Flexible Morals Ch. 07

"Found the thief, sir," Forde proclaimed triumphantly.

Phyre grunted as the guard forced her, face first, upon the desk. She let her voice explore again and saw Mr. Gilbride entering, rubbing his temples as he walked.

"That is no thief, she is one of my guests," he sighed.

"But she was plainly spying. Stealing your records perhaps."

"And she is also a child. Come, let her up will you? Then leave us."

"Sir?"

"I will speak to our little sneak in private. You may wait in the hall in case I have need of you."

"Yessir." The guard nodded and his weight came off her back.

Phyre lay still for a moment until he had moved away, then stood up and faced the Patab. A cold regard filled his eyes. All the joviality and kindness that he had once displayed were now gone.

"Would you mind telling me what you were doing here?" Winston asked once the guard was out the door.

Phyre took a moment to answer as she tried to choose her words with the utmost care. It didn't take long to realize that there was nothing to say that would help her now. "I wanted to see when you hired those men," she said in the hopes that this would at least mask the full extent of her guilt.

"I see. Did you not believe me earlier?"

"I did, but I wanted to find the Solar myself."

"Mhmm." Gilbride nodded. He paced towards the desk and leaned against it. In that moment, Phyre felt far less comfortable about sitting in his chair. She would have moved but his words held her in place. "You're lying to me. Some people think that a Vocal's face is hard to read but I say you only need practice. What did you really come here to do? I get the sense that you think myself somehow involved in the killing of your parents. Am I correct?"

Phyre gritted her teeth and nodded, thinking of all that she would sacrifice just to have Drop here for this.

"I see." He looked away, eyes sweeping the bookshelves and going to the door. "This is the part where I'm supposed to tell you that you're wrong. I'm supposed to offer some piece of evidence that proves my innocence, aren't I? Is that what you want me to do?"

She cringed. His demeanor felt so blunt and confronting. It made her want to hide under her bed or inside herself until he went away. "Yes," she said instead.

"Well I'm not going to because I see now that I cannot trust anything to put your mind at rest. What guarantee is there that anything spoken will ever convince you? So I will not try."

Those words caught her attention. Phyre stared at him, her brow furrowing down to narrow her occumarks. "What are you—"

"Instead I will tell you that I did hire those men and I did instruct them to murder your parents."

For the second time that evening, Phyre felt crushed under the weight of revelation. It was the very thing that she had come here to find out, yet that fact did nothing to diminish the shock. "You..." she mumbled. "But—"

"This is what you wanted to hear, is it not? Shouldn't it come as some degree of relief that your suspicions were correct?"

Her mind swam beneath the oceans of incomprehension that Winston was flooding upon her. Everything he said only half registered as she tried to put things in order.

"You won't feel relief, I should warn you," he spoke on. "When Edith died, I felt two things, misery and rage. Over the months, it became a constant battle over which would win out. In the end, my sorrow faded and fury took over. Your father, this was all his doing. I could feel it but I could never be certain. A weak sliver of my mind kept saying that it was only terrible misfortune that had ended Edith's life. Well, now I know better. Now I know that Solon was no healer, only a man masquerading as one. So his guilt was confirmed and I had his life ended. An eye for an eye, that is the way of things."

By now, Phyre was biting back the crying that wanted to begin. Her breaths choked in her throat. Heart and lungs fluttered in distress. "No," she managed and faced him. "My father only made a mistake. But you had them killed. His was an accident and you murdered them."

"That is where you are wrong. Yes, I gave the order but I did not do the deed. It was a third party that ended the lives of our loved ones. For mine, a disease, for yours, a band of thugs. In both cases, mine and your father's actions allowed the crimes to happen."

She felt warm, hot even. The anger that he had mentioned hazed her thoughts, yet it paled to the gray fog that still hung in her mind. Phyre watched as Mr. Gilbride slid off the desk and moved closed. Watched and did nothing as he stood over her.

"I had wanted them to kill all three of you. Not because it fitted with my desire for vengeance but because to do otherwise would leave witnesses. So you can imagine my surprise when you arrived at my home, alive and unharmed. Someone had betrayed me, not those Skytouched brothers, mind. It was your Solar friend. Funny how you pursue him considering that he saved your life. What do I mean? He assured me that everyone had been taken care of, then, I suppose, he fled. Why he did these things I do not know and it doesn't interest me.

