The Ember Queen

Chapter One

In a middle-ring sector:
The sun was barely peeking out through the clouds, chilling rain sprinkling lightly onto Abraham's shoulders. The breezy air was as dry as it usually was in the fall season, making him thirsty; but he couldn't swallow the bile coming up his throat.

Running from his cottage home to his garden closet, he opened the door to find a raccoon digging through a mound of old dirt.

"Get outta here! This is my hut, go mess with the rabbits or something," Abraham scolded, then paused. "Fine, you can stay; but I'm not coming back so don't expect me to clean up your mess," he explained, feeling strange talking to a raccoon. Quickly grabbing a coat and satchel from a hanger on the back wall he dashed out of the wooden shack, leaving the door open. While jogging down his cobblestone driveway, he stuffed the food and supply contents of his pockets into his satchel.

Nearing the end of the path, he buttoned up his coat and sped up to a sprint.

He had to get away. They were coming. He had failed his mission, and now he would have to pay the price: a secret life.

He snagged a knife from his boot, slipping it up his sleeve. Abraham hesitated at the end of the path, listening for the faint humming of the drones. Nothing yet, so he kept going. He had to make it to the railway station before they realized he'd left. Trudging through the muddy roads to the station, he wondered where he would go once he got to the station.

"Should've given this some more thought," he mumbled to himself, feeling out of character.

Finally, after almost half an hour, he made it to the station. Bursting through the doors, he slapped all of his spare money onto the front desk, startling the attendant.

"I need the fastest ride outta here, far away, one way, no questions, and don't tell anyone!" He panted. The attendant glanced at the money. "That's yours if you'll let me ride without identification," Abraham added for good measure.

The attendant looked up at him, still confused. "Any certain direction you want to head? You'll need to be a bit more specific," he said in a squeaky tone, stowing the cash in his pockets with a nervous glance around the empty station.

Abraham thought for a second, then made up his mind. "East," he said, "Towards the Queen's Palace."

The attendant nodded and handed Abraham a one-way ticket. With a grateful nod, Abraham navigated his way to his assigned rail cart, hopping on and finding a hard cold seat in an enclosed corner. The cart's walls were made of tent material, held up by thin aluminum poles.
Abraham was careful to avoid eye contact with the other passengers, but also check their faces for recognition.

Finally, when the first chugs of the train began to vibrate his seat, Abraham released a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.

After a few hours he had almost dozed off, but the sound of intense humming yanked him out of his stupor. Peering around the train, he saw nothing out of the ordinary. But he could still hear the sound. Then, he recognized what it was. Abraham dashed to the nearest window; as he scanned the horizon he saw a black and orange shimmering shape arise from the fog that surrounded the base of the Northern Mountains.

It was a drone. Fully armored with plasma cannons and the latest set of scanners and sensors. Checking the height of the tracks, Abraham made his way to the door, tightening his satchel as much as it would allow.

Despite the protests of his fellow passengers, he yanked open the door, silencing the alarm with the emergency switch. A comm came over the loudspeakers ordering the train to stop by authority of the Royal Search Team.

Abraham took one last gulp of artificial air, jumped out of the cart, and began to tumble through the air, straight down towards the maroon oak forest lying almost sixty feet below him.

The palace:
Fiona Crimson Regium sat in her Vanity chair, watching through the mirror as her seamstress fiddled with and adjusted her new blouse's neckline. A knock on her dressing room's door froze the seamstress's steady hands as she backed up from the queen, allowing one of the palace's many butlers to open the door. Gabriel Colt, the head guard of the kingdom stepped in the room, spotting his queen and bowing on one knee.

"What is it, Gabriel?" Fiona asked.
Gabriel rose, a solemn look on his face. "Your highness, we just received word that Chairman Butcher has died of his illness. You are needed at the Assembly Hall immediately to discuss the replacement and funeral matters."

Fiona lowered her head in memory. "Thank you, Gabriel, I will get dressed and be there as soon as possible. Please tell them to proceed without me. Wait at my chair, I trust you to fill in for me while I am on my way." she said.

Gabriel nodded, hesitantly he left, keeping an eye on Fiona until the door was completely closed. Taking a deep breath, the seamstress began taking all the pins out of Fiona's new blouse and leaving her to dress for the meeting. After dressing in a light red vest and black slacks, Fiona marched down to the assembly hall.

Somewhere in the air:
Abraham came to realize that air was much colder when it was whipping past his face and ripping through his clothes from over half a hundred feet above the ground.

Limbs flailing for purchase on nothing, Abraham did his best to relax his inactive muscles. He shut his eyes, preparing for a rocky impact. But it didn't come. Instead, a scratchy brush past his arms and then a splash into water colder than the mud that had stained his boots from earlier this morning.

It was deep, and sandy at the bottom. Assuming he'd landed in some river coming from the nearby mountains, Abraham did his best to keep his head above the water.

His foot catching on an underwater rock, Abraham found a way to get out of his problem. Spanning his arms wide, he forced his eyes to stay open against the river spray. It didn't work the first time he reached and grabbed, his hand not able to find purchase before the current swished him away. But the second time he was able to latch his arm around a tall, rough boulder in the river.

Ignoring the exploding pain in his shoulder, he pulled himself above the churning water, hoisting himself onto the small elevated platform the boulder provided. Scooting to the edge closest to the east riverbank, Abraham frog-leaped across, barely clearing his toes on the sand before everything went black.