Passion (Book 1 of "The Fantasy of Life" Series)

Chapter 14

York

I ran quickly through the woods toward the people I was sensing. The others couldn't catch up to me, nymphs were very swift when navigating through their environment. Each step I took was 10 feet away from the last one. The roots kept me stable to keep going, and boosted me farther, I had a small connection to the forests, like all nymphs did.

"York!" Valen called out after me again, but it sounded muffled.

I tried to go faster, sensing that amount of people wasn't changing, meaning whoever was in trouble wasn't scaring them away, and wasn't killing any of them.

I fell out onto a small grassy plain. The trees were short with a lot of branches and very green. The plain was small, and on the side of it there was a human girl stuck up in a tree, not very far from the ground. There were elves, clawing up the tree, they had black hair, pale skin, very sharp fingers and angular features. The grass was ripped up around them from feet pulling it out of place. Littered around them were throwing knives stuck in the ground, and with them one short sword. There were in fact a few dead elf bodies on the ground, with throwing knives sticking out of their foreheads, I could see that their eyes were red and their teeth pointed. Everytime an elf began to make it close to the girl up in the tree she'd kick them back down. She had a small foot, with a shoe that exposed most of the top of her foot, it only covered her toes and the bottom of her foot, it couldn't possibly be comfortable. She looked very young, or at least a year or two younger than me. She was maybe 5'2. She had blonde hair that was very wavy and fell just past her shoulders, it got slightly darker blonde toward the bottom. The part in her hair was down the middle of her head, her eyes were bright green and her skin slightly tanned. She seemed very petite, still child-like but mature at the same time, as if she were not a child but not quite filled out yet. Her features were rounded, she had slightly angled eyes, and plump pink lips with a round nose.

I stood straight and whispered. "Lumfadan."

She looked at me, and all of the elves spun around. Valen and the others came up behind me at that point.

Cullen gasped. "Ashen."

"Kallasaan." Valen cursed.

The Ashen all smiled and started to walk toward us. I gave a wider smile as green mist began to swell over the ground, then a hole opened up over the ground and swallowed them. I heard twisted and terrifying screams.

"Kai." I whispered. The ground quickly snapped shut, causing a mini earthquake in the area, which I stood through proudly. But once it stopped I fell to my knees from exhaustion.

Valen ran to my side. "Are you okay?"

I nodded. "That just took a lot of energy."

"What were those words you said?" He asked.

I sat down with my legs crossed as the girl dropped gracefully from the tree. She had the body type of an elf.

"Lumfadan means hell, Kai just means close." I smiled. "I've never done something like that before."

"Well it was handy." The girl spoke in a very high voice. She smiled and she had very white teeth.

"Can I know who I just saved?" I raised an eyebrow.

She had on a long green shirt that had an uneven bottom, the edges were yellow, and she had green leggings that stopped just past her knees.

"Kel." She pulled a knife out of the ground and shoved it in the pouch tied around her waist.

"How old are you?" Valen asked, he seemed very confused.

"15." She pulled up another knife but this time she pointed it toward us. "Enough questions, it's my turn. You sunk a few baddies for me, but why are you out here?"

I went to say something but Ashanaya beat me. She told Kel the very basics of what we were doing. Valen checked around me to make sure that I was completely okay. After a few minutes of explaining Kel sat down and put her head in her hands. Ashanaya left out a lot of details like her mother dying, the way they found Cullen, she didn't thoroughly explain Valerie.

Valen whispered to me as Ashanaya spoke. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, I'm okay." I gave him a very light kiss.

He smiled at me. He kissed me again.

"Well." Kel spoke loudly. She stood up knife in hand down at her side. "I want in."

"What? Even after seeing.. those?" Cullen choked on his words.

"Yeah! These little 'Arse-en' are going to keep bothering me until Ms. Overseer here gets rid of them. I want to make you keep up your work and let everything go back to normal faster." She looked at us like we were stupid for not already getting that. She changed the name of the Ashen mockingly, I saw what she was trying to do but she just made them seem like pyromaniacs.

"I guess that makes sense." Ashanaya was obviously very confused.

"So I can come?" Kel raised an eyebrow.

'Sure." Ashanaya nodded.

"On one condition. You can help us find the city of Hope, because I'm starting to think Cullen doesn't actually know where he's going." I looked over to him and he looked embarassed.

"Well before you ran off to make the ground swallow the Ashen, I could see the city in the distance." Cullen defended himself.

"Oh." I said. Kel snorted. I shook my head. "Well, I need to rest for at least a few hours before we go because opening up the ground like that, took a lot out of me."

"We can wait a few hours, we still have some daylight." Ashanaya sat down beside Valen and I, only a few feet away, Cullen sat beside her.

Kel looked at all of us and frowned, then flopped down onto the ground. "Ew."

"What?" I laughed.

"Romance." She scrunched up her nose.

"Oh you'll change your attitude real soon. I bet you already have a crush on Valen." I gave an evil grin, and Valen sat straight not liking that I was choosing to pick on him over Cullen, or, anyone.

"I do not!" She sat up and crossed her arms.

"You do! Well too bad, get over it, he's mine!" I hissed at her.

"'Mine'?" Valen looked down at me with a stare that was crazy attractive.

I bit my lip and nodded. He smiled then leaned down and pressed his lips to mine. It felt different with people watching. I felt like I was showing off and I kind of loved showing him off.