Chapter Nineteen Run and Live
"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places."
Adan always had the worst dreams when the bleeds arrived. They were vivid, almost life like, and always the same one. It was as if mother nature mocked her, that she would bleed asleep, while everyone she loved would bleed in her dreams--her memories.
The moment sleep claimed her, the world shifted into a haze of nightmares. They always came—the same ones, each more suffocating than the last. Her breath caught as the dream took form, pulling her under, swirling her into a past she couldn't outrun.
--
She always loved her oldest brother Luka more than Illias.
He was kinder, and had more patience, like their mother.
Not that Illias was cruel, he just never spared the time for his much younger sister.
He was too busy being the second son of Rolan and Ariadne Feuer.
While Luka was busy studying to become the next King of Nixcader, their ancestral home.
Illias was running around cashing skirts, and being a general all-round-prat.
Adan was too young to understand why her brother had no time for her.
Too young to understand a great many things.
One particular cold winter night, Adan had been sent to bed early by her father, Rolan.
Not for anything that she had done, but because her family had reason to discuss something far beyond her years.
It did not stop her from slinking out of her room to hide in the shadows to overhear their conversation at the dinner table.
"You will go to the Capital for your brother." The King of the Fire House spoke with unyielding steel. That voice had his children cowering--that he so rarely used. There was no room for arguing.
Even still her brother snapped back, "I do not wish to leave Nixcader."
Their home of ice and snow. "Luka is your heir, he should be the one to receive Cias's summons, not I."
Illias was a spoiled second son, not used to taking orders.
Embarrassing if you consider the fact that he was fifty-five years old.
Rolan slammed his meaty fists onto the table, the crystal chandelier shook in warning. "You are my son, and you will obey." Adan knew her father's temper would soon be unleashed on her brother, if Illias did not shut his big fat mouth.
"Darling." Her mother, Ariadne, soft voice filled the hall. "Perhaps you should entrust this mission to Luka." She reasoned, but the scoff Rolan resounded, stopped that train of thought.
"Illias is right--Luka is my heir, and he will stay in Nixcader--where he belongs. My son will listen to his King and sire and will leave for the Capital at first light." There was no room for arguing. Adan heard nothing from Illias and knew that he had accepted his fate.
Luka had remained silent through it all.
"Cias is not to be trusted. Lymia loves him for his defeat of the Dragons, but our family knows the truth. He massacred them for his own selfish gains. Be on your guard the moment you arrive in the City of Bones." Ariadne warned her son, before dismissing them.
Adan sulked deeper into the shadows as chairs moved, signifying that her brothers would walk past her at any moment.
Illias never noticed her small frame hidden behind a sculpture of their great-grandmother Agnisus Nazyr.
The first Dragon to marry into the Great Phoenix House of Feuer--The First union to cross House lines.
Luka, however, passed with a wink to his sister. She stayed hidden until her brothers were long gone.
"I am worried, my love." Her mother spoke again, once she thought the room emptied.
"I would be concerned if you weren't." Her father spoke in that soft tone he saved only for his wife, and only when he thought no one was listening.
"He wants something..."
"He always wants something... the man does not know how to be content with what he already has." Her father's tone turned bitter at the mention of Cias, the King of House Storm.
"You think it wise to send Illias?"
"He is floundering, spending all his days in brothels. He needs direction, and if it means that he hates me for it, then so be it."
Her father no longer sounded angry, like he normally did at the mention of his second son.
She was too young to understand that her parents only wanted what was best for their children.
"And this is the task that should set him straight? Is there not something that you can find for him here?" Her mother pushed. Adan had never seen anyone else in the court question her father, no one else dared. But his beloved wife, questioning in private, was something her father encouraged.
"It has been decided, the messenger left already telling Cias that Illias would be along shortly."
"He asked for you though, Rolan."
Her father grunted, "If that deceitful twat thinks I will fall into a trap, he has another think coming."
"So you send your son in your stead?" Adan felt more than heard her mothers' fury.
"Ari, what would you have me do? Leave you and our children? I am damned if I do, and damned if I don't. It is precisely what Cias wants."
