Niala 9: Present day

Nausea rose up as I registered my surroundings. No cages barred me, but that all-too-familiar panicking sensation rose within me. There didn’t have to be cages, though. Fear worked better than any metal bar. A slew of girls lay cradled to themselves, slender young bodies folded over and peering out with fearful distant eyes through tear-crusted lashes. On each of their legs clung a fat anklet gently blinking to remind them that they belonged to someone. It made sure they’d never be able to get far.

This opulent room existed as a sole unique entity amid the gutted rooms. It bore new carpet, beige walls with gold accents winding over a classy wallpaper, and wall filagree matched the artwork hung in well-framed intervals. The recent renovations of the room stood out in sharp contrast with a bed in the center that bore a gold and tan duvet over crisp crimson sheets. Everything about it smelled storebought and new, all plastic and drying paint. Though a bed and furniture sat unused, the girls in the room huddled in small alcoves, corners, and secluded sections.

I had happened upon a nest of squirrels once. The terrified looks of those girls reminded me of them—trembling and unable to run. I raised my oblivion harder and watched the unease melt from them. Their eyes weren’t on me; they were on William. None of the girls could have been much older than me. They were in varying stages of undress, and for that matter, William as well. His fly lay open, and bile rose in my throat. I considered myself fortunate that I didn’t see what else his status seemed to advertise.

Something snapped inside me like a hot glass in cold water. I could almost feel the cracking happening, shattering—a final plink of something more.

“Ni.”Krell stepped closer towards me, and his aura of panic twitched within him. His nervous wavering tone escaped me. White noise welled static in my ears. Then, a dam of power swelled in my chest. Whatever broke in me before tried to break free harder now. It seared tight, hot, and ached like my wings when I needed to lash them free.

“Ni, come on now.” Krell reached out for me with shaking hands. A note of compacted fear cracked in his voice.

William watched with vexed curiosity, and something prickled over my skin. The dam of power rose in my chest—the wash of it. Euphoric release blossomed in my body as it coated my hands and arms. It flowed wild and free; it was mine. I recognized it as my fire even before it left my skin. Tingling waves of sensation rolled over me, each a wave of twitching pleasure left me lightheaded—mind swimming.

I didn’t have time to revel in my amazement. I didn’t even see the color of it. Only the horrified look on William’s face cemented in my mind as I pointed my hand straight at him and let it go. I was too focused on it doing my bidding and the sensual release of it from my skin. It felt like the first sheen of sweat in a cool breeze, magnified a thousand times. I could no more stop it than I could stop breathing. The roar of my flames caught in my ears.

Krell wasn’t one for swearing, not like mortals, but the words I heard come from his mouth were of both worlds, Wildling, and human. Every vile word he could spit came forth. I had hardly registered what he said. For just a moment, I stood stuck in this endless loop of time outside of my own body. Electricity shot through my body in a painful wracking sensation. His hands were on me, one hand on my shoulder and the other against my ikris. His fires were forcing into me at my most sensitive spot. Ordinarily, this would be a tender touch, something I’d elbow him in the ribs over, but his charged fire forced into me with a shock, not unlike a taser. I stifled my shriek as it caught in my throat and retched.

“PUT IT THE FUCK AWAY!” Krell pulled his hand from my back. My fires were gone, and I barely had a conscious glimpse of them. My oblivion kept the girls from seeing Krell or me, but they were first-hand witnesses to what happened to William or what was left of him. I raised my aura harder until their stifled screams silenced, and Krell started shaking his head, trying to break the hold of it.

Large sharp gouges and cuts had slashed across his form. Each sliver ranged in size from papercuts to deep slices. William’s form swayed on the spot, a mere carved corpse as it fell and spilled blood in a spreading pool around it—human one moment, so much meat the next. The lush new damask carpet beneath him in two shades of beige began to spread with crimson. Krell reached for me once more, hands on my shoulders as he took shaking steps backward. He released one of my shoulders to open the door and quietly guided me outside into the bare hallway with empty, spackled walls. Just beyond, my radius dropped. Then, the screams started. Shrill shrieks within the room echoed.

“What the fuck was that, Ni? What the fuck, ni?” Krell released me and shouted, pacing back and forth.

Shouts and coordinated screams came from all parts of the building. Our men were working fast.

“I don’t know!” I trembled as my aura fluctuated. I stared at my own hands with disbelief. I thought I might see some beastly mark or feature, but I found them as plain as always.

The swirling blackness that shot free and swarmed from my hands could not be called fire. It lacked the color and vibrancy of their fires, electricity, true fire, cold. It wasn’t the green of healing; It was like my aura, oblivion, absence of light, darkness. It was a black fire, a depthless void that consumed in clawing strikes. Wherever it had touched him, it crawled from my hands. The ‘fire’ cut and sliced until no life remained in the man.

“BLACK!?” Krell pulled at his hair and bit his lower lip, his teeth clicking against one of his lip rings.

“I DON’T KNOW!” My hands were foreign things to me. My mind reeled, and tears stung my eyes.

“We need Kiromir.” Krell wrung his hands, looking around him. “Keep your oblivion up. People are fleeing.”

