Silver Jungle

Chapter 16

Sprinting past the slower Silver Mages, Dani tried to veer to the left, only for Amber to yank him back harshly. "If we go that way, we'll run into something that will kill us!" Dani told her. "Plus, you can't run like this for much longer, can you?"

Amber didn't respond, which was all the answer Dani needed. Her face was beading with sweat, and maybe tears. "We shouldn't get into a fight!" He tried reasoning with her, but she ignored him again.

When he opened his mouth to make her see sense, Amber merely glanced at him, and Dani shut up once more. He wasn't going to convince her of anything, he knew that now. Her eyes were full of a fury that Dani had never seen before, but one he knew would never listen to him.

Amber wanted to fight something, even if it cost her or Dani their lives. Fighting gave her a semblance of control, no matter how fake.

He understood why.

Zammi had made her feel so powerless, so unworthy to be the next King. Amber felt like she needed to prove that she was not a coward.

Finally, Dani felt her frantic, wrathful pace slow, for just a fraction of a second, but it gave him a window. He pulled her slightly to the left, trying to make a break for the unprotected area of the cove.

"What are you doing?" Amber snapped at him, pulling him back to the right. "This is the way we need to go!"

"But there is more protection over there!" Dani argued back. "We'll get slaughtered!"

"We're going this way." Amber retorted. "Look. We're almost there." Dani looked up, and saw she was right. In front of them, white-capped waves churned, as if it could sense the turmoil on land.

"Not anymore!" A voice howled, and a young girl stepped in front of them. She looked terrified, her lip quivering and her whole body shaking. Amber and Dani stopped before they crashed into her, breathing deeply. "You have always thought you're better than us. We could never measure up to you. Anything we did to try and be better was treason, and when we wanted to change you got scared." She sounded like she was repeating a lesson from school, something that had been drilling into her mind for as long as she could remember. "But we will triumph this time!" Lunging at them, she lashed out with a whip that appeared in her hands. Dani dodged, trying to move around the girl.

But Amber struck closer to the child, her eyes blazing with unholy fury. "You are a traitor to the Silver Mages." She growled, and the child swallowed. "Do you know what we do with traitors?"

"Amber, leave her. She's just a kid." Dani snapped, becoming concerned for girl. She reminded him of Carrie, in the way that she was small but powerful. "We have better things to do."

"You will not leave this place." The girl hissed, and opened her mouth. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and screamed.

It wasn't like any scream the Dani had ever heard. It was a scream of a monstrous bird, a keening, wailing scream that kept people up at night. Her red hair streamed behind her without wind, and Dani had to cover his ears to keep them from bleeding. Amber slammed her hands over her ears, snarling with rage.

"Amber! Come on, we can leave!" Dani yelled, trying to reach her over the noise and the blood that was no doubt raging in her ears. As predicted, Amber didn't hear him, or didn't care. She stood stock still as the girl paused to take a deep breath, preparing to scream again.

"Traitor!" Amber screamed, and slammed the heel of her hand into the girl's nose. It broke on impact, and so did the girl's skull. Her face was an indent now, her nasal bone no doubt buried deep inside her brain.