. . .
Bright as Fire
. . .
Bright as fire, Gorim called her, and she would laugh at that at first, then smile, and then heart would flutter a little when she saw he did mean it, and when she realised his loyalty had turned into something more, and discovered it pleased her. Eyes like flames and hair like golden lava, he would say later, when they whispered confessions of a feeling that could not be, and yet it had grown and blossomed, and neither was eager to stifle it.
. . .
Hot like fire, her helpless anger burned when her father looked up from Trian's body and at her, his eyes dim like dying embers, and Bhelen stood beside watching, his face impassive like stone. May the Stone slide from beneath your feet when you fall, she cursed her brother, her heart blazing like flames.
Shame, like fire, burning across every muscle and thought. Her very being carved off the Stone, and Ancestors, have mercy on my brother, she thought, and Ancestors, forgive him, she thought also, because she could not forgive, nor find mercy.
Despair like lava, suffocating and sticky, when Gorim held her that one last time, and bright as fire and eyes like flames and hair like golden lava, he whispered instead of a farewell, and her heart melted and trickled down her cheeks with tears.
. . .
Bright as fire, was the day she saw Gorim again, alive and well, and Ancestors, she might have even forgiven her brother for a blink of an eye. Bright as fire and eyes like flames and hair like a golden lava, he said quietly, his voice broken inside like a shattered sword, so different from my wife, he added.
Pain searing like flames, when understanding sank in, for he did not wait for her, but her heart was molten and it could not be shaped back into what it had been before him, before them. Loneliness like lava, suffocating.
Tears like lava, late in the night, burning their way down her face slowly when she cried herself to sleep.