Choosing to say out of the Alliance, the Cinders are isolated in their own conflicts, and when Helia Cinder reaches to the void for answers, she inadvertently draws a creature out. Expecting to be eaten alive, she is instead left with a man with no...
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"You know I wouldn't be asking unless it was life or death, Father," Horus' voice came through on the communication magic. "Something bad is happening here, and I need your help."
The spell shorted out like someone had cut off the magic, and Pyre's shoulders rose and fell as he took in a deep breath of frustration and sheer exhaustion with his son. Something always seemed to be crumbling or exploding with him, but this was the first time he'd asked for help. While Pyre was strict and hard on his children, he was not the cruel sort to abandon them, even if they needed a hand climbing out of a grave they'd dug for themselves.
"Helia," Pyre called his daughter into the room, and she barely made it out of the throng of generals without tripping over one or two. Powerful ember eyes and thick red curls reminiscent of his wife's fluttered as she steadied herself and headed into his office, shoulders squared and chin high. Helia was born a leader and wore it well, as her mother had before her.
The Cinders needed her.
Many were scattered and unsettled after Blaze had departed and taken half of their fighting force with. A split like this was the worst thing possible for the longevity of the Cinder line, but it had been eventual with Blaze's soaring ambitions. The man just couldn't see that he was putting them into a deathly predicament from all sides.
If the northern vampires caught word that the Cinder forces had diminished, they would descend on them in mass. Ever since the strongest houses had fallen in the conflict years ago, more were rising in their place, hungry to prove themselves by spilling the blood of whatever mages they could find. As one of the houses who'd refrained from joining the mage-vampire alliance, the Cinders were a constant target. Vampires littered the Cinder borders, and Pyre felled a few each month who thought to infiltrate.
"What's going on?" Helia asked, dropping into the chair on the other side of his desk with a sigh. White mage robes fluttered with her, her curls flickering like flames in the lamp light, and she nearly melded with the chair. There had been no end to the generals' inquisitions this morning, nor requests to train and prepare for the coming assault. The battleground vampires didn't know that Blaze had left through the transportation rooms, but the gaps in their patrols would become more evident.
And now Horus needed him.
It was only a matter of time now until something broke.
"I have to step out, Helia. Can you hold the complex?" The words were difficult to utter, and Helia's eyes boggled, her lips tightening into a tight line of confusion and disapproval. The worst of it was the doubt and nervousness that colored her sunset eyes. In any other situation, Pyre would not leave his daughter with this weight, but it was better to have two strained children than one and a corpse.
"We'll be okay until dusk. The vampires won't really start to poke around until the light wanes. Will you be back by then?" Helia sat up, trying to look strong, but the emotion was there under it all. A daughter reaching for the hand of her father for safety and security.
