Burnt Offerings

by Pearl Love

  Such were the lies that were told, and Alen found the malicious innuendos appalling. He desired none of the distinction heaped upon him, whether worshipful or caustic, wishing only to live quietly with his beloved mother. Far from feeling smothered by her anxious vigilance, he was quite pleased to remain separate from the rest of the world, requiring only the gentleness of her affection and the warmth of the fire that blazed in the hearth. For beyond any other comfort, it was the fire that alleviated his loneliness.

  This horrid night more than ever, Alen desired the succor of his old companion, and as he always did when troubled, he urgently sought the solace of the flames. Fixing his tortured gaze on the small blaze, Alen sank to the wooden floor as his weary legs refused to support him a moment longer. Crawling clumsily toward the fire on his hands and knees, he sat as close to the hearth as he dared, letting the heat from the blaze thaw the chill in his bones. He stared unwaveringly into the fire as though the flames held some wisdom he could glean if only he were patient enough. Perhaps they would finally reveal the meaning behind the wretched beauty of his face. A spark leapt from the burning logs and landed unnervingly close to his leg, but he ignored the danger as he searched for answers in the warm glow.

  ALEN had been fascinated by fire from the earliest moments of his recollection. He had been naught but a babe in diapers, as yet unable to walk, the first time he had noticed the mysterious enchantment of the dancing flames. As he grew older, he had ignored the warnings and forebodings of his mother, spending many hours before the fire, tending it when it faltered, uncaring that the slightest shift in the wind whistling down the chimney might leave him nothing more than a charred pile of flesh. From the very beginning, he had never questioned his enthrallment. He knew only that when the warmth of the flames embraced him, he was happy and content. Fire quickly became equated with safety in his mind, and before its flickering cheer, he was as comforted as when he lay peacefully in his mother’s arms.

  It was shortly after he had become tall enough to help his mother set the dinner table that he discovered the source of his contentment held a mystery too wondrous to ever be shared, even with the woman he loved most in the world. Seated yet again before the hearth, Alen had caught the merest glimpse of something in the flames. It had emerged so briefly that he thought at first it was merely a figment of his imagination, overactive from the solitary demands of a lonely childhood. But a few days later, he had seen it again: the hint of a strong jaw, hair like glowing flames, a pair of radiant, golden eyes. The notion seemed impossible to credit, but Alen could have sworn that a visage had appeared briefly in the swirling tendrils of crimson and orange.

  It was gone in an instant, leaving Alen to doubt his own eyes, but he wanted fervently to believe that they had not deceived him. Thereafter, every night for nearly two months, he had knelt patiently in front of the fireplace, peering fixedly into the flames and waiting for the return of the miracle he had witnessed. Despite his dedication, his diligence went unrewarded, the hearth exhibiting nothing but the tamed radiance of a carefully tended blaze. But one night, after his mother had gone to bed with strict orders that he should shortly follow, he had finally discovered what was to become his most cherished secret.

  The man in the flames—as Alen called him—was nothing short of magnificent. There was no trace of the dainty prettiness he saw reflected back to him in the still pond behind the cottage. Rather, the exquisitely sculpted visage was the epitome of masculine beauty. A commanding, deep-set gaze, which gleamed like molten gold. An arrogant, finely hewn nose. Lips, sensual yet firm, hinting at the capacity for cruelty and something more, as yet beyond Alen’s ken.

  The blazing lips did not speak, but Alen was not dismayed. He sensed something in that aureate regard, the barest hints of a sentiment that filled him with joy. It was a feeling akin to love, and for many long years, Alen communed silently with the man in the flames, sharing all the moments of his changing life. The startling yet proud day he lost his first tooth. The first time the seeds he’d planted sprouted from the earth, and the way his mother’s eyes had filled with proud tears as she served the greens from his tiny garden. The day he had found his mother slumped in the small grove behind the cottage, too ill to move. His fear at having to face the world beyond the protective walls of his cabin and his determination to be of use to his beloved parent. No matter how trivial or profound the topic, the bright gaze was always there, returning his innocent affection.

