Morgan Rice - A Land of Fire

Kendrick nodded.

“Then at least,” he said, “I shall be thankful for the one good thing the great war brought me.”

Sandara studied his face, so noble, so beautiful, and she could see his love for her, and she felt a flash of concern.

“Kendrick, I love you deeply,” she said. “I would like to think our love will withstand any obstacle, especially now that we shall be together in my homeland.”

She fell silent, and he studied her, confusion written on his face.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

Sandara paused, wondering how to phrase it.

“My people,” she explained, “they do not marry those of other races. Ours will be a first. Assuming, of course, you are even thinking of marriage.”

Kendrick reached over and took her hand and looked her in the eyes.

“I’ve asked for your hand in marriage many times—and I would still like it now as much as ever.”

Sandara smiled back up at him, feeling for the first time that maybe it was not a dream, that maybe it could really happen. And that scared her.

“What I am trying to say,” she said, “is that I don’t know how my people will react to you.”

He looked at her carefully.

“I did not take you to be one who bows to the will of her people,” he said.

Sandara reddened, indignant.

“I am my own person,” she replied. “I bow to no one. And yet, my people are very close to one another. The disapproval of the elders is not something easily tolerated. I do not wish to be an outcast among my family.”

Kendrick’s face darkened as he turned and looked out to the sea.

“I would be, for you,” he said.

“Your people are more open-minded than mine,” she countered. “You do not know what it’s like. The people of the Ring, they marry those of other races, from all parts of the world.”

“And yet if they did not,” Kendrick said, “I would not let their disapproval stop me from being with someone I love.”

Sandara turned to him, frustrated.

“You cannot say that,” she said, “because you do not know what it’s like.”

He sighed.

“The choice is yours, my lady,” he said. “I will not ask you to be with someone you do not wish to be with.”

Sandara felt her heart breaking inside. She reached out for his hands, raised them to her lips, and kissed them.

“Kendrick, you do not understand me. What I am trying to say is that I want to be with you. I don’t want my people to tear us apart. But I will need to be strong. I will need your strength.”

He nodded, and looked at her intently.

“I would walk through fire to be with you,” he said. “The disapproval of your people will not drive me away.”

Sandara felt relieved, as if she’d let a great weight off her chest, and she leaned it to kiss him; but suddenly, she noticed something out of the corner of her eye, something that made her stop. She looked carefully, studying the ocean waters, and her heart dropped as she was flooded with panic. She saw that, beneath them, the waters of the sea were shifting colors, growing lighter and lighter.

Kendrick followed her gaze.

“What is it?” he asked, seeing her expression.

“Turn around!” she yelled, grabbing his shoulders. “Do not look at the water!”

Sandara didn’t take time to respond to Kendrick’s puzzled look, but instead turned and suddenly yelled out to one of the Queen’s attendants: “Sound the bells! Warn the people! Do not look down! No matter what! GO!” She shoved the sailor, and he stumbled off, yelling the warning throughout the ship, and climbing the mast to sound the bells.

Soon the bells started to toll, and shouts sounded all throughout the ships as they burst into chaos.

“What has gotten into you!?” Kendrick asked.

But Sandara was busy studying the others; she looked around and saw many people rushing to the railings, on all the ships, leaning over and looking down at the light waters. Desperate to save them, she ran to the ship’s side, grabbed people from behind, and yanked them back before they could look over.

Kendrick saw what she was doing, and he joined in, and together, they managed to save quite a few of them.

But they could not reach them all, and for the others, for those who did not listen, it was too late. Sandara watched with horror as one person after another, staring down at the waters, turned to stone.

They fell over the rail, one after the next, the air filled with the sounds of stones splashing into the water, as they plummeted one after another into the sea of death.

Volusia sat on her marble throne, impatient, impetuous, staring back at the two common prisoners who stood shackled before her. Beyond them, in the distance, down below, there rose the chants of a hundred thousand of her citizens, squeezed into the coliseum, all cheering as the Razif was let loose in the arena. Volusia, not wanting to be distracted from the big moment, looked past these riffraff and down over their shoulders and saw the beast, bright red, nearly the size of an elephant, with three horns and a wide square face and jaw, and a hide as thick as a hundred swords, charging madly through the arena. The ground trembled as it charged in circles on the dirt floor, again and again, in a rage, looking for any victim.

The crowd cheered wildly at the expectation of the blood sport that would follow.

Volusia’s cold black eyes turned and settled on the two men standing before her. She studied them with disinterest, and as she did, she watched the expression of these middle-aged men softening at the sight of her, saw a new hope in their eyes, and something else: lust. Volusia had always had this effect on men. Although she had barely reached her seventeenth year, Volusia had already lived long enough to witness the effect she had—every man and woman she’d ever met acknowledged that she was gorgeous, and she did not need them to tell her; when she glanced into a mirror, which was often, she saw it herself. With her black eyes and raven black hair falling down to her waist, her perfectly chiseled features, her skin white as alabaster, she was not like others of her race.

Volusia was different from them in every way, she, of the human race who had nonetheless managed to ascend to leader of the Empire race of this Empire city, like her mother before her. This city might not be the capital of the Empire, but it was, at least the capital of the Northern Region of the Empire, and if it were not for Romulus, no one would stand in her way. Indeed, Volusia considered herself, not Romulus, to be the undisputed leader of the Empire, and very soon she planned to prove it. There had always been a rivalry between the South and the North, an uneasy alliance, and up until recently, Volusia had been content to allow Romulus to think he held all the power. It was advantageous for her to be thought of as weak.

Of course, she was the farthest thing from it, as anyone in her city knew too well.

As Volusia stared at the two men gaping at her, she shook her head at how stupid they were, looking upon her as a sex object. Clearly, they did not know of her reputation. Volusia had not risen to become Empress of the entire Northern Empire through her good looks; she had risen because of her ruthlessness. She was, indeed, more ruthless than all the men, more ruthless than all the generals, more ruthless than all the great nobles that had served in the House of Lords for centuries—more ruthless, even, than her own mother, whom she had strangled with her own bare hands.

Volusia tracked her ruthlessness back to the day when her mother had sold her to that brothel. Just twelve years old when her mother, who had more riches than she could count, had decided that she was going to sell Volusia off into a life of hell—just for the fun of it—Volusia had been shocked when she had been escorted into a small, stale room and given her first customer. But her customer—a fat, greasy man in his fifties—had been even more shocked when he’d encountered, instead of an accommodating girl, a remorseless killer. Volusia had surprised even herself when she’d made her first kill, surprising him by wrapping a cord around his neck and strangling him with all her might. He had fought relentlessly, but she had not let go.