Stolen Princess

15. Danaya

"Come and get it," Talon offers with a grimace just before he cracks his neck casually. I watch as blue flames lick up his arms, almost beautiful in their glow - but it doesn't even matter now. I'm running, full sprint, as if the mangrove roots are made of vapors until I reach out both arms and crash into Talon's chest.

We roll to the ground together in a mess of purple and blue flame, my anger and his. I beat one fist against his armored chest and find an imprint when I pull away. I should care, something in the back of my head reminds me, but I push it away.

The anger, the pure grief of another betrayal fills me to the brim as Talon and I roll, and he lands me in the mud. In another surge of barely controlled purple strength, I stiffen both arms against his chest, though he's holding onto me at each elbow. I push upwards and we roll again, crashing through tree limbs and roots, the voice of the goddess screaming through the empty darkness of the familiar forest.

This time it's Talon who lands on his back, working to keep me at bay as I press one purple flaming forearm into his neck. His face is contorted with an anger I recognize like I know my own face, and for a moment I wonder just what it is that hurts so bad in the handsome princes' chest that makes him look like that. But then he head butts. Actually head butts me. I reel from the blow, backward, smashing into another mangrove root, destroying it in the process.

"Let it out deerling," he goads me, standing a few feet away now, gesturing me forward with a mocking courtly bow.

A growl rumbles through me, purple flames soar and I put my head down and charge into his stomach without warning. He loses the air in his lungs, stumbling backward into a half-hearted somersault until he regains his feet once more. I'm already there, sweeping his legs out from underneath him as if it's something I've known how to do every moment of my life.

"What does that even - mean?!" I screech the words like an accusation as he lands on his back in the mud once more.

"Watch out!" I hear Sosha shout, and I wonder for a second if she's talking to me or Talon. But a strange noise reaches past my rage, an odd sort of rhythmic clicking. It's enough that I pause, still a few feet from tackling Talon, and look up at last.

"'Rids!" Talon shouts, pushing himself out of the mud, and running for me with terror in his features. Terror I've never seen in anyone before... at least not over me. The breath catches in my throat at the sight, I feel an odd prick of tears at the corner of each eye, and then the creatures are upon us.

Giant spiders. They hiss as their arm-length fangs lash out, their spindling legs covered in foot-long wiry hairs as they claw and clutch at the roots around us, careful to avoid the sucking mud.

No wonder the Orcs hated the Shadow Forest so much.

Without much thought, I swing my right arm towards one of the towering beasts as it crawls at lightning speed towards me. The flash of purple light moves through the air like a knife and slices the Rid in half when it makes contact with a horrifying hairy body. I feel the breath coming into my lungs in gulps as another, even larger Rid takes the last one's place.

"Wren!" I hear Talon shout, and look to find him fighting his way towards me in sheer desperation. The mud sucks at his calves, slowing him, three giant spiders are scuttling to catch up to him, and he's more worried about the one that's stalking me just now.

There's no time to think as I turn back to my opponent, its multitude of eyes like shining wet stones embedded across its stomach, unlike any spider I've ever seen. A scream rips through my throat as it slashes those huge fangs downwards, towards me, and a shiver of fear runs through me like I'm just another girl being attacked by any kind of spider. And it feels that way suddenly, like I"m alone in the dark as the spider grows larger and larger still.