Dragon’s Fate: and Other Stories by Kris Austen Radcliffe

Author:Kris Austen Radcliffe [Radcliffe, Kris Austen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Six Talon Sign Fantasy & Futuristic Romance

Chapter Four

Mira and Ismene rode five hours before the first explosion blew the top of the cinder cone to the southwest, away from them and toward Pompeii. Death snowed down as huge flakes, but more like glass than ice. It sliced as it fell. It crunched underfoot, as if Mira and Ismene ran on the broken wares of the gods themselves.

For once, Faustus had not used his future-seer to constrain Mira and Ismene. He didn’t pronounce their fate or issue orders to force what he saw to come to pass. No, this time, he leaped onto his horse and rode away without them. Without anyone, his back to Ismene’s bitter spitting and unending screeches. He vanished into the wilderness.

Mira’s present-seer saw nothing of him. Nor did she care to ask it again and again and again for knowledge of his whereabouts. The gods could take his life and behead their triad for all she cared. She’d suffer that fate to see him punished.

As would Ismene.

For the first time since they were children, since they’d each clung to their mothers’ legs under the watchful eye of their godling father, Mira and Ismene were left to their own fate, and free of the knowledge of their future.

Yet here she was, running into the ashfall instead of away from it, dragged forward by what-was instead of what-will-be.

Ismene pulled her over cracks and between boulders. They moved faster than they should, Ismene demanding Mira use her seer to find the best footing—“Which way? What angle? Tell me!”

The air hissed like a cornered creature, a sound she felt more than heard. The ash rubbed against itself in little, shattering clicks. The hairs on Mira’s arms stood on end.

Mira had wanted to go to the villa, to care for the bodies of the children. They should not vanish forever under a thick layer of ash. But Ismene clawed and screamed and raked her demands over Mira’s mind.

So now, behind them, lightning flashed across the remains of Vesuvius’s summit. Ash hung solid around the split cone as if carved into the sky itself—as if the gods pressed their fury into the clouds like a hoof into mud. Or Ismene’s fingers into Mira’s flesh.

The two Fates rode until both mares stumbled and wheezed. Then they left the animals crumpled on the ground, legs folded under them, heads bowed. Ismene paid no heed and did nothing to ease their suffering. She ran away into the gray air, leaving Mira behind.

Mira had no choice but to follow, or she’d lose her sister in the dust. So she left the horses to die slowly and with more pain than the poor mares deserved.

They should not be here, chasing after this war caused by their father, but what she wanted—what her seers saw—meant nothing. The past and future always held more sway than the present.

The groves they ran through smelled of rotting flesh. She pulled tight the wet fabric wrapping her face and peered forward into the gloom. They did not stumble. As it had on their way down the mountain, Mira’s seer whispered—Move left.

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