opening excerpt of Shadows of Fire

Many apologies, dear friends, I've been awfully busy with college and writing and such. As an atonement, here's a little piece of what I've been working on. The full chapter is now available on Wattpad: http://www.wattpad.com/user/TheGaelicGuardian

Enjoy!

Once, the house could have been described as beautiful. Artistic, even. Before the accident had occurred, it clearly was one of the crown jewels of the neighborhood. Perhaps, in better days, it would have played host to shared lemonade amongst neighbors on its broad porch, watching the neighborhood kids play on the front lawn. Now, however, the place was a wreck.

Its white-paneled walls now were crumbled to rubble, streaked with ash and the rough red bricks now exposed. Only two battered stumps remained of the twin white columns that guarded the porch. The entire second floor was gone, leaving only the empty shell of the house’s walls, and a few charred remnants of the first floor. A badly burned book lying near the shattered hole in the wall that once was a window, near an almost unidentifiable lump that once was an armchair. A table leg, bold and battered, amidst a pile of collapsed ceiling tiles, almost like a shrine to its tenacity. However, despite the desolation of the ruins, there was still life present.

Crouching amidst the rubble, digging through the ashes was a young man. His cracked leather overcoat pooled at his feet, fanning out like a cape. Slung across his back was a broad, round shield, strips of steel reinforcing the body in a starburst pattern. His shaggy, rust-red hair was bound up in a pony-tail, covered up with a battered leather cowboy hat. Beneath the brim, stormy blue eyes glinted, and a determined expression on his face encompassed by a roughly-trimmed goatee and bushy sideburns. He looked young on the outside, but in his eyes, he was ancient with experience and hardship.

Finally, he seemed to find what he was looking for, as he sat back on his heels, and pulled a burned, battered helmet from the wreckage. It was painted a faded fire-engine red, its cheek plates and T-slit visor delicately etched with silver Celtic knot-work. Across the dome, a Chinese dragon was emblazoned in gold, arching and looping in an endless weave. In the back, the aeration vent was battered and scratched, like the faceplate, but still mostly functional. The man handled the helmet with care and ease, as though he was quite familiar with it.

His lips wrinkled into a grim frown as he lifted it up, looking into its empty visor as though it held all the knowledge in the world. Suddenly, something imperceptible shifted, as though the world suddenly was holding its breath in anticipation. The man put down the helmet slowly, hesitantly, as though it were made of glass. Without looking back, he stood to his feet, with a soft clatter of concealed armor plates, and spoke.

“Hello Cassandra.”