The Tempest

 

Today is Write On Edge’s Friday linkup! Their prompt this week is: rain.

 

 

 

 

This selection comes from my historical fiction, Till Dawn Rises, the 3^rd book in The Endless Fire Trilogy.

 

The setting:

A dark alleyway, deep in the heart of ancient Alexandria

Inside conspirators and an ambush

Pouring rain

 



 

Word count: 392
Ó Pure Grace

 

 

Marcellus’s foot slipped with a splash into a puddle and awoke his mind to the street around him. The wind had picked up and his torch sputtered helplessly in his hand, winking the last of its strength away in a feeble attempt to outlive the whirling, devilish wind and rain. The frigid water soaked through the bottom of his sandal and jolted to the bones. Everything was wet, slick, grimy. Rivers of rain cascaded over him, running in jets down his arms and dripping from his hair. He glanced down, watching the water streaming through the street and plink upon the cobblestones as it poured from the sky.

A startled cry from Claudia beside him caused him to whirl. There, the first step had begun. Merci stood, wreathed in torchlight, at the end of the street, like a beckoning angel in the midst of the tempest.

Claudia broke away from his side, slipping in the rain, trying to run, her arms stretched toward Merci. He had to stop her. He couldn’t let this happen. The pieces were falling into place. But not for Gauis.

Aelia gripped his elbow and the electric touch of her cold hand stimulated his senses.

“Nay, Claudia, stop!” he shouted. The rebellious wind blew his words back into his mouth as it struck the rain into his eyes and nose. But it was time he made things right. Before he could think twice, he sprinted after her. There were many things he had done in his lifetime, and he was proud of none of them. They flashed across his mind, pictures, snippets of memory, things he would have liked to have forgotten, blood screaming on his hands. He had to fix it, once and for all.

Dropping the dead torch, he concentrated on the world before him. Claudia raced toward Merci, oblivious of the biting cold and fierce wind. The girl still stood calmly in the shielding alcove, her face emotionless, eyes as old and blank as the first moment he had seen her. Marcellus knew Aulus’s dagger pierced her back, a deadly reminder for her to stay still, to say nothing. And Gauis, the instigator, the monster, lurked in the shadows behind her, waiting to snatch Claudia the moment she reached her wayward Merci, to cart her away and finish her. And it was all his doing.