"At first I meant to finish the deed. Then I realized that you knew so little about what had happened and I decided it best to leave things unchanged. But you simply couldn't move on, could you? Neither could I. So, given the situation we now find ourselves in, you see how I cannot let you go again."

Phyre gasped, her wits suddenly flooding back in just in time to register Gilbride's hands closing upon her face. One clamped over her mouth, the other on her nose. With her voice stifled, the world went dark. She clawed at his unseen form, forced his hands and stretched for his face but his strength greatly outmatched her own. Her lungs began to burn, heart raced and muscles screamed. Phyre's blood surged with adrenaline, then with some more. A heated fury. Here he was, the man that had killed her parents and torn her life asunder. He stood right before her and he was winning. Her body boiled at the thought.

"I won't pretend that I'm doing you a favor, but at least you're being spared something. You see, vengeance has brought me no joy. It didn't return Edith to me. If anything, my life is hollower than ever. This is not a burden that a child should have— what in Dawn's name!?"

Suddenly his hands slipped from Phyre's face and she flooded her lungs with precious air. The room surged back into view. Gilbride had stumbled back, his mouth ajar in shock. Over by the door she spied a dab of blackness watching the scene develop, yet it was not this that had caught the patab's attention. He focused on her, exactly what she wanted. "I don't care!" she hissed, feeling the fury spit from her lips.

Gilbride's arms were raised in defense and Phyre reached to grab them. At her touch, his face contorted and a scream echoed through the room. She flung him aside with strength unrealized. It was then that Phyre saw the focus of his fear. Her hands were covered in it, her arms too. It spread to her shoulders and across her chest, rolling across her clothes like a tangle of whispering tongues, yet it didn't burn. Flame everywhere, engulfing her skin without the slightest bit of harm. For she wasn't on fire, she was fire. Her flesh was fading quickly, replaced by a crimson pyre of hatred. Only for a moment did that revelation concern her. Then she remembered Gilbride and thoughts returned to vengeance.

With a smile, Phyre reached for the crumbled, contorted and quivering form of Winston Gilbride. The floorboards smoldered and embered with her body's proximity. The man's clothes ignited before she could reach him and his skin began to char. Gilbride tried to crawl away but her arms lashed out and coiled around his legs. She pulled him in and sent a scalding tongue of fury to snake around his neck. It boiled through his flesh and his eyes quickly lolled and went dim. With his demise, Phyre let go.

Around her, the room was rapidly coming ablaze. She looked to the door for where the shadow had been but only saw Forde instead. He stared back, lips quivering, sword raised and eyes wide in fear. Then he bolted down the hall, shouting something about a demon. Phyre ignored him and put her attention to the burning of the room. It wasn't enough that Winston should be dead. This was the place where the deal that saw her parents dead might have been made. It had to go too. As did the corridor outside it and the rest of the manor. Anything that had once born witness to Gilbride's vile plans had to be destroyed. He would not be buried, he would be erased.

Floorboards hissing and vaporizing beneath her, Phyre trod from the study and began her blazing walk through the incinerating manor.

===

An orange glow grew in one of the windows until there could be no mistaking its cause. Drop stared from his spot amid the hedge wall at the back of the garden that served as a fence of sorts. Stared as the light grew and spread, eventually appearing in the next window. A wave of realization crept through the guests. One by one they pointed, voices raising. Several guards were racing inside, another fleeing back out. Drop didn't smile, this was a nasty sort of work. Part of him, the slightest bit, felt guilty.

"It's started," he said unnecessarily to the figure sitting at his side.

The cat's nod came slow and ponderous.

"I want her to be okay after this. We'll need to meet with her one last time." As Drop said these things, he realized that he had grown attached to the girl. Rather, he felt the realization that the cat helped him find.

"I know," said Drop, refusing to let the concept bother him. The blaze was well underway now. Much of the western side was glowing and the flames had even begun to spread to the exterior. He wanted her to be okay. Physically speaking, she would be fine afterwards. It was the mental side that worried him. The faintest sliver of curiosity from the cat prompted Drop to respond. "Yes, it's what she wanted. What she wished for. That doesn't mean she or I have to like it."