  As he grew older, Alen’s commune with the mysterious figure began to change. When the golden eyes looked at him, Alen sometimes felt as though the flames were sheltered in his own body. The nights often found him facing the wall, trembling as he hid beneath his bedclothes. Face pressed into his pillow, he would try to stifle the impassioned cries that escaped from him as his laboring hand hurled him into breathtaking delirium. And as he balanced on a knife’s edge of helpless pleasure, visions of the man’s ruggedly handsome face would spring unbidden to his mind, inducing his body to spill its shameful offering.

  Alen’s love for his enigmatic companion grew stronger with each passing day, until he longed to reach into the obstructive blaze, despite the danger. If I should leap into the fire, he mused, would a pair of strong arms be there to catch me? Or would he be forsaken and doomed to suffer for his absurdity? Fearing that he was simply mad and that the latter would prove true, Alen contented himself merely to gaze upon the captivating face that resided in the flames. Although, as the years passed, his maturing mind became less and less certain that his mysterious comrade resided outside of the confines of his own wishful thinking, secretly he knew he was willing to risk anything if, just once, he could touch the man he loved.

  NOW, as he sat before the hearth, his hands itching from the caked, drying blood and his heart aching with guilt, Alen prayed with quiet fervor for the face to appear, needing his spectral confidant more than ever. Maybe it had all been just a bad dream, he mused, laughter sharp with an edge of insanity breaking the silence of the cottage. Yes, any moment now he would awake in his bed, the thought he could take a life nothing but a laughable notion.

  But the delusion could not persist, not when his hands and clothes were stained with blood. Every macabre instant of his transgression flashed through his mind, sharpened by reality’s vicious lens. Soon, the village guards would come to arrest him for murder and his life would be forfeit. Fresh tears brimmed in his eyes as he contemplated his mother’s anguish. She was no longer young and, these days, was often unwell. How would she manage after he was gone? Who would look after her? She shouldn’t be made to suffer merely for having given birth to a cursed child whose beauty had brought her naught but heartache. Spurred by misery and self-loathing, Alen suddenly wanted nothing more than to be rid of his superficial bane.

  Alen fixed his gaze on the beloved fire as a plan to eradicate his accursed fairness hatched in his distraught mind. The heat blistered against his skin as he bent closer to the flames, but, dauntlessly, he pressed ever nearer, shutting his eyes against the brightness and vowing that he would make no sound as his affliction was seared away. Yet before the flames could touch him, a sensation flickered across his awareness: he was being watched. Alen opened his eyes only to fall into the tawny gaze that had ever been his comfort. The eyes regarded him with puzzled concern, as though asking what he was about. Though Alen was still uncertain that he had not simply conjured the visage out of desperation, he was nonetheless relieved that he would not meet his end alone. Alen smiled at the worried visage before closing his eyes once more and leaning toward his companion’s fiery embrace.

  A sharp cry abruptly shattered his contentment as a fragile hand made strong by fright pulled him back from his incipient immolation. His head whipped around, cerulean eyes full of anger at the intrusion, but his gaze immediately softened when he found himself looking into his mother’s ravaged face. He could see the terrible knowledge in her ashen complexion and in the tears that spilled down her pale cheeks.

>   “Alen!” she choked, kneeling beside him as she pulled his head to her bosom. Her arms were tight around his neck, as though she could keep him safe simply through the power of her love. “I have just heard tell of a dreadful thing! What has happened, child?”

  Feeling the rapid beat of her heart against his cheek, Alen closed his eyes. For a moment, he held fast to the illusion that he was still an innocent babe, content to let his mother rock him gently to sleep as she kept the terrors of the night at bay. But the whimsy could not be maintained, not with the stench of his transgression rising from his very skin.

