A Night of Ruins

Alice was pissed.

A burst of flames engulfed a cart as she walked by it. Her steel-toed boots clamored against the cobbles. Cape swing behind her, she marched down the deserted street, and glowered at the world.

Her hair smoldered.

Alice turned down another street, and tossed a ball of fire down the empty halls. The ball exploded against an old stone wall. In a moment the wall was no more. Without a thought the woman walked through the nascent doorway, paying no head to the red-hot stones beneath her feet.

Twenty summers ago, Alice thought, she had grown up here. In these magnificent walls, under sunlit days and moonlit nights. Now there was nothing. Not even him.

Alice spat on the ground. The bastard, he had left her out there. Alone.

Red flame embraced Alice’s hands. She raised them above her head. A wooden door splintered into a thousand pieces. Alice stormed through the smoky rubble and rumbled: “Where is he.”

Twenty men and women were crouched over cots, or laying in them. The sick and dying. A small sliver of the dying light from a yellow-black sky filtered into the room. Alice glowed. The men on the cots ignored her; the others pretend to not notice. She stormed past them into the tunnel beyond.

She would burn down the stone if she had to. She wanted him found.

She found him.

He stared at her. Alice walked towards him. Her body ignited in a skin of flames. The air burned.

“I am sorry,” he said quietly, his voice week.

Alice looked at him. And stopped. The flames that embraced her body seethed.

The world stopped. A minute passed. Alice glowered at him. He stared into her eyes. The flames flickered. She breathed in deeply.

The flames died. He walked towards her. Alice glared at him. Her hair still smoldered.

Slowly his hands wrapped around her body. He hugged her. Alice relaxed. A single tear dripped out of her eye.

Alice was pissed. But right now it did not matter: she was home.