Fire-Kissed Ch. 01

Author's Note:

I enjoy reading a spicy story from time to time, both here and elsewhere, so I thought I'd have a go at writing one. Romantasy is a big vibe of mine, so that's what you'll find here, and some bits are slower burn than others -- if you skimmed the tag list before reading you'll probably be able to guess them -- because anticipation is half the fun, right? But I won't spare the spice, I promise.

I write in shortish scenes, but I've tried to post in parts that aren't too short to read but also not so long that anyone who might enjoy it has to wait ages for me to finish the next part - and I've already got a whole bunch planned and a bit more written. But obviously I'm guessing what people like a bit, so if my guess is off, feel free to say and I can change things up.

And, of course, all the relevant characters are over the age of eighteen.

(Edited as of 03/13/24)

***

One

The morning sun filtered into his small cell from somewhere beyond Marak's peak, its clear, sharp bright light lancing through the slim barred window and stabbing at Akash's eyes. He ignored the pain as he stood, heels together and back straight, staring at the letters carved deepest into the wall.

Don't forget. Akash clenched his fists, digging his nails into the scar along his left palm. We swore a blood-oath. Ilethi. Ilethi. Ilethi. The Drakon's Milk can't take it all away. Remember.

He clawed through the haze of vivid Drakon's-Milk-fuelled memories forged at Marak's Temple, hunting for those faint recollections, for Konamos's weary dying whispers and the sting of pain across his hand beneath the knife, for the bright bubbly cheer of Ilethi that had softened the grief and pain of their brother's death, for the short shriek of the older noble boy as he reeled back from Ilethi, clutching the slim bronze knife sticking from his eye, and for the harsh words of their father, the king, as he'd tossed him away to the Drakon-Cult the moment he was of age under threat of death.

Akash clung to them, clutched the bright laughter in Ilethi's grey eyes and Konamos's still pale smile tight to his heart. There were others he knew he'd had once, his mother's singing in the house against the palace wall, her name, her face, the garden beneath the aqueduct's arches, his childhood games with his two half-siblings amongst the lavender and orange trees, but they were blurred even in his dreams, long gone, swallowed by the haze of the Drakon's Milk and drowned deep within it.

My name is Akash. I swore to my brother, Konamos, I would protect our sister with my life. My name is Akash. My blood-oath is to Ilethi, Princess of Aktia.

The iron door rattled and heavy steps tramped into the room.

"Drink." A hoarse rasp came over his shoulder and a small cold glass bottle was slapped into his hand by a wind-chafed hand. "You know the rules."

Akash tugged the stopper out and swallowed the bitter, lumpy Drakon's Milk in one mouthful; the tingle set in beneath his skin as he stared at his mismatched eyes in the glass of the bottle, turning the touch of cool against his skin to a fierce cold burn and setting his blood aflame.

My name is... something. It melted from his thoughts into the fire coursing through his veins. I - I - I swore something. To someone.

"Read the words," the hoarse voice ordered and the bottle was snatched from his hand.

"I leave behind all but the drakon's ire," he said, his heart hammering against his ribs and his blood singing.

"Louder. Shout it. So all the other worms in here can hear you."

"I leave behind all but the drakon's ire!" he yelled, his voice bouncing back from the wall, the pounding of his heart filling his skull.

"We'll make a drakon of you yet, worm." Heavy footsteps tramped out and the door slammed shut.

My name is... The red mark on his palm taunted him. I swore...

He stared at the words cut into the stone, wrestling with the heat swirling through his veins as the shouting rang out in the cell beside his. Some letters sank further in than others, scratched deeper into the rock and stained with flecks of old dried blood. He read them to himself, one by one. I. L. E. T. H. I.

"Ilethi," he whispered. "My name is Akash. I swore a blood oath to my sister, Ilethi, Princess of Aktia. I've been at the Temple of Marak for thirty-two days and even if I forget all the rest, I will never forget my oath."

***

In the fierce cold wind howling down from the mountainside, Akash stared at the red coating the tip of his spear, his blood thundering his ears, his muscles screaming, and his wounds stinging and throbbing.

Two-thousand-one-hundred-and eighty-seven days.

