Page 32 of Hidden Kingdoms

Something very large and dark and whollynothuman leaped from behind the tree, forcing a small sob from me as Titan pushed his way into the centre of them all. Nanna’s hand rested gently on his large head.

They all faced me—no one spoke, no one moved. The wind whispering through the tall wildflowers and the creak of boughs was the only sound. I stood watching them as they watched me, knowing it wouldn’t stay like this and with each passing minute, anxiety scraped along my bones, waiting.

It started with a gentle crackling. The sound of candles being lit for a cake. When there was the reassurance the soft hiss would only last a moment before the breath of a wish extinguished its flames.

It floated to me from across the clearing, but I didn’t turn around; I didn’t want to see.

They wouldn’t be blown out. They would soon find me, and I would rather spend these moments looking at the family I desperately missed.

With every unseen tree it consumed, its volume grew to a roar, the popping and snapping of branches as loud as cannon fire.

The smell of burning wood was nauseating as it invaded my senses, the white smoke pooling in the sky above, depriving me of the ignorance of its presence.

Heat bore down on me as more trees fell prey to wicked orange tongues, but my family remained unmoved by the fire raging across from them.

It had edged into my line of sight, red and orange flames eagerly racing each other to make it to the finish line.

I knew I was the finish line.

They roared their challenge to each other, leaping and crashing over the branches they touched upon. The smoke grew thick and pressed down on my lungs, breathing laboured as the flames drank the oxygen from the air. I reached down to my magik, finding it locked away no matter how hard I tried to get to it. My body was locked down, too, legs frozen in place despite the inferno raging around me.

It was seconds away from the willow tree now, both sides having consumed the rest of the clearing. I watched helplessly, my chest heaving as I tried in vain to gulp down air, lungs burning from the smoke. The heat of the flames caressed my body in a promise of what was to come as the two sides clashed together in a devastating embrace. The heat and noise intensified to painful levels as the willow tree erupted, every lazy branch alight, popping and crackling.

They flicked out like lassos of fire, leaping and dancing through the air above where my dad was standing. The smile on his face disappeared, face contorting in pain as a fiery rope crashed down onto him and, faster than should be possible, he was engulfed in flames.

A silent scream tore from my throat, and I surged forward trying to get to him. My legs unmovable as I strained against invisible bonds. There was a lock on my magik that I couldn’t find a way past. All I could do was watch helplessly as the fire surged across his outstretched hand to my mum’s, the flames eagerly making their way over her body as she screamed under their touch. They wrapped themselves around her before another flame-fuelled whip sliced through the air, landing in Titan’s thick fur. His agonizing destroyed what was left of my heart.

Within seconds he was consumed, the fire tearing through him to latch onto the hand Nanna still had resting on his head. My throat was shredded from the screams I couldn’t stop from tearing from me even though,unlike them, no sound was escaping.

Why aren’t they moving, running?

If I could get to them, push them back into the pond then maybe I could save them. I re-doubled my efforts to get free, but it was getting harder to think clearly, my mind as fogged as the air around me. Again, the flames reached their target, enveloping Nanna in a fiery embrace that I couldn’t bring myself to witness, my heart breaking as they devoured her.

I strained to break free as they came for me, darting forward to tease with soft touches that seared my skin in fiery lines. My family’s screams harmonised, voices now louder than the roaring flames in a symphony of anguish that threatened to shatter my skull with its force.

I lurched forward as the invisible restraints around me broke, desperate to reach the people I loved. A sharp tug on my heart urged me to turn back, away from them. But I wouldn’t.

I could save them. If I could get them into the water, it would work. I knew it would.

I reached Nanna first, thrusting my arms out to shove her towards the pond but it was like colliding with stone, and pain shot down my arms at the impact. My voice broke through its silent barrier as Nanna’s fire glided across my skin. I was already in its clutches as I stumbled back, agony replacing all my senses. The inferno tore at me, the pain more than anything I had ever felt. I wasn’t burning; my body wasn’t blackening and turning to ash. My skin only reddened under its attention, bones searing with the heat as the dance of the flames mocked me.

There was no end, I could burn this way forever.

“Open your eyes.”

It was so soft, the voice that whispered in my ear, that I didn’t know how it had been heard over the sound of the fire, but my eyes were open. They were open and watching as my family burnt alive. Like I was.

Tug.

I was pulled back, just a step as flames chased each other across my body like I was a board for them to play on. My vision flickered and I knew I wouldn’t hold out much longer; I had to get us to that pond, to the water. I managed one agonising step?—

15

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

ELODIE

Acrash of wood jarred my thoughts and I couldn’t tell what was real or just another part of my dream. Still flushed with heat, I could no longer feel the flames that had violently assaulted me.

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