  “I am sorry, ma,” he whispered, the apology nearly lost amongst the voluminous folds of her dress. Tears, still wet on his cheeks, dampened the coarse, homespun fabric. Overcome with dismay that his mother might think him a heartless killer, he caught hold of her sleeves, needing the connection despite his reluctance to dirty her with his filthy hands. The fearful sorrow in her wearied gray eyes weighed heavily on his heart. “It was an accident,” he blurted, desperate to reassure her that she had not raised a murderous son.

  “Hush,” she soothed, caressing his blotched cheek with a soft hand. Shame rose within him as she looked carefully at him. Her eyes lingered on the rips in his tunic, the livid bruises on his shoulder and cheek, the dried, acrid sweat of terror on his skin. Anger flickered within her faded gray eyes as she deduced what had occurred.

  “They will come for me now, ma.” Alen forced himself to meet her gaze though he was reluctant to confirm his guilt. “They will come for me because I killed him.”

  “You have done nothing wrong,” she insisted. “I know it was not your fault.” Her voice was strong as she tried to hide her terror, but he knew from the slight trembling of the hand against his face that she realized that he spoke the truth.

  Alen shook his head, unable to allow her the false comfort of delusion even as he loathed causing her pain. “But I killed him all the same. Perhaps,” he whispered, “this is for the best. I do not wish to cause you further grief. My life has been nothing but a trial to you.”

  She stared at him, her eyes wide with shock. “A trial?” she breathed. “No, Alen! You have been my gift. Since the moment you were born, I have thanked the gods for you. I love you, my beautiful boy, more than anything. You must know this!”

  “No,” he insisted as he shook his head, resolute against the denial in her eyes, “I have seen how the villagers treat you because of me, how they say that my father must have been some fell creature that seduced you. I have seen the sadness in your face every time they shun you, how isolated and lonely you have been in the face of their rejection. Every day I have wept for causing you such unhappiness—” Alen faltered as stern eyes bore fixedly into his, reminding him of when he was a little boy and had done something amiss.

  “I will not allow you to believe such nonsense. Your father was a good man who loved me until the gods saw fit to end his life. I eternally regret that you were unable to know him.” She shook her head, her gaze filled with love and gentle sadness. “The people of this town are petty and foolish. I care not for the lack of their company. I would rather live alone with you forever than be obliged to endure whatever narrow-minded companionship the other villagers could provide. Their dislike of you is the result of their jealousy and nothing more.”

  “But—”

  “No, child. No buts.”

  As she stretched her tired features into a smile, Alen sensed the futileness of trying to persuade her any further of his culpability. Her love for him would not allow her to credit any evil deed he might have perpetrated, no matter the truth of it. He laid his head once again against her chest, trying to take comfort in her reassurances as she hugged him close.

  ALEN’S mother found herself softly humming a nameless tune as she tenderly stroked her son’s soft hair. She wanted nothing more than to deny his insightful observance and ease his concerns, yet she could not. Though she had lived a solitary existence from the moment Alen began to show the barest hints of the stunning man he would one day become, it was a sacrifice she would gladly make time and again, for the worries she carried were nothing to those that haunted her darling boy.

  She had only moved to the village after the man she’d loved so dearly met a tragic end while trying to defend the small plot of land they called home. The band of miscreants that had plagued the area near their farm had snuffed out his life, mocking his failed defiance with cruel laughter and caring naught for the pregnant widow that he left behind. Eager to escape her grief and attempt to begin her life anew with her as-yet-unborn child, she had been fortunate to find the small cottage where she planned to live out her days and intended to leave to her son or daughter when the time came. Her new neighbors had been none too pleased to have a single woman so obviously heavy with child move into their unremarkable hamlet. Even so, they had shown her an aloof sort of kindness, allowing her to conduct her business and seeing to her needs when it came time for her to deliver her baby.

