From the Embers (The Born in Flames Trilogy)

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  From the Embers. Copyright © 2014 by Candace Knoebel.

  Edited by Kate Wright. Cover by www.ravven.com.

  All rights reserved including the right to manufacture in any format, sell, or distribute copies of this book or portions of this book. For information, visit http://www.48fourteen.com.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-937546-26-7

  ISBN-10: 1937546268

  Born in Flames Trilogy

  Born in Flames, Book I

  Embracing the Flames, Book II

  From the Embers, Book III

  For every Little Flame struggling to find their place in the world.

  Never stop dreaming, and never stop believing in yourself.

  Prologue

  “THIS JUST IN,” A WOMAN’S steely voice said. She paused, her eyes skimming over the monitor, taking in the words that were displayed on the screen before she had to deliver them to the thousands that tuned in.

  Her eyes came to a hasty halt and she stiffened in her seat. She looked off to the left, stealing a breath. “I can’t believe it,” she mumbled to herself, her lips quivering. Her heart threatened to leap out of her chest.

  She looked back up at the camera with a strained smile, her face paling as she tried her best to resume her composure. But the sound of the paper rattling in her hands was a dead giveaway.

  Something was wrong.

  She stared at the light in front of her that read “on air” and swallowed, regretting for the first time the duty that came with being a news anchor. Another weak smile pressed on her lips, her mind running blank.

  Someone from behind the camera ushered her on with a small hand wave. She was fully aware of all the curious stares in the studio. Something she had never paid any mind to before.

  Her co-anchor cleared his throat.

  She shook her head, pulling herself together. “I don’t quite know how to put this.” Her voice was almost inaudible. “It seems there has been a phenomenon. One that cannot be explained.” She stopped, knowing that so many lives out there were unaware of what was to come next. Knowing she was about to forever change those lives with the next words she would speak.

  “We have been advised by the Department of Homeland Security to evacuate immediately to your nearest advised shelter. Our world is under attack.”

  The camera zoomed into her face for the deliverance of that last sentence that hung at the bottom of the screen like a noose. The room quieted. She paused once again, regretting the next words that were to leave her mouth, but knowing it was of great importance. The world depended on it.

  “Our world is no longer ours as we know it.”

  The screen went fuzzy, and the earth began to rumble.

  Chapter 1

  A Homecoming

  I WOKE TO THE SOUND of screaming. They were my screams—blood curdling and full of agony. My senses were bombarded with the awareness of being back in the magical realm. Of all the pain and heartache. Of all the many mistakes I had made.

  My eyes fluttered open and burned as they strained to focus in on my location. Rain pattered to the ground, splashing up from the cold, cavern floor that I rested on.

  As I pushed myself up, I felt something cold in my hand and tried to focus on that instead of the sharp pain shooting throughout my limbs.

  I held a glowing, light blue stone. The Stone of Immortality. My skin pricked underneath its pulsating power. Images of what had happened in the Hall of Knowledge flash through my mind in no particular order.

  “Aurora?”

  It was Lexi. She was right beside me, still alive. Without caring about the pain, I leaned over and pulled her into a hug, swearing that I would never let anything happen to her ever again.

  “Okay, you should stop now.” She sounded repulsed. She placed her hands against my shoulders and firmly pushed me back to a safe distance away from her.

  Guilt replaced every bit of excitement I felt at seeing her face. Though she was here, she wasn’t the same, and there was nothing I could do to fix that. Choices had been made and Lexi had paid the price.

  I just wished the price hadn’t been her life.

  I swallowed the awful lump in my throat as my eyes finally adjusted to the dull light of our realm. “Where are we?” I asked, trying to rub away the obscurity that seemed to have taken over my memories. The pressure felt good against my temples.

  “The Obsidian Chasm,” she said sharply.

  The realization of where I stood struck hard, like a weighted fist to my stomach. “Wait, I’m home?”

  “Do you remember anything?” Lexi snapped, her hands flying out in front of her. “The altercation in the Lair of the Stone? Zordon evolving into a Fate? The war beginning? Iliana?” Her cheeks were burning red by the time she finished.

  Frustration pulled my brows together. “Yes, but it's all mixed up…” I said, my hands still rubbing the ache out of my temples. My brain buzzed with pain as I tried to recall all of my mortal memories. It was all right there at the tip of my tongue, but a fog of confusion seemed to be separating the connection. Almost like a dream, or a nightmare.

  “Well, try to un-mix it then.” At her dull, snide tone, I stopped rubbing my head and looked at her. She was dusting black ash off her white robe, her lip curled in disgust.

  She looked like a puffed up cloud inside of her Celestian robe. They spared no expense in setting themselves apart from the other beings in our realm.

  “You really are a Celestian then?” I tried to contain the sorrow that filled me and leaked out into my voice, because I knew she wouldn’t be one if it hadn’t been for my choice. If I hadn’t let her die.

  She shoved her chin in the air, standing quickly to rid herself of the black ash that made up our surroundings. Huffing loudly when the soot refused to budge, she then chanted something that returned her robe to pure white.

