A Heart Of Flame

The room in the tower smells of the dozens of candles that illuminate it, and something dark and bitter, like wet earth. There is more illumination coming from the windows across the room, where a part of the floor has been excavated to sin a level deeper that the rest and leads to a balcony beyond two stained glass doors.

The balcony overlooks a panoramic view of the fields and orchards, and the town, several hills and fields away. The crow queen sees it with such clarity as if it were standing in its streets. She stands on the balcony, bringing herself into focus. She has never attempted something of this size. She has no idea what the repercussions will be. She is not afraid.

A crow is perched upon her shoulder, glossy and ebony dark, a patch of darkness in the sunlight.

The room behind her has a high ceiling and is round, with walls of smooth, black, stone bricks. Bones have become the room, covering every surface and themselves hidden beneath strange objects: small silver knives, glass decanters, teeth, some large and curved like cobra fangs, others small and vaguely human in appearance. There are enough teeth to fill entire mandibles, scattered about the room.

And everywhere above her are crows. They perch on the rafters and on bookshelves, on sconces without flames, staring down with glistening black eyes. There are over a dozen pairs of eyes watching her as she returns inside, leaving the door open, and gently lifts the crow from her shoulder. It swoops upward in a flutter of black feathers and joins its companions in the shadows. She does not so much as look at it. She goes directly to the table on the other side of the tower to check her work. It is a delicate balance and a difficult process. It has taken her ages to work out precisely how it will happen and there is still no guarantee that it will go as planned.

The bones on the table are unwashed, yellow with age and the effect of the air, sockets and crevices, and indents depicted in dark shadow. The crow queen pushes them aside and pulls book after book from the pile next to the edge of the table.

She flips through books and ledgers and manuscripts, double checking and cautious of any forthcoming errors. Some pages she tears from the binding carefully, removing them and crumbling them within her fist. She needs no safeguard, no loopholes. She is certain she wants to continue.

The bones sit in a precariously made pile in the centre of the diagram, snow white in the candlelight. The diagram is written in chalk on the floor, like a picture emblazoned on a playing card.

She walks to the centre of the diagram where a single white candle burns, forming a small pool of wax beneath it. She holds the papers over the flames and watches them catch fire. She brushes the ashes and char from her fingers before standing.

She removes from a bracket on a wall a thin, silver dagger with a bone handle. The crow queen lets her hand linger on it as she thinks. She returns to the diagram in the centre of the room.

There are pieces of chalk, broken and worn down, on the floor, next to the smudged diagram and looping strings of symbols. She kicks them as she takes her place in the centre of a concentric design.

She begins quietly. She speaks words that the crows can barely hear, and that no person would understand. The crows stir in the rafters above her with a fluttering of feathered wings. Several feathers fall upon the diagram like the petals of some dark flower. But it is not the words that elicits this reaction. It is the flame of the white candle. It is several shades darker than any ordinary fire, and is steadily growing. It looks too large to be balanced upon a mere candle. It grows to a size that would barely be contained within a fireplace.

Then the fire erupts into crimson flames. It coils through the air like a serpent, rising over the queen of crows. Several crows take flight, swooping in circles around the room in agitation. She pays them no mind. The knife blade grows hot in her hand, but she does not let it go. Slowly, and deliberately, she steps into the centre of the fire.

The room is a blur of light and shadow, obscured by the red flames. She does not have time to let the knife go, though she can feel that even the bone handle is too hot, searing against the skin of her palm.

The crow queen lifts the dagger and, without hesitation, plunges it into her chest. The knife shears through the skin and flesh and into the bone underneath.

There is no blood, nothing dripping down her chest, though it is certainly no illusion. The knife in her chest is real.

The crow queen pries the dagger out and drops it on the floor, where its bloodless blade winks in the firelight.

Where the flames lick her bare skin they are black. Where they pour through the hole in her chest they are darkest midnight, the terrifying nightmare darkness that swallows lost travelers in the forest.

Then the pain begins. Furious white-hot pain that tears through her like a lance. She feels as though something has reached inside of her and is rearranging her.

There is a heaviness in her chest, and an ache in he throat, and such an excruciating pain she feels she cannot stand.

She focuses on the pain, on every moment wasted on her own desires or someone else’s. She carries the memories with her, and she is ready to be rid of them.

Then, there is nothing. No pain or memory at all. There is a feeling of lightness, as if she has swallowed too much air.

Somewhere a clock is tolling. But it is not a clock, it is a heart beating. I do not want you, she thinks. The beating of the heart fades, and she must pull herself together without it now.

There is the silver of temptation to do nothing, to stand in the fire until she truly starts to burn, and is nothing but a pillar of ash.

She struggles against the temptation to surrender, and seeks to pull herself back to this time and place. It is like searching or the origin of a sound that echoes through a vast cave.

Slowly, very slowly, she pulls herself back, and returns to the fire and bone. Soon she is standing on top of a pile of bones, the few having died down quickly. She feels lighter, less consequential. But she is certainly here, in her won flesh, her feet burnt by embers, her hand scarred by the white-hot blade in it. She lets it go and it clatters to the floor, coming to rest outside the diagram.

She puts her fingers to her chest. The crows have stopped flying, but they blink in fear at their queen.

Half of the candles have burned out, but the scent of burning wicks is as tangible as the layer of wax frosting several surfaces. The remaining candles cast dancing shadows on the walls.

The shadows in the room have grown just a little darker.

The dawn is coming. The first of its milky light is bleeding over the horizon. The crow queen stands with the dagger at her feet, and the smoldering fire, her hand still over her chest. Nothing beats beneath it. She glances down once to search for her shadow but finds nothing. It is done.

Art by Liga Klavina

Text by Lucie MacAulay