Say what? I updated this? That’s right, I haven’t given up this story yet. I rather like writing it. It’s therapeutic almost… and a great way to escape from studying for midterms. And the plot just gets better and better. I didn’t really know what to do with it, then I decided hey, what the hell. I’ll just have them do whatever I want as the story goes. I’ve been learning a lot about writing style though, and I’m trying to better mine. I look at some of my past writing and want to vomit with disgust, but it is all a learning process. Anyways, read and review. I like input.

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Chapter Three: Steam

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My head throbbed painfully and I groaned, shifting against the bonds that tied my wrists and ankles to a chair. That bitch had taken Alat and I prisoner and put us in separate rooms. I had been sitting here on my own for a long time. I had woken up in the chair, stripped of my armor and weaponry, and had not seen anything since then.

But eventually, the door opened and I saw the blonde hair of my captor illuminated form the candlelight beyond the door. Then she shut it and everything grew dim again. I glared at her as she retrieved a torch and grasped the head with her hand. The smell of burning wood reached me and the torch glowed a bright orange before bursting into flame at the top. Great, she was a Heat Reader.

She set the torch in a holder at the center of the room then walked over to where my chair was shoved against a wall. “Comfortable?” she asked sweetly.

I spat on her. It sizzled.

She wiped away what was left delicately before slapping me hard across the face. “You’re a monster,” she growled.

This comment floored me. “Excuse me!” I yelled. “Aren’t you the one who took to innocent travelers captive and already probably tortured one?”

“You deserve it,” she spat, “turning on the old king and helping Colovar.” I was too shocked to say anything to this at the moment. Instead, I watched her walk over to a corner of the room where she had stored a bucket of water, pick it up, and bring it back to me.

“I hate Colovar,” I finally said, praying that this raging beauty would not kill me.

Nalvata, as she said her name was, smiled that smile I now recognized. It was hypnotizing. She dipped her fingertips into the water and then drew them back up. I watched as she traced the wet tips along my forearm, burn marks immediately forming when the boiling streaks of water hit my skin. I sucked in a breath, but did not scream. “Don’t lie,” she muttered. “I saw you give him that lifetime supply of poison before the battle. You and your friend are agents of his.”

“You’re insane!” I yelled. “We’re just kids! We don’t want anything to do with Colovar!”

“Liar!” she yelled. Her hand gripped a shackled wrist tightly, slowly heating the skin to painful levels. “What would two armed, fully capable and combat trained warriors be doing traveling along the outskirts of the border? What is you mission?”

Her other hand gripped my throat and I panicked. “We- we don’t work for C-colovar,” I choked out. “The two of us were just trying to find a resistance to… help. We… hate him.”

She released my throat and I felt a burn mark forming there too. “You’re more likely trying to infiltrate a resistance,” she growled. “I won’t fall for it. I won’t be tricked.” And out of nowhere, she turned and left the room. I sat in the chair, gasping for breath and wincing in pain. This woman was psychotic. That was for sure. But how was I supposed to escape with Alat?

I was given the whole night to think about it, my wounds healing and my stomach growling. Dawn finally crept into the town. I could feel the extra heat from the sun, and barely visible rays leaked through wood panels. My throat had become parched, and I stared longingly at the bucket of water by my feet. If only there were plant life or ground within contact of me, then I could use my abilities to escape. I wondered if Alat had already tried using his wind abilities to escape, and as if to answer my question, I heard a large crash from somewhere else in the house, followed by some loud swearing that could only be Alat’s voice. So much for escaping. It sounded like he just botched his plan.

I heard the thundering of footsteps towards his room and I began thinking of something to do, anything to do. My feet shuffled against the floor in agitation. If only I had fresh soil, or plant-life, or anything!