  When Alen was little, she hadn’t felt the need for any undue caution. He had been an uncommonly quiet child, not at all as noisy and messy as the other village boys near his age, but in every other respect he was quite ordinary. Regretting his lack of a father, she had encouraged Alen to play and explore, to learn of the world in which he would one day have to survive without her. Still, it would have been a lie to say that she wasn’t pleased that her son chose to spend most of his time close to her as she went about the daily necessities rather than running wild through town. Unable to leave him on his own during his earliest years, he had often accompanied her as she ran errands. The other villagers had been mostly content to ignore them, but as Alen grew and his remarkable beauty began to set him apart, a niggling sense of unease had begun to fester within her heart.

  The townspeople’s apathy toward him slowly changed to an interest that bordered on obsessive. Too young to understand the stares he garnered wherever he ventured, initially, Alen had remained unaware of his own allure. As he heedlessly ignored the many lures thrown his way, the villagers’ interest began to vacillate between desire and hatred in equal measure. Seeing the way people looked at her son, she had quickly resolved to hide Alen as best as she could from curious eyes until he was old enough to fend for himself. Her boy seemed to her a delicate flower, and she worried that his gentle disposition would leave him unable to adapt to the harsh realities he would encounter without her there to act as a barrier between him and the world.

  She sometimes regretted keeping him so isolated during those important formative years of his early adolescence, but the necessity of her caution had been brought home to her in the most awful of ways. When she suddenly fell victim to yet another bout of illness just before the last cycle of the moon, she had once again been compelled to send Alen into the village alone to earn their keep. At first, nothing of note had occurred as he went about his business, but then one night—not three weeks ago—her son had come home sobbing, telling her of a horribly indecent proposition he had received from the village’s most powerful figure. She remembered vividly the disgust that had churned her stomach as she’d held her frightened child, horrified that such an eminent personage had shown himself willing to indulge in such sordid dealings. Alen had, of course, refused him, yet she had feared what form the man’s retaliation might take.

  The door suddenly shook, startling mother and son as fists pounded against the aged wood. His gaze turning toward the afflicted barrier, Alen tried to sit up, but she refused to allow it, laying her hand against the back of his head to hold him close.

  “Ma?”

  “Hush. It will be alright.”

  The lie tasted stale on her tongue as she easily surmised the identity of who it was that had intruded on their solitude. The village watch must have been hard on her heels as she’d hurried back to the cottage, but it was not they who concerned her so much as who might be directing them. As if her fretful thoughts were a prophecy of doom, the voice she had most dreade
d to hear came booming through the walls of the cottage, threatening to bring the humble structure to the ground.

  “We have come for the boy! Bring him forth that the gods may judge his crimes and mete their justice upon him!”

  Alen’s gaze widened with unspeakable fear. He turned his face up toward his mother’s, his fair complexion becoming ghostly as all color rushed away. Though she wanted to reassure her son, she was unable to school her features against the terrible foreboding that filled her.

  Her heart pounded bruisingly against her ribs at the priest’s bellowing summons. The aged cleric presided over the local temple, though just what god he served was uncertain since he changed devotions as often as popularity dictated. She clutched Alen to her, tempted to feign that no one was within. The door rattled again as the assault against it was renewed. Closing her eyes, she began to sway slightly as she held her boy, the rhythmic movement reminding her of happier times when Alen’s greatest torment had been nothing more traumatic than the hurt of a scraped knee. They stayed that way for an endless moment while the cottage quaked and quivered around them.

  A whimper of protest squeezed from her throat when Alen pushed away from her gently, freeing himself from her hold. Her frightened gaze wandered over his lovely face, something deep within her filling with pride that this enchanting creature was her child even though she knew that his beauty had only caused him misery. She cursed the tears which blurred her vision, wanting nothing to mar her perception of what might very well be her final moments with her son. Alen favored her with a poignant smile as he wiped away the tear rolling slowly down her cheek with a dirty thumb. He pressed a kiss upon the moist spot and squeezed her arms reassuringly before standing and walking toward the door.