"Well done, worm." A broad grin spread across the face of the darkon-blessed warrior and the cut across his cheek split open, spilling a bright crimson trickle down his cheek. "Today, you climb Marak's Peak to the High Shrine. If you return, you will be a drakon within a man's form, kissed by its fire and ready to earn glory at the word of Marak's Oracle."

My name is Akash. He let the spear be tugged from his hand and dug his nails into the scar on his left palm. I swore a blood-oath to my sister, Princess Ilethi of Aktia. And today, I will earn the strength to take my freedom and keep my oath.

"Go." The warrior thrust the spear toward the open gate. "Climb. Descend bearing the arms of the Sacred Band of Marak and my brother against the storm, or die upon the peak."

Akash limped past him on stinging, aching limbs and out through the arch.

The mountain's peak rose over the Temple of Marak, spearing into the thick white clouds, a blade of ice and stone stabbed into the sky itself.

Ilethi. He grabbed hold of the first ice-crusted, frozen bronze rung with scarred palm and dragged himself one step up. Ilethi. He reached for the next.

Beneath him, the temple coiled like a slumbering dragon of thick, dark stone upon the ridgeline from where they met Marak's Peak beneath his feet. The maze of walls and halls, the fighting pits he'd spattered with his blood, and the cell he'd spent freezing night after freezing night in ran long the summit of the steep slope curving around the shining lake down to the towered gate, and beyond it, running off through the foothills into the distance, wound the bare road back to his blood-oath.

Soon, Ilethi.

Akash hauled himself up the mountain on her name, rung by rung, and the wind wrenched at his red cloak, sending it snapping and streaming out behind him with each gust. And at the top, as he clambered over onto the flat stone path before the High Shrine's white tower, he pressed the thick red scar on his palm against his face and took a deep breath of freezing air through his fingers.

I'm coming back to keep my oath.

On trembling tired limbs he limped into the shrine. From the tower's other door, icy steps led down into a shadowed hollow of vast sprawling bones and skulls, but, amidst the great graveyard, a vast white-scaled drakon curled, shackled to the rock with gleaming, frosted chains.

The four guardians' heads swivelled toward him.

"Go forth, Seeker of Marak, take the blood of the last of the gods of the skies," one said. "But beware the kiss of drakon's fire, those without the strength to endure its flame are seared to dust from within."

Akash swallowed. I came this far. Two thousand days. I can last one more.

"Marak does not often speak, but should he give voice, heed not his lies," another warned. "The withered drakon is weak and old, his tongue is the only weapon he has left."

My name is Akash. He forced his exhausted legs down the steps and out into the biting cold. I swore a blood-oath to my brother to protect our sister. The chill bit deeper with every step and the Drakon's Milk's fire faded from his blood. Ilethi. Princess of Aktia.

What new rat comes to gnaw at me?

Akash flinched from the fury of the words ringing in his skull, stumbling down the steps and sprawling into the snow.

Pitiful weakling. The stolen blood of Marak is a curse you will not long rue, I am fire made flesh, and you are but... The fury ebbed from the drakon's words. I see a name among your thoughts, no hollow beaten creature stumbles to me across this defiled peak. Come, Akash, Oathsworn. A vow you have made, the craft of these false sycophants you have overcome, perhaps there is strength in you that befits a kiss of fire.

Akash dragged himself up and limped toward the blunt pale nose of Marak through the towering shadows of ice-crusted dragons' ribs.

The hot breath of the dragon swept the cold from his tired limbs and the burning gleam in its vast yellow eyes sent all the hairs prickling along the nape of Akash's neck. There was fire in them, not the flicker of candles, the dance of torches or the crackle of the hearth, but the devouring inferno, and it danced there in the gold of Marak's eye as if it delighted in the desolation it left in its wake.

What would you have of the last of the drakons, Akash, Wild One?

"Your blood," he said. "To escape this place."

To keep a blood-oath sworn to a brother dying of sickness. The only thing of the boy banished here that remains.

"Yes," Akash said, staring at the scar on his palm. "There was more once, but... I cannot remember it. The Drakon's Milk drowned it and now there's only the oath."