For a moment, it almost felt as if the cat showed a hint of sympathy. He didn't, but it almost felt that way.

The flames grew and spread as the seconds ticked by into minutes. Guests huddled together on the green and watched uselessly as servants and guards banded together in a futile effort to douse the flames. They drew water from the manor's well and hauled buckets from the ponds and fountains to no avail. Even when several Solars tried to use their spells to draw heat from the fire, there came no progress. The blaze refused to die. Nothing would stop it until its master's will was completed.

By now, the house had vanished behind a rippling curtain of orange. Had Drop not known better, he might have feared that the flames would spread to the garden. But she wouldn't let them hurt innocent plants, nor anything else lumped into that category. The night above the manor had become hidden behind a shimmering pyre of smoke. Occasionally a window exploded from the heat inside, sending a jet of flame into the darkness.

"She should be finishing soon." Another unnecessary remark, though not incorrect. So intense was the fire that it scarcely needed monitoring anymore. Nothing could stop it now. Even if the folk of Fissure somehow did, there wouldn't be much left to save. "Time to meet her."

The cat nodded and waited for Drop to climb upon his back. When the frog was in place, they arrived outside the front of the manor and sat before the pond. This would be the side that she would emerge from. The side that held greater privacy.

A short time passed before a silhouette began to form against the roaring glow behind.

===

The heat felt incredible. Not because it scorched and scalded, but because it soothed her nerves and calmed her mind. Phyre pushed through a wooden wall, aided by its rapid deterioration from facing the blaze that she had become. She turned right and billowed down a short set of steps. Even the stone beneath her winced at the heat. The room she came into was the same that she had seen those Skytouched brothers in during her first time here. There were already flames seeping down from the floor above but that was insufficient. Phyre placed a hand on one of the tables and uttered a hissing giggle as a sheet of orange spread from her arm to char the wood. Several coiling flares sprang from her body and jumped to whatever combustibles they could locate. She crossed the floor, checking her work. The inferno was already burning strong, another room finished. Phyre climbed the steps opposite and proceeded down the corridor that led to the manor's entrance hall. She had saved the first for last. The final place to burn, then her work would be done.

All around, her ears filled with the beautiful sounds of pyroclasmic vengeance. The air screamed, flames crackled, paper and wood shrieked and blackened or simply turned straight to ash. They had burned her home, her parent's shop, now she had done the same. Just as Mr. Gilbride had said, an eye for an eye. Phyre could hardly think of a more fitting end to this wretched manor. But it was not yet over, she had one final place to destroy.

Phyre broke into a run, a yellow conflagration that sped down the corridor, incinerating all she passed. At the threshold to the entrance hall, she stopped, heat rippling off her body. The cavernous room looked exactly the same as it had been. Winston's banners hung from the ceiling like vines. Not for long. But there were innocents here, too. The fifreys used for illumination. Phyre moved towards one that hung from a hook on the wall beside her. She reached up to cradle its home in a fiery embrace.

We won't hurt you, Phyre told it as much as she told her flames. Then she let it go. Another set of embers leapt from her arms and back, each homing in on an iron moon banner. Pyres spread and in moments, the room was ablaze. Finished at last, yet she chose to linger. This scorching sanctuary felt welcome and relaxing. No reason to leave just yet. She could sit back and enjoy the manor as it grew hotter and hotter.

Hotter? The thought jerked Phyre out of her complacency. Something was wrong, the room did feel hotter. Yet, how could it if she burned with the same ferocity. Unless...

Phyre looked at her hands, her arms. The flames were dying, she could see it already. Dying and cooling in line with her fury. Suddenly the room felt far less comfortable. The walls radiated and seared her skin as it slowly resurfaced beneath the orange torrents that it had recently become. Smoke swirled and clouded the air. It flowed down her throat as breathing resumed and tried to choke her lungs. A new objective surfaced, get out, flee. Phyre covered her mouth and stumbled forwards, stamping across ember patches and around the larger blazes that were building to life. Cold air rushed in from the entrance. So cold against her body that it felt as though she was pushing into a blizzard. She staggered outside, nearly tumbled down the steps and gasped down freezing breaths. Fatigue flooded in along with her natural body. So much energy had been spent. Her only thoughts were fixed on collapsing and surrendering to sleep. So she did.

