Excerpt: Flame Dance

The walls were lit red and gold with flames.

Jarick could feel the heat in his veins, liquid fire coursing where blood should have been. He burned, and the stage burned with him – set ablaze by brilliant birds that rose from the shadows, wings flickering and vague, pouring through the air like wind. They wheeled in silence over the audience, and he imagined that, if not for the melancholy sighs of the violin, there would have been no noise in the auditorium, not even that of breath. They were his, these faceless, nameless people before him. They sat in the palm of his hand, and should he command them, they would reach out for him and willingly turn to dust.