I am shackled here among the desecrated bones of my kin, leeched of my blood by the cultists that once swore to serve me. You can take my blood, Akash, Oathsworn, or you can hear my words and strike a pact with Marak, Scourge of the Skies. But know before you choose that none of the Sacred Band are sent forth without leave of their oracle and those that try are hunted by their former brothers until they are slain. You are no closer to freedom than you were in your cell.

Akash swallowed a flash of bitter fury. "What pact?"

I will give you the kiss of drakonfire willingly and conceal you within my jaws to make them believe you are dead. Should you survive, I will spit you out as the sun sets, for not even those kissed by drakonfire can withstand the cold of this peak in the dead of night and the rats in their little tower must descend, giving you a chance to escape.

"And what do you get? Apart from an excellent chance to eat me?"

One day, when my gift has made you strong, you will return here, Akash, Child of Marak, and sever these chains. And when you do... The fire in Marak's eyes flared and for a moment Akash thought he saw the world swallowed by flames as fierce as the sun. I will burn everything to ashes and dust.

"I accept." Akash eyed the long, jagged fangs protruding from Marak's frosted maw. "But if you swallow me, I will cut my way out from within you and leave you dead upon the peak."

Marak's laughter rang in his skull. The kiss of drakonfire, given willingly, is no small gift, Akash, Oathsworn; you will come to know the depth of your debt to me. And just as your oath drives you from this place now, so will the debt you owe bring you back.

"What do I do?" Akash asked.

Drink. The forked bright blue tip of Marak's tongue snaked between two of his fangs and the drakon bit down; bubbling, boiling dark red blood welled up and spattered, steaming into the ice. And survive.

Akash caught some in his cupped hands, wincing at its scalding heat. I am Akash. I swore a blood-oath to Ilethi, Princess of Aktia. He lifted the spitting, hissing blood to his lips and drank, forcing the slick, thick hot coppery fluid down into a churning, roiling stomach. Its heat scorched his lips and tongue, a flood of flame pouring down his throat as he choked and screamed smoke into the snow, but the fire seeped deeper, burning in his heart like a brand.

Marak's maw yawned open into a reeking, sweltering fanged abyss. Survive. And when night falls, I will release you.

***

A scalding river of red scoured his soul, searing through the haze of Drakon's Milk, sweeping its fog away like smoke fleeing the crackling fires of the inferno.

All that had been lost bubbled up through boiling molten flame.

It started with his mother's singing; the quiet hum rose like smoke uncurling from the flames and with it came the jangle of her copper bracelets and the swish of her silks, the sway of her head and the sweep of her long dark hair, and the soft love in her agate-green eyes as she held him close and stroked his hair.

Her rasped goodbye floated to the surface on the searing current, buoyed on the black rings of the plague upon her skin, and after it came the dutiful silence of the tongueless keeper who'd taken her place, the wild, freedom of climbing across the tiles and aqueducts above the city, and the quiet garden of lavender and orange trees where a boy of his own age played with his smaller sister, their irises as grey as Akash's own right eye.

And on it went, sweeping over him, pouring through the quiet comfort of little Ilethi's clingy cuddles and Konamos's warm hand upon his shoulder, to the fierce sting of the knife through his palm beside Konamos's deathbed, past the leering older noble boy who snatched at Ilethi's dress to the short high shriek as Akash slid the slim bronze knife from his sleeve and stabbed it through his eye; three years spent in the palace flooded by, full of little gold-haired Ilethi tottering after him like a duckling, smiling and clutching at his arm, to the king upon his throne and his hard uncaring grey eyes as he banished him from the kingdom to the Drakon Cult the day Akash turned twelve.

And then it plunged back into a roiling, heaving sea of six years of pain and fury and solitude amidst the Drakon's Milk haze.

Fierce biting cold tore into him and Akash gasped awake into a swirling storm of snow.

Stand up, Akash, Oathsworn. Marak's blunt pale-scaled nose bumped his shoulder. The sun is setting and the rodents have fled the coming chill. You must leave or you will freeze before you reach the bottom of the mountain. Even those kissed by drakonfire cannot endure the cold once the sun's warmth has fled the peak.

Akash staggered to his feet and stumbled toward the High Shrine through the whirling snow and the long dusk shadows of the drakon bones. "I will not forget my debt," he shouted over his shoulder.

