LotS/The Story/Between Heaven and Hell/Intro

Alexa didn't scream this time.

The same nightmare coalesced around her when she returned to consciousness. Inescapable material held her from beneath, from head to heel. Her naked body was embedded in the surface she lay upon, sunk inches deep into oppressive, claustrophobic softness. Cold restraints held her forehead, wrists, and ankles, completing her entrapment. Binding her like a sacrifice upon an altar, an offering to the monster that loomed above her imprisoned form.

It glared at her from glittering cyan orbs in an azure reptilian head. Savage jaws were on the verge of opening, poised to speak damning words or descend and swallow her. Even now, staring into the terrible visage for the second time, knowing its nature, Alexa Haelia's heart beat faster. The perspective and bright, vivid colors were chilling in their perfection. A painting so utterly real that it made the world around it seem phantasmal. She averted her eyes, focusing on the strange machinery instead. Illuminated contraptions blared light at the edges of her field of vision. Black cables snaked from them and sucked at the contacts fastened to her bare flesh.

And there was something far, far worse than all this. She was alone. No voices spoke from within, offering guidance, protection, and the destructive power they commanded. Their absence was a gaping void, wider and more awful than the dragon's maw would be once it opened. For the first time since she was a teenager, her flames were distant, voiceless. An intangible flicker buried deep in her being. Smothered into silence by inscrutable forces.

A nightmare. The same appalling, abominable predicament that had made Alexa shriek on her prior awakening. But now she was quiet, even as fear and panic threatened to burst through her mouth -- scattering shattered teeth in all directions. Because last time her screams had brought the old woman.

She shivered. The face hovered in her memories, with its skeletal aspect and parchment-like skin drawn tight over the bones. And those eyes... Lidless mutilations, glowing multifaceted cyan gemstones that had neither pupil nor iris, yet bored into her brain. The old woman hadn't said a word. She'd simply stared at Alexa, like the dragon, gazing down with no expression on her ancient features.

How long had the woman stood over her? Minutes? Hours? An eternity. Saying nothing as questions and pleas for mercy trembled from her lips. Just staring, until skittering insects had crawled through Alexa Haelia's mind...

Footsteps sounded in the corridor outside. Her eyes widened. The woman! She could read Alexa's thoughts! She was returning, summoned by memory and fear, returning to pierce her with those-

But when a face floated into her sphere of vision, it belonged to a younger woman in an azure robe. Raven-black hair framed a countenance that was softer and fuller than the crone's. Almost pretty.

The stranger reached towards her. Alexa flinched, tried to burrow deeper into the soft prison.

Warm, gentle fingers stroked her cheek.

"My name is Emera Tresc."

"Help me! Please! I-"

"Don't be afraid, Alexa."

The tenderness in the woman's voice was impossibly soothing. Her other hand rose into view. It held an expanse of shimmering silk, an elegant blanket that she laid across Alexa -- covering the pyrokineticist's nakedness.

"Why are you doing this to me?"

"Because you have so much potential inside you. The wyrm-mother sees it."

Emera Tresc pointed to the ceiling. Then she turned and walked away.

"Wait! I-"

But the woman was gone. Alexa's eyes gazed upwards once more, straight ahead of her. And she gave a start. She'd been mistaken... The dragon's mouth wasn't opening in viciousness, to spew deathly words and rend bone.

It was smiling. Smiling down at her...