Free The Flame of Wrath by Christene Knight Page B

upon a devoted world. We are all too willing to surrender ourselves to their might, but when light falls upon us, ridding us of the night's power, we are forced to awaken. What true nature of ourselves do we awaken to?
    ----Book of Wrath
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                  A great caravan was met with adoring eyes as it came to travel the Great Road. The royal guard riding with such prestige along the slow-moving beast reminded those of the true treasure found within the procession. Queen Aurea was touring her lands, endearing herself to her people with each noble house she visited, but it was clear that something preoccupied her mind. She glanced toward the mountains at her back as her thoughts travelled far from her surroundings. She was confident that the team she had assembled to watch over her caravan could safely tend to what her mind could not. After all, the Shadow Reign nobles had vowed their swords, their very lives to ensuring her will be done. Could they not continue the quest, if her heart sought another more important journey?
    Acting as the head of the slithering snake was the tightly-woven pack never far from the Queen's side.
    Her horse ground to a halt as if to answer the question swirling inside her eyes.
                  The eldest of the Shadow Reign siblings was a passing mountain to the small children looking upward as his mount trotted by. In the early morning sun, his sandy hair glistened brightly. He cast them a kind smile.
                  With a turn of his head, his woolly dark blond hair slid over his wide shoulders. The lion who reigned from his round shield mirrored the quiet strength coming from the eldest sibling. He took comfort in the knowledge that he and his family were accompanying the Queen and that upon their successful return, they would bring honor to their Province.
                  “Donovan,” he heard voiced urgently.
                  Donovan turned to take in the sight of his youngest brother riding spiritedly from the rear. He frowned curiously. “What's wrong, Markus?” he asked.
                  Markus pulled back at the reins, commanding his mount to come to an abrupt stop. He met the worried eyes of his older brother. His young face was slender and filled with apprehension. As his thin shadow cast its long winding image across the earth, he embodied the snake across his shield. “It's Aurea,” he said. “She's stopped.”
                  With a raised motion of his hand, Donovan called the procession to stop. He and his siblings came as a thundering storm down the length of the Great Road.
                  Aurea sat proudly upon her warhorse.
                  Under the early morning sun, a mount of fantasies and lullabies paced with the same indecisiveness to plague his mistress. He was a glorious perfection of white. His long mane whipped in the winds like froth. The feathering at the end of his strong legs seemed birthed of morning fog.
    He snorted loudly, his breath colliding with the air. The golden armor adorning his body rivaled only the strength of the body it protected, but it was the armor atop his head that gave him the illusion of myth. The golden horn shimmering beneath the sunlight was a wand to grant a solitary wish, but what Aurea wished for most eluded her.
                  The young Queen dressed in white was an image of beauty. She embodied strength but something in the morning light gave her the intangible softness of dreams.
    Aurea wore the finest robes in the land, but she felt naked beneath the golden sky. Not even the red cape blazing just as brightly as her sapphire eyes could offer any true protection against the nakedness bearing her.
    With a creak of leather, she gripped more fiercely to the reins. That small movement caused the golden gauntlets upon her delicate wrists to flicker in the sunlight.
                  Her horse