I know you will not, Akash, Child of Marak. The drakon's laughter rumbled in Akash's skull like distant thunder. Grow strong on the spark of my gift, when it is all consuming flame, return to this defiled peak and repay your debt with my freedom.

Akash dragged his sodden red cloak around him against the bitter cold, grimacing at the reek of drakon upon it, and flexed the stiffness from his fingers, scrambling up the icy steps into the High Shrine.

A set of narrow steps sank into the floor to his left, tucked into the alcove beside the door to the climb down.

The armoury. He jogged forward. I earnt the arms of the Sacred Band and I may need them to keep my oath.

Akash shoved the old wooden door open. Rows of pale gleaming drakonbone spears, bows, and curved kopiz blades hung on the racks. He snatched one of each from the furthest corner, belting the kopiz to his hip and pulling the bow over his back on its string. The spear he knotted into his cloak, wrenching the ties of the soaked wool tight.

Hurrying back out into the fierce chill of the snowstorm, he picked his way along the short path through the blizzard. Its cold ripped into him, biting to the bone, the creeping numb of its ice kept at bay only by the soft hot whisper of drakonfire in his veins as the snow soaked his red cloak and settled on his bare shoulders.

The sun's light faded and the darkness rose in the shadow of the mountain as night's veil crept across the face of the world.

Akash climbed down toward the flickering fires upon the towers and walls of the Temple of Marak one bronze rung at a time. The cold ate into him a little more with every passing moment, stealing the feeling from his fingers and feet, stabbing at his lungs with every breath and into his skin each time he touched the metal rungs.

As he neared the bottom and the arched path to the temple he left the rungs, carefully clinging to the mountain as he descended down the sheer rock face beside the ridge on which the temple sat to the freedom of the snow-veiled slopes beneath the sheer ice-crusted crags.

"I am Akash," he told the mountain and the temple and the oracle and fire-kissed warriors of the Sacred Band as he dropped into the snow and tasted freedom in the biting night air. "I swore a blood-oath to my sister, Ilethi, Princess of Aktia. You laughed and gave me Drakon's Milk, but I told you I wouldn't forget."

The road to the Temple of Marak wound down the slope past him, a sheer set of stairs hacked into the mountain and worn deeper by centuries of footsteps. It snaked its way to the glinting torches and watchfires of the gate towers squatting in the gap between the gushing river and the mountainside.

Can't go that way and still have them think I'm dead. He peered down the steep white slope to the distant dark waters of the lake. But the river is free to flow away to the valleys below.

Akash pulled the bow from his back and unbelted the kopiz with fumbling, freezing purple fingers, gathering them into his arms with his cloak and spear, and leaping down the slope. He slid through the cold snow, gathering speed as he raced toward the bright pale crescent moon shimmering upon the surface of the lake.

Gods grant me one last piece of luck.

He smacked into the water. The impact ripped the breath from him as if he'd been hammered in the ribs by the fist of a warrior of the Sacred Band. He spun in the ice cold dark lake, kicking and flailing for the faint glint of moonlight, clawing his way up into the freezing air to gasp for breath, clutching at the guttering flame of drakonfire in his blood to keep enough feeling in his limbs to stay afloat.

Ilethi. Akash kicked his way through the waters with numb arms and legs as the last light sank behind the shadow of Marak's Peak. I've done the hard part, little sister. I'll be back soon. He sucked in a deep breath as the white rush and roar of the river dragged him toward the lake's edge. I hope you haven't forgotten me.

Two

The curved edge of the drakonbone kopiz glittered like ice. Shadow lurked deep in the bone blade, lingering beneath its pale gleam like wisps of smoke in the sun, but both sides of the kopiz shone sharp as shards of glass.

Akash slid it back into the leather sheath and gathered up the spear, lashing broad dead leaves around the distinctive curved spear blade with a piece of ivy.

Two-thousand-one-hundred-and ninety-one days. He drew his red cloak around him to conceal his nakedness and strode from the treeline across the fields. But today, I stop counting.

The City of Aktia's tall, thick walls rose over the huddle of carts and commoners at its gates, bedecked in charcoal grey banners bearing the golden hawk, and beyond them, a patchwork mosiac of red-tiled roofs sprawled before the towering marble palace. Two guards in toughened white linen cuirasses shouted at the gates, waving carts through one by one.