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Dancing to a Song Only Flame can Sing - by T.A.Saunders » November 2016

Chapter 1: A Heart’s Precious Memory

The room was dark save for the dim light that washed in angry orange and defiant yellow across the landscape of chairs, tables, couches and bookshelves from one of the three fireplaces that kept the impressively large library of Chateau Illuminous warm. The shadows played dangerous games of challenge with the light as wood cracked, popped and sizzled in the otherwise silent sanctuary Kithanis uth Braegon claimed here in the dim-lit truth of recent weeks.

He had tried to sleep but the luxury of such things was forsaken to him; each time he closed his eyes, Kithanis was haunted by memories of his Viviana. The memories were good ones that had reminded him of better times, when things seemed less troubled and his enemies seemed less cruel. He remembered the day he had given her the wooden figurine he had carved, in the shape of a dancer and how she loved the simple things he did for her, rather than the urge for extravagance he had a penchant for. As he closed his eyes, he also remembered the night he danced with her, with Dathon singing and others watching. He had not known the dance at the time, but was unafraid to try something new. He remembered how her hips moved when his hands were placed upon them and the smile that could pale ten thousand stars, for the mere act of dancing with her. Viviana was his Enticing Flame, whose light had been snuffed out far too soon but even now the embers of her passing still burned hotly in Kithanis’ memory.

Viviana had taught him that it was all right to simply be Kithanis rather than the perpetual image of His Grace, Lord uth Braegon of Illuminous. She had taught him that joy was found in the kiss of the wind and the warmth of falling rain, as easily as it was found in lavish expenditures and expensive gifts that could never know an equal in price. She had taught him the value of simply being a man who loved, rather than a provider that sheltered those he cared for. She would forever dance, he imagined, in the precious confines of his heart where she would never be forgotten and never be harmed.

“I avenged you,” Kithanis whispered aloud, as if Viviana from the heavens above could hear his words now. “I avenged you and assured Aerisaen will be safe from harm, yet I do not know peace as I thought I would. The men who committed the deed have been found and captured and the one that ordered your death was slain by my own hand, yet I cannot reconcile you being gone.”

Kithanis quieted for a time. Inwardly he knew Vivi would not have wished vengeance in his heart, but the way she had been slain could not be abided. The unbridled rage Kithanis felt for these acts required satisfaction that could only be penned out in the putrid black blood of Nevi Stormwillow, the last of Ko’s four vampire elders. Yet, even in finding his satisfaction with Nevi’s death, Kithanis still felt the matter unresolved in his heart; as if there was more to be done. Something more to remember Viviana so that the bright light she brought to this world would not be lost forever in the great shadow that is Imarel.

“I still feel you here, in my arms resting here with me as we often did and I can still recall that gentle scent you’d wear on your skin. Do you know how I used to always nuzzle into your neck? You used to giggle a bit at me, but it was so I could catch that scent upon you. I still find its aroma here,” Kithanis wasn’t sure if Vivi could hear his confessional, but he needed to speak to her. He needed to find some resolution with her departure. He needed to say goodbye to her and wish her well on her journey, where he imagined she would find her parents who were also slain in some manner of political maneuvering. The ironic similarity immediately sickened him.

Rising from the couch for the knot he had found in his stomach that had been made by guilt and sadness, Kithanis moved to stand closer to the fireplace. Wordlessly, he pulled the poker free and prodded the crumbling embers of wood that rose and danced with the heated air. Viridian eyes narrowed in silent observation as he watched this dance of rising embers, smoke that moved to the steady song of the flame.

“She dances to a song only flame can sing,” Kithanis murmured to himself. The words reminded him of Vivi and for whatever reason he found comfort in them, where nothing else seemed to offer him such things. The poker was haphazardly discarded into its ring with a sharp clang of iron. Kithanis strode briskly across the wooden floor with the sound of his bare feet and the whisper of his black silk smoking jacket and lounging pants heralding his approach towards his desk. Taking a seat here, he rummaged through the drawers until he found an appropriate piece of charcoal, whereupon he grabbed the first piece of vellum he could find and began sketching with great fervor that would carry him through the entirety of the night.

The darkness of evening would fade into the seeking rays of the dawn that poured through the large windows of Chateau Illuminous’ library and sprawled their warm light on the figure seated at a desk nearby. Kithanis had rested his head in the crook of his arm and had fallen asleep slumped over like this over the sketch he had made in a random moment of inspiration. He sat up in a disarray of sandy blonde hair and squinted at the unyielding light that gave him some clue as to the time of day it was. Kithanis had slept so little in the last week after Vivi’s death that the transition between night and day was becoming like blinking his eyes; life was becoming a single, straight line of non-existence that he was wasting away within. Guilt, sadness and regret were eating away at Kithanis in slow, unmerciful bites that threatened to devour him utterly if he did not snap out of this depression.

“She would not want this of me,” Kithanis thought as he gathered himself up and took the sketch he had drawn the night before in hand. He had drawn a falchion sword with a gentle curve that swept up to an uncompromising point that looked much like the tip of a flame in his mind, as it wavered in air. The hilt as well had curved, pointing elements drawn into it, to represent fingers of dancing flame as they outstretched to comprise the cross-guard and the pommel. The sword looked much like one of the weapons Viviana danced with as part of the many traditional Nahara dances she had learned at her village. The sword was Kithanis’ memory of Vivi, shining and unwavering in the cold wind of death. This weapon, in his mind’s eye was the song that only the flame of her memory could sing.

“Flamesong,” Kithanis stated simply, as he pushed back an errant forelock from his line of sight and folded the vellum once and tucked it into the pocket of his smoking jacket. It suddenly became clear to him that in order for him to properly say goodbye to his wife, he needed to create this weapon as a tribute to her and bright memories she had brought to his life; a sword to represent the light that was Viviana and the unrepentant fire that burned passionately within her heart.