Adan felt her eyes growing heavy, the hour well past her bedtime. She decided to slink back to her bed chamber. The other choice was falling asleep in the shadows for someone to come find her.
Adan's dream morphed and churned, and she rolled-- tossing and turning in the sheets.
Her brother had arrived home from the Storm Kings summons, and immediately Adan knew something was wrong. Not that anyone else seemed to notice the glossy glazed look that clouded Illias gaze.
She couldn't sleep the night that he returned, thoughts of her brothers' haunted look kept her from closing her eyes. She sought her mother in her chambers for some semblance of comfort, that only a mother could provide.
It wasn't until she was in her parents bed that she realized how horribly right Adan was.
At first, she thought that her parents had left their bedroom window open. That the falling snow had made the bed wet, but the room was burning with heat. It wasn't until Adan summoned her fire in her tiny palm, illuminated the dark bedchamber that she screamed.
The blood wasn't just a trickle of snow—it was the entire bed, soaked, dark as night.
Her mother's lifeless form lay still, not that there was much left to identify her.
The warmth that had once radiated from Ariadne, the soft light of her presence, was gone.
Someone had gutted her mother. Adan screamed again at the blood that covered her hands, her nightgown--It was everywhere.
The walls were covered in blood, dripping from every corner, from every shadow.
Her father, Rolan, the King of Fire House, was nowhere to be found.
Adan's throat closed with terror, her small hands reaching for the warmth of her mother, but there was nothing left.
"Mama!" She reached for the brutalized body, her tears already falling over the brutalized body of her mother.
She froze, tears dripping from her cheeks when she heard a noise.
Someone had heard her screaming. Adan instantly rolled and hid under her parents' bed, not knowing who exactly was coming to inspect the noise.
The door creaked open, and she covered her mouth with her bloody hand to keep from screaming again. "Inara?" Luka's warm voice filled the room. She saw his boots as they stilled, not doubt at the scene before him.
"Luk." She whimpered, dragging herself out from under the bed.
Her brother was instantly there grabbing her arms and helping her to stand.
His eyes wide at his little sister dripping in blood.
He turned her, looking her over for any sign of harm, and breathed a sigh of relief when he found none.
He cradled her head so that she could not turn around to look up at their parents bed.
Luka knelt down so that he was level with his little sister.
"I need you to listen to every word I say, do you understand me, Narrie?"
Only Luka called her that, she moved to turn to look at their mother, but he held her firm.
Shaking her shoulders, bringing her attention back to him.
"Inara!" He said firmly, but still whispering as if afraid someone might hear them.
"I need you to run, Narrie." She shook her head hard, but her brother wiped at her face with his sleeve.
Adan refused to look down at their mother's blood that covered her.
"Where is father? Where is Illias?" She begged.
"Narrie, listen to me. You have to run, and you do not stop. Do you hear me?"
Sounds of screams filled the castle as her brother tried to reason with her.
"You run until you cannot run anymore, and then you keep running."
It was a command, from her Head of House-- the realization hit her hard in the chest.
It was the tone their father had used on them from time to time.
Now her brother had it. Which meant only one thing...
He stood then, having waisted enough time on trying to convince his little sister. People were dying—his people. He grabbed her hand and hauled her into the hallway out of their parents' private quarters.
"Luk, we're fire birds--we do not die--nos noli mori." Adan repeated her family words, had been told stories of her people and how powerful they were. Phoenixes could be reborn from their ashes. Give life with true-love's tears, she just had to get to her mother's body--she just needed more time--
"That's right--You don't die." He whispered as he dragged her down the hallway. Their footsteps echoing in the empty, cold corridors of Nixcader Castle.
She couldn't understand why her mother would not want to come back. Her children were here, waiting for her, and father. Why was Luka so worried-- they would be back-- their parents would never leave them?
"Where is—" Adan was about to ask again about Illias when she was pushed roughly into an alcove. She had always had a perchance for hiding in dark shadows. Innately she knew that her brother silently willed her to be quiet.
"Brother." Illias sounded from down the hall. He didn't even sound like himself, it made Adan's skin pebble and her heart pound.
"Brother." Luka volleyed back, though his tone was calm.