Work Text:
Cressentia already felt a little tipsy as she climbed the stairs up to her chambers. The sounds of the murmuring crowd and the clink of silverware drifted up to her softly. Her father, the Theyn stood beside her, as steady as ever.
When they arrived at their rooms, only one of their slaves was waiting for them, but she barely noticed, moving forwards lightly to take her seat at the table already set with dessert. Together they sat, and she took a few bites of the cake. It was perfectly light and fluffy, but she barely tasted it, mind wondering to how odd Thora had been acting recently. She absently reached for a sip of her wine, the Theyn across from her raising his own glass and, with a nod, drinking too.
The sharp burning of pain brought her suddenly back to the present moment. When she opened her mouth to scream, it felt like fire was racing down her throat.
Eyes wide, she saw her father react similarly, his screams being choked off as his neck became charred, but his face continued to be twisted into an expression of agonising pain. He had drunk more of this tainted wine than she had, and now was beginning to convulse, the charred burns spreading out across his body even as his neck began to crumble into ash as he fell to the floor. After only a few torturous minutes he was dead.
Cress put her fingers to her own neck, the internal pain showing in the ash that came away with them. The wine having made its way into her stomach, she felt like her entire insides were burning up with a heat that was at once contained within her and utterly overwhelming. Her skin began to tighten and crack, hair burning up as flakes of black ash fell from her scalp. She gasped, doubling over with pain, and as her lips crack into coals she closed her burning eyes, waiting for death to take her the way it had her father.
But it didn’t. After what felt like hours of agony, the burning finally subsided. She panted, gasping for air through a throat that felt destroyed, but she was alive. Her blood still felt hot, there was a kind of buzzing under her skin. The fire gems lining her cloak suddenly seemed to glow brighter, and as she reached for them she felt another wave of heat wash over her. She waited for the pain to break but it didn’t, instead tamed under her control.
She carefully straightened up. Beside her, her father lay curled and looking much smaller than he ever had in life, lips twisted into a slight scream. But she stepped towards the door, fire gems in hand as she burned as bright and hot as a bonfire, rage in her eyes.