"I want to know more about fire," admitted Andrew.
"But it will hurt you," Lithe whispered so faintly, so dimly, he might not have heard over the roar of Fornax.
The coldest months had passed, they were into March now. Ash was piling up from burnt up dictionary pages—and Andrew was out of homework and dictionary pages. Lithe looked small and sickly but she now knew so much about the world now—about old dead presidents, exports of foreign countries, historical machinery, animal life.
Andrew still knew so little about fire.
He turned his palms over. The backs of his hands were unscathed, as were his ten fingers. Plenty of places to hurt and to learn. She could have them all.
"Tell me how it is that no one is alone in your world, how everyone connects together," he said greedily.
She gave him a tiny trace of flame as an answer. It seared the back of his hand. Andrew cringed. But the pain soon left to be replaced with a harmony, a thump of many beings working together to destroy everything in their path. No one being was mightier than the next, not one being had power over another. It was a perfect melding, a frightening and devouring mass.
"And the dance," Andrew breathed, after the image had receded. "I saw them all together, moving."
Another speck of flame, another wince. The fire beings were not random in their movements, their choices to devour or skip or hush out. They were being led by . . .
"The song!" said Andrew, "You all dance to this strange, I don't know . . ."
"Inferno chant," she answered. "Yes, here."
And another scar appeared on Andrew's wrist. He closed his eyes as the chant repeated like the gong of a tribal drum. Hypnotic, overpowering. So many wild flames, joined together. No fighting for your place, no pushing aside, no enemies. Minds linked, bodies fused.
Andrew thought of the world he lived in. A world of possessions, of loneliness, of pushing others down for your place at the top of the mound.
"Lithe, can I become one of you? Will you show me how? Will you ask Fornax?"
Her yellow eyes brightened with fear. She seemed about to speak. But then the hiss of the furnace quit. In an instant, she had snuffed out, disappeared.
Andrew found the air around himself suddenly, unbearably cold.
CZYTASZ
The Song of Burning Souls (COMPLETE)
ParanormalneThe song haunted Andrew's dreams. Then he found the singer: Lithe-a girl made of flame who lives in the vents of his apartment building. Slowly, she shows him the fire world, a brilliant place where there are no lonely winters. But these glimpses ar...
