Eternal Fire

Chapter 16

Eight and a bit years later

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Ember pinned Amluse down onto the ground, blood running down her legs. They had been fighting for the past half hour, none really gaining the upper hand. She had grown over the years she had lived on Humanyos, the fighting, running and flying had made her strong and fast, she was taller, only just, than Amluse.

"Okay, you let me get up now." Amluse said. Ember walked away, looking at the damage they had done to the room, it wasn't that much, scratches mostly, but there was the odd chip in the dark green stone walls.

"You're how old again, I don't keep track of this sort of thing." Amluse said, now standing.

"Ten years."

"Ahh, yes, now I remember. Alright, next up, running!"

"Yay. Then I presume that it's flying afterwards."

"You are, unsurprisingly, correct!"

"Yay."

"Come on, let's go." Amluse walked over to the exit, a little blood ran between his scales down his leg and onto the floor. Ember followed him, looking for little butterflies along the way, she hadn't lost hope that she could get away, but, with every passing day, war crept ever closer, she would be able to see soldiers drilling outside if she went outside, Amluse had not yet put implants in everyone, which gave Ember hope that she could escape without being in extreme pain, the Queen wasn't seen much anymore, ever since Ember attacked her and released her prisoners, the Queen had gone quiet, probably making war plans, and planning revenge on Ember in her spare time.

They stopped at the end of a corridor, "You know the drill." Amluse said and ran away, the corridor was too narrow to fly in. Ember counted to three hundred.

"Two hundred and ninety seven, two hundred and ninety eight, two hundred and ninety nine, three hundred." Ember murmured. She started running as quick as she could go, which was, to be honest, quite quick, the walls turned into a constant dark green smudge, any dragons were just a slight variation in the great big smudge of colours.

It was going smoothly, then the first five dragons started to chase her, runners probably, she could hear and feel their feet against the stone. A couple broke off to the right, two or three, she would see them soon. She ran around the corner, and ran head-first into a dragon, taller then Ember was, and with more muscle too. She stumbled back a few steps, trying to regain her balance. The dragon charged at her, she slid under the dragon, seeing stars in her eyes from the sudden movement, and yanked the dragon's tail, hard. The dragon yelped, pulled tails were not very nice, it felt like you had dislocated it, and it hurt, a lot. She started running again, leaving the dragon behind. The dragons that had been following her had also crashed into the dragon when she yanked the tail, so they were regaining their balance whilst she ran away.

Out of the corner of her eye, Ember saw a yellowy glow in the great dark green smudge, the yellow glow followed her, fairly high up, and just in front of her. She felt the ground with each step she took, trying to find out how far away the dragons following her were. She checked, and double checked, then tripled checked. They weren't close, but if she stopped, they would be on her in seconds, if she slowed down, maybe ten seconds. She slightly shook her head to the butterfly, it flew off. She pressed on, wanting to get this training session done.

  Ember sat behind a piece of meat. She wasn't hungry. She was ravenous. She had gotten over the fact that the meat had a green tinge to it. Everything on this world was a bit green. Ember glanced at the scale that had a little green tinge at the end, then looked at the other scales on her body, seeing whether any of the others had gone a greeny colour. They hadn't. Yet. She ate the meat slowly, savouring her meal. The food when she was younger wasn't easy to come by, but they still got fed once a week, here, once a fortnight. Normally, she would be fine with this, but Amluse had been making her train harder, longer and more often with every passing week. The result. She was starving by the time she came to eat.