But then I felt it: the tiny seed rolling along the underside of my toe. I froze, holding my breath and slowing my frantic heartbeat. I prayed that it would not fall through some crack in the floor or be crushed by my foot. I extended my consciousness to it slowly, carefully. My mind touched it and searched, finding deep within the faintest heartbeat of life. I let my own life pour into it, accelerating the growth of the apple seed. Tendril-like branches grew up around my leg, and roots slipped through the floorboards, anchoring themselves into the ground. As soon as the indirect contact with the soil was established, I felt power flood into me. I grinned, commanding strong, jagged branches and thorns upwards to cut through my bonds and break the chair that held me. Once I was free I stood shakily, breathing deep. The first thing I did was kneel down to the bucket of water Nalvata had been using to torture me and drink from it, soothing my parched throat.

When I had taken enough, I stood again, using my abilities to grow a thick, sturdy branch into the shape of a sword, its splintery edges sharp and jagged. I took it into my hand, knowing it would not stand up to a heat reader. I needed some sort of weapon though.

Using my abilities further, I punched the air with my hands, extending my fingertips to shoot the tree branches that had grown up around me at the door. They crashed through it, knocking the entire door off of its hinges. I took a deep breath and ran forward into the home. I froze in the center of a living room, beams of new daylight beginning to gleam through windows. As I looked around, I heard more yelling and crashing from upstairs, and sprinted about the house, looking for the staircase. I found one and leapt up it, taking two to three stairs at a time. I followed a 90-degree turn in it and halted, seeing a splintered gap created in the wood floors. Immediately I extended the tendrils I kept attached to me and grew tree branches across the gap. I made sure that I still had vines around me that were anchored in the ground far below and charged forth once again, sword held defensively.

“Bitch!” yelled Alat from down a hall. “This was my favorite shirt!” I knocked down all the doors, anger and a sense of frantic urgency taking over. I finally splintered one that was already open to see Alat clad in only his cotton trousers and half-burnt shirt fighting Nalvata. Her eyes glowed like hot coals.

“You!” she yelled, turning to me. “You escaped!”

“That’s right,” I growled, charging forward with my wooden sword pointed right at her heart. She held up her palm and the wood disintegrated on impact with her flesh. Alat picked up a piece of splintered wood and shot it at her like an arrow, but it just turned to ash as soon as it hit her forehead. In fact, her own clothes were burning off her, and the chain mail underneath was beginning to glow with superheating. She smirked and ran to me, grabbing my right forearm in a tight grip.

My knees bucked, and I screamed like a hot iron was being pressed into my skin. “I’ll kill you, traitor scum,” she promised. “But first I’ll brand your body.” Her hand was scorching the flesh. It smelt awful.

Somewhere deep within my primal urges, a thread snapped and I growled in a feral manner. I must have looked more vicious than a starved wolf, because her grip lessened slightly and her face faltered. I lifted my left hand weakly, and the house began to rumble. “Hope you like rebuilding the place,” I muttered.

She gave me a questioning look, but then the floor beneath us groaned and a mighty tree burst through the center of the room, branches extending upwards and away. The foundation gave way and the floor splintered apart. “Senata!” Alat yelled, diving for me. Between his tackle and Nalvata’s pure state of shock, I was released from her grip and my friend and I tumbled to the first floor below.

Either I was already in too much pain to feel the impact, or Alat lessened the fall with his abilities, but when my head cleared we were lying in the dusty ruins of the home, a tree whose trunk no man could even wrap their arms around sprouted in the middle of the room. “Wow, I didn’t know you could do that,” my friend whistled, looking at the beastly thing.

“Neither did I,” I said faintly, wincing as my left arm began to throb in pain. “We have to get out of here.”

Alat nodded and helped me to my feet, but as we fought through the rubble, we heard a grunt of anger and Nalvata burst through a pile of wooden planks off to the left. “Get back here!” she roared as we panicked and ran off in some unknown direction. Alat pushed a gust of air at the already weak house and blasted a hole in the already weakened wall. We jumped through it and began running blindly down a dirt path, but a booming crash caused me to stop and look behind.

