A Soul To Receive - 4. Chapter 4

6 years later

I rubbed sleep from my eyes, wondering what had woken me from such a sound slumber. I’d only fallen asleep a few hours earlier, exhausted from pre-dawn sword training. The smell of burning made my nose twitch and I sat up, eyes wide. Uncontrolled fire meant disaster in a castle.

I slid to the side of my bed and groped for my boots, finally finding them and sliding them on. I picked up my sword and swept up the Silver Tales from the bedside table, tucking it under my shirt in the pouch I’d made for it. I couldn’t lose it now, and I doubt I’d be coming back here if a fire was out of control.

I stumbled out of my room, scanning the stone passageway for a source of the smell. Seeing none, I stepped to the slit like window that overlooked the courtyard and gasped when my eyes adjusted to the sunlight. My masters treasured library was burning. The great stone archive set against the keep was engulfed in flames that burnt with red anger.

I scurried down the stairway, desperately hurrying to the flames like a moth. Lord Aric would be broken if it was all lost. His family had slaved over the library since time immemorial, building a collection greater than even the High Temple or the College of Mages.

A large crowd had gathered, soldiers and peasants dousing the flames with bucket lines but it was barely making a dent. I grabbed the shoulder of a watching merchant. “Lord Aric . . . Lord Aric . . . . where is he?” I gasped, not seeing his kindly figure in the crowd.

“In -” He paused at a crash, both of us glancing back to the building as hail of slate tiles slid from the roof. “In there.” He pointed with a shaky finger and my eyes snapped to the doors of the library, blackened with soot. “He ran in there, said he had to save something.”

Horror exploded in my mind. “Why isn't anyone helping him?”

The merchant glanced to me with wide eyes like he was seeing a madman. “We’re not crazy.”

“Coward.” I hissed, pushing him away and running across the packed dirt square. I grasped at the heavy door, the burning hot wood searing my fingers. I hissed at the pain but persevered, dragging the door open enough to squeeze myself through.

The heat battered my body as I stepped inside. The library was crumbling around me as I dashed down the middle of the building.

As I ran flames swept faster up the side of towering bookcases, the living wood groaning in protest. Papers scattered underfoot as my boots clattered across on the flagstone floor. “Lord Aric! Lord Aric!” I slammed against the door to his study, the smoke seeping into my lungs with every gasp.

The thick oak refused to budge and I glanced around wildly, grasping for anything. The fire was closer now … the library was trying but it was built out of wood and paper and no matter how much magic you covered it in, it would still burn eventually.

I grabbed my sword and stabbed its blade into the lock, trying to cut the wood but the runes simply sparked and the metal warped on contact. I tossed the disfigured weapon aside and slammed my shoulder against the oak again. A sharp pain shot into my muscles.

“Lord Aric, please!” I cried out, banging my good fist on the wood. My left arm drooped uselessly, disabled by the doors magic. “Please . . . .” The heat of the flames were on me now and I could feel my skin drying out and cracking under the roaring flames.

“This isn’t how it’s supposed to go.” I mumbled, sliding down the door and flopping uselessly on the floor with tears in my eyes. The library shuddered around me, the floor buckling with each shake. The magical being that possessed this building was screaming out in pain in the only way it had.

A loud crash echoed above the crackle of flames as the aisles began to fall and I rubbed ash from my eyes to watch.

The door to Lord Aric’s study suddenly cracked open with the creak of rusty hinges and I went to scramble to my feet. Before I could stand a sudden pain exploded in my side and my vision blurred as I tumbled through the air.

When the painful haze cleared I looked up from my landing place in horror as the towering back of a daemon receded, dragging the bleeding body of my master in one clenched fist. I wanted to cry out but I could only whimper in pain as the thing snapped the libraries doors from their hinges and disappeared into the sunlight.

Screams came from outside as the daemon encountered the crowd and clutching my middle, I stood. I had to follow this thing, I couldn’t let it escape. I stumbled along the walkway, now covered in charred books. The flames were everywhere and finally I realised why they seemed so red …. this wasn’t natural fire.

My ash covered figure stumbled from the library doors and I fell to my knees into the middle of the square, gasping for air and coughing up ash. My eyes alighting on pools of blood everywhere and I raised my head to see the disaster left in the daemons wake. The castle seemed to glower down closer. Like the library, it was alive and it surely wasn’t happy.

The mangled forms of soldiers who had tried to stop the daemon were scattered across the dirt. Villagers cowered behind carts and barrels. I pulled myself together enough to stand and it felt like something came loose in my mind, a sudden flash of soul warping anger.

With my teary eyes on the gaping hole in the ancient masonry of Castle Gray, I made myself an oath to track down this beast and kill it and then I fell into a dead faint.