Animus

Chaper 4

Sangria stared at the ornate necklace in her hand. It was beautiful, simply stunning. Elaborate gold links made up the chain, and a great amber eye was the centrepiece, decorated with pale golden forests and dark orange flames. It was fireproof- most of the jewellery in the palace was. Eld liked jewellery, and so Tanager had made Sangria enchant all the jewels in the treasury to be fireproof, so that Eld could take one and wear it whenever he liked. Not that he often did- someone like Eld was far too busy with other things.

With a slight smile, she began to enchant the necklace. I enchant this necklace to make the wearer go mad and kill everyone in sight, but not say an intelligible word while doing so.

Running a talon over the necklace, she looked at it lovingly. This was the key to her freedom, the final lock on her future. Thanks to this necklace, she would be Queen- and no one would get in her way. Especially not some ridiculous, half-wit, low-born firescales dragon.

Carefully, she placed the necklace down on Eld's fireproof desk. His room was remarkably simple- clearly not wanting Sangria to enchant all his possessions to be fireproof. She stiffened the urge to growl, glaring at his room. Faded golden-orange patterns decorated the wall, a painter's masterpiece- a bare scrape, a redwood desk, and several jewels adjourned the shelves on the wall, glaring at her from above.

Enchant this piece of dust to turn into a realistic note, in Tanager's handwriting, saying that this necklace is for him & that she wants him to wear it and think of her. As the note scrawled itself into existence, Sangria could feel the final players on the chessboard moving in to place. Fate had made her final play, and there was no going back now. Sangria let out a smile, as she unfurled her wings and spiralled out of the window she entered in.

And as she flew higher and higher, up to her tower room, she could have sworn she heard the wind whispering for mercy.

***

Eld was doomed from the moment he caught sight of her note. She was too far away to hear his fire-thoughts blazing with a mad sort of passion, but her imagination was enough. She could see the pure joy on his face as he gazed at that beautiful amber necklace. As his claws reached out and slung it over his neck.

There was a shift, a shift in the world as that enchantment set in. As madness bloomed and blossomed and the full fiery rage began to simmer, a wild beast that was waiting to attack. The universe seemed almost to be waiting, a world that was watching carefully to see what would happen when Eld was let out of his cage. A talon brushed against the note, and it crumbled to black ash. Ash as dark as the night sky, unfathomable and monstrous. A twisted darkness, that seemed to be mocking what was to come. She risked flying closer, just to stare into those eyes of flame.

And they were flame in that moment. A dark, angry, vicious red and orange that seemed to burn, bulging with madness and a deadly calm. The killing calm, that was how one of her books referred to it. The killing calm swept over Eld as a weapon was forged anew.

Then those eyes fixated on the open doorway, at the hallway of the palace stretching on and on beyond. At the trickle of voices and laughter that floated down the halls. Eld cocked his head, and suddenly the full force of those thoughts hit her. They shall die, die, die flame and death and blood and those voices shall be silenced, silenced forever, those thoughts raged and shook as the maddened, enchanted firescales dragon turned and raced down the hallway, smoke trailing as he ran.

She did not see the first death, but she heard it. A scream that shook the foundations of the palace, a scream of pure, undiluted terror. And then it warped into a shriek of pain, before the heavy silence of death settled in. And the tang of fire filled the palace, the putrid reek of burning flesh. He'd interrupted a party, a celebration of the new moon that was rising above the palace now. Sangria inhaled, savouring that scent that wafted towards her. She could almost taste the panic now rising at the party, the rising storm of chaos. Claws were scraping stone, the air full of screaming and panting and so, so many thoughts.