Telesa:The Covenant Keeper. Chapter One

                                PROLOGUE

“No … please … how to stop it? How can I stop it?”

 I burst into useless tears. Tears that fizzed and hissed in a heartbeat of heat. No amount of crying would help now. I wrung my hands, no way out of it. It was hopeless. In a few minutes I would be a mass murderer. A killer. In my mind’s eye, I could see it now. People on fire running in circles, frantically beating at the hungry flames. The smell of flesh scorching, peeling off ashy bone. Screams. Pleas for help. I sank to my knees, drained dry of strength. Unwilling to watch the carnage but unable to take my eyes away. I was drowning in a sea of fiery despair. Suffocating in a red night of terror.

A clear, calm voice spoke from beside me. “Leila. Call it back. You can do it. Call it back. Call it back NOW.”

 I looked up, eyes glistening with molten tears. He stood as close to me as he dared, shielding his face from the heat with his hands, the edges of his clothes singed and charred.

 “I can’t.” Abject despair in my voice. “I don’t know how.”

 “Yes you can. You have the power. You know you do. You spoke to it before. It listens to you. Call it back now before it’s too late. Please.”

 It was the ‘please’ that did it. That snapped me out of the depths. He wanted me to call the fire. He believed that I could. And I wanted him to believe in me. Slowly, I raised myself from the ground, closed my eyes and willed that fiery beast to come home.

To listen to me – its mistress. To return and feed instead on my molten core. I trembled at the very thought of the blaze finding its way back. How could I possibly summon it all when it had grown so exponentially as it fed? But this was my fault. I had to find the strength from somewhere. I opened my eyes and shuddered at the majesty of the sight before me.

 Directly ahead of me was a massive wall of fire. It had stopped advancing across the field and now it stood waiting; the beast waited for my command. Now – it asked – what would you have me do? Opening my arms, every ounce of my being quivering with fear, I summoned it home.

 I burned. Inside and out. I burned. There was indescribable pain and the knife edge of pleasure. It was ecstasy and hell all at once. Then, as swiftly as it had begun, it stopped.

I was empty. A dried husk scorched beyond belief. Withered and dead. I fell.

 The steaming darkness claimed me.

                                                           O N E

What was I doing? On a plane thousands of miles away from everything familiar, going to a land I had never seen? Well, a land I didn’t remember seeing, I corrected. Clenching my palms tightly, I pressed my head against the window, staring blindly out at the motionless clouds. The engines of the 747 were a dull roar and the flight attendant a vapid chatter behind me as I tried to block out the images that threatened to bring tears to my eyes. Flashes.

Dad. Weakly trying to clasp me close as he lay on his hospital bed. Trying to push aside the oxygen mask so he could whisper in my ear. “Leila – very important – I love you – whatever you do, don’t go back there, don’t let them send for you. Please stay here. Please don’t go back.”

“Excuse me, here are your arrival forms to fill in. Do you need any help, Miss?” The flight attendant was a slender woman with hair swept up in an effortless swirl. Her eyes were concerned as she looked at my tear-stained cheeks.