The entire home was collapsing. It was with pure horror that I watched, and even Alat paused to look after he noticed I was not running anymore. Walls creaked and splintered, falling apart and collapsing. The entire thing was leveled within a matter of minutes, the roof coming apart while shingles still hung in lofty tree branches. Dust rose from the collapse, and as it settled I saw the beastly tree I had created standing tall and proud amidst a pile of shattered wood and planks.

“Oh God, did I kill her?” I asked as I watched the motionless scene before me.

A certain spot of the ruins glowed a bright orange before bursting into flames and letting our attacker emerge from them, resembling a phoenix in the unearthly glow. “No, but I wish you had,” replied Alat smartly. “Time to run!” He grabbed my arm and we were sprinting off again, heading for the town. I knew Nalvata was following. We had just escaped and decimated her house in the process. She would never let us get away with it. People let out shocked yelps and cries of alarm as we hurried past them, and even more screamed when they saw our flame encompassed pursuer. “Excuse us, pardon us, coming through!” muttered Alat to random people as we pushed through the crowd. I looked back to see how our pursuer was doing, but my body came in contact with a meta object, and I fell to the ground with a clang, Alat lurching back and following.

With ringing ears, I looked up and saw two soldiers standing with their spears at the ready, fully dressed in plate mail. They looked down, their eyes filled with annoyed curiosity. “Is there a problem, kids?” they asked, noticing Alat and I.

Alat leapt to his feet. “Yes officer, there is. You see, there’s this crazy woman pursuing us and-“

“Don’t believe a word they say!” yelled Nalvata, closing in on us. The flames had gone out around her, but her chain mail shirt and leggings still glowed slightly. “They are fugitives and need to be placed under arrest. They destroyed my entire home!”

“Because you locked us up and tortured us in it!” I yelled getting to my feet as well. The two soldiers exchanged looks, and then glanced from Alat and I to Nalvata, whose eyes still glowed with rage.

One soldier squinted at our pursuer, and then his eyes lit up with recognition. “Hey,” he said pointing. “That one has a resistance tattoo.” He was looking at her right forearm, where a handprint was seared into the skin. I looked at my own recent branding. Damn.

“So does that one!” cried the other soldier, looking at me. “They’re all resistance. Get them!” Alat pushed the soldiers near us back with a gust and I tied them to the ground with vines. As we began running again, I saw all the other soldiers surging to Nalvata, ready to subdue her.

“Someone get the Icer,” I heard one of them say. Alat and I did not stop running, although I wanted to when I heard her cries of agony as she faced a futile escape. When we had run a fair way into the forest, Alat and I slowed our pace to a walk, and I made sure to modify the plant life as we passed to hide our tracks.

“That was insane,” Alat panted.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “But I feel bad for Nalvata. Shouldn’t we go back and save-“

“Look, just because you have sexual fantasies about her doesn’t change the facts that she wants us dead!” yelled Alat in frustration. “She nearly killed us, and now you’re branded as a resistance member! How are we going to hide now?”

“Now just a second,” I growled, turning on my friend. “Yeah, she’s a crazy person, and yeah she did all that bad stuff to us. Hell, I’ll even admit I still think she’s beautiful. But that doesn’t change the facts that she is a human being, and she knows Colovar is evil, but we left her for dead. I don’t want that on my conscience,” I declared angrily.

Alat backed down, and we walked away from the town at an even slower pace. “I guess it would be the right thing to do…” he admitted slowly. “But we’d need a plan.”

I heard the sound of a horse whinnying, and looked up to see several horses right in front of us, tied up in a glade. “Well, there’s a plan right there.”

“Hey!” yelled a man from beyond the trees. “It’s those kids from the forest!” The bandit who had run away from us earlier emerged with a few of his friends. I recognized none of the other ones.

