To Bind Fire (Empire of Ash and Song #1)

by D.E. Carlson

Nothing can stand before fire. It knows no love, no compassion, no gentleness. It knows only its own need. It feeds, it consumes, and only moves on when nothing remains. They thought it their friend. But they did not know that fire resented its service to them. They thought it watched over them as they slept. Really, it waited. And when its chance came, fire took everything from her.

“Be gone!” the evil voice shouted, shrill and afraid. “This is my time to test them.” The greater voice grew faint, as if from a great distance, but the fire could still hear. “You grip tightly because you have not their love as I do. Take the remainder of your time. You have little left . . .”

“Yes. Fire . . . did this to me.” She did not know where the honesty came from, but as she spoke, there was a release deep within her, as though the fear had lost a little of its power. A sudden hope flared. She continued, her eyes passing over the pale faces illuminated now only by a thin red line on the horizon.

“As long as you hide from your fear, you are a slave to it.” He seemed to have moved beyond her with his words to address the entire camp, his powerful young voice ringing against the sky. “A slave to fear is a danger both to herself”—he indicated Iris where she knelt—“and to everyone around her. Face your fear, Iris, and stay with us. Give us your fire.”

“You’ve known pain, Iris, but you do not own it.” A hot wetness traced down Iris’s cheek, and she struggled to swallow past the lump in her throat. “You don’t know. You don’t know what it’s like.” Mila leaned forward, taking Iris’s hand and squeezing gently. Iris saw past her own tears that Mila’s eyes were red rimmed and hot as well. “Yes. I do.”

The Storyteller abruptly broke off her song. Her voice was tremulous, with anger or sorrow, Iris could not tell. “He brought evil. He corrupted the hearts of man and turned them away from Harmony with El. He seduced man with visions of power.”

El does not want to make slaves of man. He wants the joy of being chosen, and will accept the pain of rejection for a time, out of hope.”

“You can choose him. That is good. But you are not only yourself. You are a part of the whole.” The old woman set aside her tube and turned. Her gaze pinned Iris to the rocky ground. “Only when all the families choose El can Harmony be restored. Till then, there will be pain.”

“You can’t trust everyone, Iris, but you can trust me.”

“Who would dare command the fire prince?” “His mother.”

“Not only you, child, though you have allowed it, and even perpetrated it.” His voice was a gentle reprimand. “Your kind. The bloodlines of the world. You’ve always had a choice. I would never take away the honor of choice from the ones I love.”

“I am waiting, Iris. Waiting for you to choose. I stand by because I believe in you. I believe that you will not succumb to evil. It’s why I made you.”

“She is either our savior, or our worst nightmare,”

“We are not defined by what happens to us, but by how we respond to it.”