Girls ran by us in various states of dress. I didn’t have to try to keep it up; my oblivion overpowered me. Krell had to focus to remember I existed. He wanted to tear at his hair as much as I did, but I feared to touch myself after the curling blackness took me. My heart raced as metallic pangs of fear shot down my spine.

Krell grabbed my upper arm. His fingers, clammy and tight, guided me away from the horrors I created. “Keep that fire buried down deep.”

I stumbled alongside him. My wings were itching to escape. When fear boiled within me, they triggered, and I prayed that Krell’s didn’t respond... I thanked the creator that their twitching pulses weren’t alerting my friend enough to force his wings free.

“ALL UP, MEN,” A voice shouted. Because with our part completed, minutes is all something like this took when done right. But we could only sit in fear.

“No time for cleanup. Feds are handling it,” A voice shouted—Kiromir down the hall. I wanted him for comfort. I wanted my ada.

His stern gaze met my frightened face and Krell’s anxious one. “Ni?” Unease flickered in his tense expression. His aura spiked for a moment, and that reassured me because his aura of fear felt more real than my own.

Krell formed the words thick on his tongue in their language. “She made first fire.”

“Tiyan enna sooth kiriitza!” He announced quickly, hoping Kiromir caught it. A few of the men had a celebratory grin flash up, but Krell’s look of warning silenced it.

Kiromir’s face lit with joy and pride despite our unease. I could feel the question on him. He wanted to know what color. His joy and pride were palpable, but Krell and I couldn’t reciprocate. We were scarred. Kiromir’s greatest fear was that I would never get my fires at all.

“Back home! TONIGHT… WE CELEBRATE!” Kiromir cheered. “NIALA HAS HER FIRE!”

Krell and I cringed. I wasn’t ready to celebrate. I didn’t even know what my fire actually did. I didn’t know anything about it, save for that it cut and it gleamed black. Shaking, I brought my hands up to my shirt and twisted it between nervous fingers.

“Kiromir!” Shouting, Krell intercepted him on his way to me. I stepped back from my ada. Being cautious, Kiromir looked from me to my friend and saw the fear in our eyes. So I took another fearful step back. I drew my hands tighter to my chest, and echoes of my own fear bounced around within myself, static welling. Just a single trigger could bring my fires once more. But, since they arrived, I couldn’t have stopped them if I tried.

Krell said something to him, and Kiromir waved the men to hold stationary while they went back to William’s room. The girls had fled. We were almost out of time, but Kiromir only needed a glance to see what had happened.

He turned his head in a wince.

“What did you do to him!?” He blanched. His face warped into a mask of anger for but a moment. We had rules about making death quick and clean. But, unfortunately, nothing about what happened to Willaim had been quick or clean. Kiromir could only see the haphazard knifelike slashes that had torn William apart.

“Her fire did that,” Krell said. He shut the door to block the view. My shoulders rounded as my breath bucked in my chest. How could something so wicked and designed to kill have come from me?

“What fire does that?!” He asked, looking at me with disgust. I’d seen that look on faces before in the other flocks. They gave me that same look when I drew my wings or let my aura slip. Rolyn permanently wore that look around me. So why did Kiromir have to be the one to bear that look at me?

“I don’t know! It just happened. I was there, and I saw the girls, and I-,” I rushed to talk. My thoughts ran ahead of me, and English fell off my tongue into childlike pleading tones of my first language. The music in the tones always made people feel fuzzy and strange. Their eyes went unfocused and snapped back as they tried to understand me.

I thought about the cages, the nastiness, and then Krell told him what he wanted to know over my fervent mutterings.

“Black fire, sir,” he said quietly. Kiromir’s eyes went wide.

“I’ve never seen black fire before this. I didn’t know.” Kiromir’s disgust slowly faded into confusion. It was as if part of my body separated from my mind and drew away from itself. This ethereal feeling of dissociation swam through my head.

With the signal sent, the men flashed out in bright beacons as they headed back to our home. We joined a group of others in a quick step. Kiromir folded his brow in thought as Krell dragged me to a group, and we took our rough light home. My mind was elsewhere, stuck in a loop of that memory long passed. My mana was wild, and I felt it being taken almost without my consent as I joined hands. I was given strange looks as my feet stumbled over the grass. Before I could fall, though, Kiromir had his arms around me. He shushed me softly and steadied me onto my feet before walking me away.

“Kiromir!” I pleaded, tears on the edge of my voice. We stopped, and I tilted my gaze up to his steeled jaw. I thought I’d see anger or disgust in him like before, but I didn’t—just resignation and confusion. He pulled me to him and hugged me tight like he did when I was little. His warm fingers came up through my hair, holding my face to his chest. The tears wouldn’t stop again. Against his warmth, they came so easily.

“I don’t know if you’re one of us, Ni, but we’re one step closer to finding your flock,” He said before banging on a door to wake one of the old ‘birds.’

“Get up, Ranna, Touk, Torga, someone.” His pounding was insistent. He was their flock leader, and they had to answer when he called. “Niala got her fire.”