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So much heat. So much smoke. So many screams and cries and such a repulsive, gut-twisting stench of burning and loss.
Violent coughs jerked my body. I slowed down, heaving for air, frantically waving my arm in front of my face to clear my blurry vision and clear the air entering my lungs.
Earth children scurried to create waves of dirt and sand to kick down the raging flames. They burned too high. Too hot. Too fierce and unrelenting. Branches and thick clusters of leaves crumbled from blackened trees. The entrance to the herb garden was all but gone. No way could anyone go in or out.
I grabbed the nearest earth Elf. “Have you seen my mother?!”
“N-no.” She shook her head before throwing her hand out, sending another swirl of sand and soil into the flames.
My bottom lip quivered hard. When another Elf neared me with a bucket of water, I flung my arm and sent the liquid slamming into the fire, but it wasn’t enough. A mere drop wouldn’t stop a raging blaze.
I clung to the male and shook him hard. “My mother—have you seen her?”
“Forgive me, child, I—” Someone jerked him out of my reach and shouted at him to bring more water.
More water. More sand. Faster, faster,faster.
I couldn’t see my mother anywhere. My head spun from how frantically I searched for her, and when I noticed my father was not among the crowd either, it was like my chest was moments away from cracking open.
“Kenia.” Keia pulled on my earlobe hard, jolting me into awareness. She fluttered her wings to hover in front of my face, a colourful flurry of green and red among flames and smoke. “Standing still in panic won’t help you find them. Move.”
I obeyed with a gasp, my limbs moving as if they had a mind of their own; reaching, twisting, guiding writhing strands of water out of buckets and right into the flames devouring and scorching and destroying. They were relentless, crackling and snapping like a furious beast disturbed from their meal.
My skin itched, limbs aching, perspiration beading on my flesh and rolling down my face and body from how close I stood to the flames. Too close, coughing and wheezing, struggling to draw my next breath, but I had to find my parents. They were waiting—I knew they were. Behind this unforgiving curtain of fire and malice, they were trapped and waiting.
“Child, move back!” Someone tugged on my shoulders, but I jerked out of their clutches with my hands shaking.
“My mother is in there!” I yelled over the chaos of shouts and cries, pulling more water out of buckets and pots.
It took too long to finally put the flames out—long enough for stars to faintly twinkle in the smoke-clouded sky. And when the steam and dust finally settled, my knees gave out, and I collapsed to the dried, burnt ground.
The blood in my head rushed south, leaving me numb and swaying. My shaking fists clenched so tight my nails broke the soft flesh of my palms. My heart—my silly, senseless heart—slammed against my ribs and in my ears, in my throat, in my fingers, everywhere. Noise washed inside my head, but not one word registered.
Bodies littered the herb garden. Charred, singed, twisted bodies of Elves. Our Elders. I barely recognised some of their faces—little features that had survived the feast of fire. Wounds gaped. Blood flowed dry on equally scorched ground, so dark I didn’t know if it was the stain of ash or blackened red.
But it wasn’t this bloody vision of brutality that stilled my breath.
Exactly where I’d left her was my mother. On her side, shrivelled and curled into herself like a dried leaf. The pot of stew she was preparing was tipped over, contents and ingredients long ruined. I’d recognise that frame even when it was stripped of flesh. Even when her face was peeled from her skull. Even when her blue hair was scorched and gone. I’d recognise that bone structure. Even when it was savaged.
And she wasn’t alone.
My father… he’d been on his way with our Elders to where my mother and other females were working. I’d given them a rushed greeting, hadn’t even paused to give my father a hug or a nuzzle.
My mother’s scent still clung to me from earlier. Faint and soft, vanishing by the heartbeat. Gone. Gone like their souls, their bodies left as some cruel compensation.
Water strands rose from the ground like the bars of a cage. It twisted around them in a dance of sorrow, mourning, claiming the remains of their existence.
“Kenia…”
My eyes didn’t move even when I recognised my brother’s pained, breathless voice.
“Why…” I whispered, but it sounded like air came out of my lips instead.
Shrieks and wails burst around me. Sorrow. Mourning. Grief. But all I felt was a cold numbness that rooted my knees down and slumped my shoulders.
“Mother said… srygi stew,” I said past a narrowing throat. Wet warmth streaked down my cheeks, vision clouding. I looked down at my empty hands and blinked, fat drops of liquid splattering on my quivering palms. “I forgot the srygi…”
My head spun. The world blurred for a moment, my body swaying. I almost crashed my head into the ground had my brother not rushed to steady me to him.