  “Little Flame?” I heard from behind me. Astral had appeared out of nowhere.

  Tears burst from my eyes as I turned and jumped into his arms. “You’re all right!”

  “It appears so,” he said with a hearty chuckle, wrapping his large arms around me. I squeezed him just a bit tighter, grateful for the sound of his sensible voice. After a brief returned squeeze, he pulled back, his soothing grin stretching across his face beneath his beard. “And what have we got here?” He eyed the Stone, the reflection of it casting tiny pearls of light in his dimmed eyes.

  I glanced down curiously. It was the most beautiful ultramarine color I had ever seen, shimmering in the palm of my hand like a frozen piece of crystal clear water.

  “Iliana said I’d need this.” The thought twisted my stomach. I remembered her saying I’d need it, but I don’t remember why.

  Lexi coughed obnoxiously loud, gaining our attention. “That’s all well and good, Aurora, but do you remember why you need it?” Her arms were crossed over her chest with a taunting glare in her eyes.

  My enthusiasm vanished. Of course she would call me out. I could barely look at her because although she is starting to get on my nerves, there is too much guilt to allow myself to be upset with her. She deserves to be upset with me, and giving her that is the least I could do.

  “Not exactly. Weren’t you working under her command? I hoped
you would know,” I said.

  “Figures.” With narrowed eyes, she turned from me and muttered something to Astral. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound pleasant or polite.

  I felt my face harden. With a heavy sigh, I turned and stared out into the sheeting rain. It fell at a rapid pace, preventing me from seeing beyond the opening of the Chasm.

  “Well,” Lexi said with a sigh, “I’m sure Iliana left out that detail for a reason. So, despite this small set back, there are more important things to consider.”

  I turned to face her.

  Her hands are folded neatly in front of her. She stared evenly at me. “The end of days has begun. There’s much to catch up on and very little time to do so. A lot has taken place while we were away.”

  “Catch up on what? And what do you mean by a lot? How long were we gone for?” I asked, trying to shake the sinking feeling in my stomach.

  Her gaze fell flat.

  Astral shifted and took a gentle step in between us. “Forgive her, Alexis. Being in the Hall of Knowledge for such a long time does make one dizzy-minded.”

  “But I wasn’t there for that long. Hours if anything,” I stated. I was confused and felt on the verge of snapping. The dragon in me felt suppressed.

  His smile was patient when he tilted his head at me. “Oh, but it was much longer, Little Flame. You’ve been gone for almost a year in the time of the living. We are in November…again.”

  The faint scent of smoldering embers mixed with rain swept up in a light breeze, awakening my numbed senses. Like a flash flood, memories swarmed my mind, ending with the moment everything had changed for the worst.

  When the images stopped, I looked up at him, tears blurring my vision. “Come, you must see for yourself,” he said with a sad smile and an extended hand.

  We stepped closer to the ledge where the lava had once majestically spewed over and into the chasm below. I gasped. The lava was no longer there. Instead, a piling of decaying Draconta bodies, human and dragon, was grotesquely strewn across the expansive space. Plumes of smoke rose from the cooling of the rain, hardening the lava that had once warmed the hearth of the Draconta.

  The boards used to cross the Chasm on that awful day led all the way up to the opening, now singed with footsteps marking the steps of battle. I dropped to my knees, letting the Stone fall from my hand. I had failed them. I had failed my destiny. The words of the prophecy burned in my mind. I was chosen to protect the dying race…my family, and I had failed. I felt my throat tighten to the point of suffocation.

  Lexi snatched up the Stone, tucking it into her robe with a muddled huff before she turned her back on the Chasm. If anyone should be upset, it should be her. She was raised here and yet it seemed as if she never knew this place. Never cared. I had taken that from her.

  I swallowed a few times, trying to clear my throat enough to speak. “What happened?”

  “Oh for Fate’s sake, exactly what I said before, Aurora. The end of days happened. The fall of the Draconta happened,” Lexi said harshly. “And now Zordon’s darkness, his power, his taint…it has spread across the lands of this realm, sucking the very essence of the elements. Nothing is balanced. It is as if he has swallowed the sun itself.”

  I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. What could I say?

  Astral’s hand rested against my back, trying to soothe me. “That is why you must be our New Dawn, Little Flame,” he said. “You must return things to normal.”

  I looked up at him, shaking my head in denial. “How?”

  I winced when Lexi sucked her teeth. Astral shot her a menacing look, but it didn’t chip through her icy exterior. She rolled her eyes and looked away from him.

  “All of my people. My grandparents, Soothe, Zane, my parents, Fenn—” I broke off, the tears now plummeting to the sooty earth. A sickening sob sat in the middle of my throat, held on by thin threads of control.

  Lexi snuck a glance at Astral, and then said, “They are all fine.” There was pity in her voice, enough to strengthen my control. She shuffled her feet and looked down, a small sigh leaving her lips. “Well…most of them.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek, scared to ask the next question that I knew I could not avoid. I had to know. “Most?”