===

Several discomforting sensations bombarded Phyre until she left the land of dreaming. Her body ached all over from fatigue and the chill-induced shivers that were still going. Something slimy kept brushing against her cheek. Her voice unfurled and found Drop sitting beside her. The trees here grew thick and Phyre quickly realized that she was no longer in the vicinity of Mr. Gilbride's manor. Rather, where the manor had been. It wouldn't be there too much longer.

"Where am I?" she asked and sat up to escape the frog's touch.

"In the woods," he replied.

"But how? What happened?" Phyre could recall leaving the manor, then falling asleep. Or had she? There was certainly a spot of black, but she couldn't quite remember what had caused it. Sleep seemed to most logical choice.

"You fell over and wouldn't wake up, so he brought you here." Drop pointed to something by her legs.

Phyre's voice cast forwards and found the wandering cat sitting by her feet. As was his custom, he gave a single nod.

"How?"

"That's his secret."

"Oh, okay." Still a little disoriented, Phyre took a moment before realizing a far more pressing question. "What happened back at the house? You were there, weren't you, cat?"

Another nod but the cat offered nothing to accompany it. Instead, Phyre looked to the frog for an answer.

"Hmm? Oh, um." Drop cleared his throat with a few croaks. "It was the cat's gift, you see. The one you drank. The cat thought that it would be rather suitable, given your name and hair and those marks on your face. I don't know if I agree."

"But why?" Phyre asked, turning her head between the two creatures.

"It's what you wanted, isn't it? He gave you the courage and the power to see your plan through."

"Was that my wish?"

"Your wish?" Drop croaked. "No, that was... Something else. And on the subject of wishes, there is something that I must confess."

Phyre stared at the little amphibian, looked into his big, black eyes. Then the truth came out, a truth that she should have seen earlier. "There is no wish, is there?"

Drop shook his head. "And there never will be. I'm sorry for lying. You were so sad and I wanted to do something to help."

For a while, Phyre didn't say anything. Though the past few days had certainly been unusual, this night had fast become the icing on the peculiarity cake. The sheer quantity of strangeness clouded her mind and made it difficult to know where to begin. "It's all so confusing."

"I know."

Again there was silence. Phyre looked at the cat in the hopes that he would somehow be able to provide the answers to the questions she didn't know. Instead he stood, turned and began padding away. "Wait, what are you doing?" she asked.

"We've helped all we can," Drop explained. "Now we have to go."

"But I still need you." A pang of grief shot through Phyre's body at the thought of losing her tiny friend.

"I don't think you do. You've learned a lot, my lady. You've grown too. There's little more that I can do to help. Besides, there are lots of others out there who need us the way you did." Drop began hopping towards the cat.

"Please don't."

"Do not worry, my lady. We will meet again one day. And I will always be watching out for you." Drop caught up and clambered atop the cat's back, who, despite the effort being put in, didn't seem to mind.

"Wait!" Phyre cried again as a last resort.

Drop peered at her.

"If there's no wish, then you're not really a wishing frog?"

He shook his head. "I'm not even a frog," said the frog.

"So... What are you?"

A smile crept across his mouth. "That, my lady, is a very good question."

The cat resumed his steps once Drop was in place and began to fade into the forest.

"But what am I meant to do now? Mr. Gilbride's gone but my parents are still dead. This can't be the end, can it?"

The cat paused and his head twitched to the right as something caught his attention. His ears folded back and he hunched down, ready to pounce. With total silence, the cat sprang into the darkness and disappeared from Phyre's sight, taking Drop with him.

So they had gone. The Wandering Cat and the wishing frog, slinking off on some new hunt. Some new journey and adventure. Feeling a little more certain than she once had, Phyre rose and took the first step on a path to do the same.

===

Afterword:

So ends Phyre's story. Maybe it will continue at some stage, maybe it won't. I don't think it needs to but we'll see. Anyway, if you wish to give any feedback in the form of a comment, please do as I'd love to hear it. I'll be resuming Arms of the Ocean with chapter six going up soon. As a quick reminder, all these stories take place in the same universe but the erotic ones have the names of places, races and things changed as a way to further distinguish them. And that's all.