actually have something to lose every time they stand against you. You may not like this part of yourself now, but right now it’s what’s keeping you alive.”

“But, Rex, how can you know any of this?” AnaSaya asked.

“Because when you unleashed that deadly power of yours back there, I was able to compare it to my own flame. Powerful as it was, it was still weaker than mine, which means I’m carrying within me something far worse than what you’re hiding inside of you. So if anyone should be afraid of themselves, it’s me, but I’m not cowering in fear every time I look in the mirror.”

“But, Rex,” said ShinGaru, “such a power, if left unchecked…”

“I’m not saying she shouldn’t stay on top of it. By all means, learn to harness it so it doesn’t ever get away from you again, but don’t hold it back, either. AnaSaya, I watched you bring a fully armored DraGon knight to the edge of death’s door. You might have even actually killed him.”

“I don’t want to be powerful in that way,” AnaSaya said with what sounded like conviction for the first time in a while. “I’m not some weapon.”

“Maybe not, but that probably won’t always be your choice.” She looked at him both in surprise and frustration. “Life has a way of forcing your hand when you need to do something, even if you don’t want to…trust me.”

“Don’t you see though, Rex? I’m scared. Scared of what’s inside me. Tell me, what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to keep fighting with that fear?”

“By becoming stronger than the thing that scares you.”

“What if that thing is me?”

“Then you get stronger than you are now.”

His solution was so simple and yet struck a chord of truth within her. If this power was in her, then it was part of her, and she refused to believe that any part of her was wrong. No, this was her strength to wield, and wield it she would. Too many innocent lives were being taken, and no one was stopping it from happening. Today she learned that she could push back against those who would destroy all she loved; learned that she could strike fear in the heart of that which she herself feared.
It goes both ways. I will show them that I can be a far greater threat to them than they can be to us
. With that, she rose to her feet and stood firm. “All right: I won’t run from this. I will stand and fight.”

“Now that’s more like it,” Rex said, towering over her.

“You hear that, guys?” EeNox exclaimed. “Our little AnaSaya is back in the fight!”