  She looked up, her hazel eyes creasing in pain. “Your mother…” She let the words hang in the air between us as she looked away, refusing to hold my gaze.

  My mind raced back to the cavern the night that everything had changed for the worst. My mother had been Zordon and Gwenevere’s prisoner. Gwen had used Irisi’s dark magic to compel Eralise to do her bidding so that she and Zordon could penetrate the layers of enchantments only meant for the royal Draconta to pass through. When they succeeded, it was I who had to lead them across the steps to reach the Stone.

  Panic pounded in my heart at the memory as my breathing picked up. I reached around to my back, searching for the searing pain of the knife Gwen had so easily driven into me.

  Lexi’s voice sounded distant as she spoke. “After Zordon touched the Stone and ported you both, my mother was left behind with your mother. She had already lost it long before.” She stared off into the shallows of the Chasm.

  I thought back to the day of Lexi’s untimely death. The blood she choked on while clinging on to her last few seconds of life, seconds that would forever haunt me. That is what had inevitably driven Gwenevere to madness.

  “She couldn’t handle the pain,” I admitted solemnly, remembering the crazed madness that filled her eyes the night she had betrayed us all and went rogue.

  Lexi looked at me. “No, she couldn’t.” It was a simple answer. She took in a deep breath, tucking a fallen strand of hair back behind her ear, and then pushed her shoulders back. “And in the end, she felt the pain would be healed with revenge—a lot like my father’s way of thinking, I suppose. And when you disappeared with Zordon, she could take it no longer. She gave your mother over to the Dark Saar.”

  “Alexis!” Astral barked.

  Her cool demeanor had returned.

  I felt like I had been stabbed again, only this time straight through my heart. I tried to choke back the sob that filled my throat, pushing me to the point of unbearable madness.

  My mother was dead. I had killed the Dark Saar’s leader, Searamin. What did they put my mother through to avenge his death?

  Astral scowled at Lexi and then bent down, tucking me into his huge form with a hug. “It will be okay, Little Flame. I’m sure it was quick.” But something in his voice told me that his words were a generic response. The imaginary knife twisted in my heart.

  An eerie scream ripped through the air, but this time it was not my own. I pushed out of Astral’s arms and turned in the general direction of the sound, searching for whomever it came from.

  “What was that?” I asked, wiping away the tears from under my eyes.

  “Screams of the damned.” Astral let out a heavy sigh. “When a Dark Saar takes an innocent life without turning them, they imprison their souls to relive their own death eternally.”

  My people were subjected to being tortured for all of eternity because of my fatal error. My poor lack of judgment. I swallowed back the bile that rose up with my burning guilt.

  Lexi exhaled loudly. She must have felt my weighted gaze because she turned back around, her stare saturated with blame. They were once her people too. Maybe she was beginning to remember that?

  I wanted to say something, anything to fix it, but the words never came. There was nothing that could change the course I had taken. The choices I had made—like sending Lexi to the grave, or weakening the barrier in hopes of finding Soothe, or even disobeying my grandparents to go after Zordon who I clearly wasn’t ready for. Had I just waited, maybe they would still be here. Maybe we would have won.

  Lexi cleared her throat, pulling me f
rom my internal struggle. “Look, I know this must be hard for you, Aurora, but we really must be going. Iliana gave me strict instructions before she sent us back, and I must stick to them if we are to rectify this.” There was nothing in her tone. No anger, sadness, hurt—nothing. She was empty.

  “What about the rest of this place? You mean to tell me no one’s here anymore?” I brushed away Astral’s attempt at soothing me and glanced down at the sea of my wasted heritage.

  “Look for yourself, but you’re only wasting precious time.” Lexi’s hand was extended towards the cavern entrance.

  I didn’t hesitate. I ran as fast as I could towards the Courtyard, praying that there was something left behind to turn all of her words into lies.

  Without the bright flow of lava, I had to use my dragon sight to see in the pitch-black cavern. I rounded the corner to the Courtyard and skidded to a stop, feeling my heart slam against my chest. Snapping a flame to my fingertips, I touched it to my shoulders and let it run down my scaled body. My breath came and went in rapid, uneven torrents. There was nothing I could do to calm myself. The fear of what I was about to see was too great.

  The panic only grew when I finally looked up from my panting chest and into the fire-illuminated Courtyard full of dark shadows and stories of deep pain.

  The grass was no longer vibrant and glowing from radiant rays of rainbow light. Instead, it had decomposed underneath the cavern roof’s shattered crystals that lay like broken pieces of a mirror. The ethereal throne was cracked straight through the middle, crumpled pieces of stone piled around it. A barricade of fallen stone filled the entrance to the tunnel that led to the Great Hall.

  Everything became a blur behind the haze of tears in my eyes. I stumbled over the rubble as I moved forward without purpose, managing to duck as a swarm of bats moved from left to right. The air was thick and damp. There was no music to be heard, no chattering amongst the crowd.