I acted without thinking, extending my arms out, the right one still sore, and commanding roots up to tie them all in place. The plants wound all the way up around their torsos, securing their arms at their sides. As Alat and I helped ourselves to a horse each, one of the men broke his imprisonment by making stone jut from the earth. Alat sent him flying backwards into the woods with a shove from the wind and I cut all the rest of the lines holding the horses with razor-sharp tendrils. The sight spooked them, and they began running off in all directions. Alat and I had to struggle to control our own animals for a moment.

When they did calm, we spurred them off towards the direction of the town again, or what we assumed was the direction of town. “So, we run in like lunatics, hold off the guards long enough for her to run, and then make our escape?” asked Alat, looking over to me.

“Something along those lines,” I responded.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he declared gravely, looking back to the path his horse was taking. It did not take long for us to reach the town. We had even passed a few soldiers looking for us in the woods. Back in the town, several soldiers were clustered in a ring around something. They laughed and jeered until one of them saw Alat and I thundering right towards them. Then they scattered, revealing Nalvata being held by a tall, brutish looking man. He gripped her by the shoulders tightly, laughing. You could see his breath billowing away from his mouth, and Nalvata’s teeth chattered and her skin turned blue as he cooled her fiery soul.

I made a fist and punched the man right between the eyes as I rode by him. He howled in pain and Alat punched him as he rode by, putting air behind his. The man went sprawling backwards, and Nalvata got up to run. The only problem was that the soldiers were forming a ring around her once again. I reared my horse around and galloped back towards her. When I was alongside her I stopped the beast and pulled her up into the saddle behind me. She scrambled to get onto the beast, and when she had a secure grip around my waist, I looked over to Alat and nodded. He sent a gust of air at our approaching adversaries and while they were stumbling we urged the horses past them and into the forest where we could easily lose them. Alat and I had learned quickly through training that it was not about defeating all your enemies, but outrunning them at crucial points.

We let the horses ride through the forest for a while, only making sure that they were heading inward of the kingdom, not towards the troublesome borders. I was hoping we would hit Letonas, or a landmark that would appear on one of my maps… which I no longer had. Nalvata had robbed Alat and I of everything except our shirts and trousers. Through some form of luck, we finally stumbled upon a river, possibly the Gorhinge River that Letonas rested on to the west. We stopped at it anyways, letting the horses dip their heads to drink. I pushed Nalvata off of the saddle, still wary of her animosity towards me. She had not attacked the whole time we were riding, but I was far from trusting her.

She stared at me with a glowering silence from the forest floor. “Well?” I asked finally.

“Well what?”

“Do you forgive us?”

“Never,” she growled. She had her arms crossed over her chest. She looked small and fragile from where I sat mounted, scared and alone. “I… will hunt you down for this humiliation. You will not be able to sleep soundly, for I will stalk you to the ends of the earth.” Alat watched the two of us quietly. No noise was made beyond our horses swallowing water.

“We saved your life!” I yelled.

“After you brought upon the ultimate shame for a Heat Reader!” she retorted. “Do you know what it’s like to feel your soul dying away through the chilling grip of some beast?” she asked savagely. “I’ll kill you for this, I swear it.”

I studied her closely. Her eyes looked like coals again, embers of anger, but there was also relief hidden in her somewhere. “Then why haven’t you exacted your revenge already?” I asked softly, hoping to find a chink in her armor.

She smiled savagely. “I want your end to be surprising, taunting,” she sneered. “I want you to stay awake at night, wonder if it will be when I show up or not. I want you… to suffer.”

I gulped, feeling a shiver run down my spine. “Very well then,” I said, nodding. “Alat.”

“Senata?” he asked, leading his horse away from the river.

“Lets… get out of here.” He nodded, and we urged our creatures westward in hopes of finding a town somewhere along the banks. We rode in silence. I was brooding. The one person I found beautiful, after all she had done, had a vendetta against me. It was cruel and unusual, and her handprint branding panged on my arm like an endless reminder.