Daybreak

Chapter 15 - Kahleeri Jungle

Purple magic swirled through the air, staining Cara's nose with the scent of jasmine. Her stomach dropped a little, making her tense in anticipation of a fall. But when she opened her eyes, she was standing on a worn dirt road in the middle of a humid jungle. Animals screamed into the night, as though she were surrounded by the shrieking souls of the damned.

Cara spun, only to find herself utterly alone. "Demon?" She called out. Her only reply was the silencing of nearby animals. Shit. That was foolish of her. There were any number of wild animals in this jungle that might seek her out, and she was currently unarmed. Cara studied what she could see of her surroundings as she worked to calm her breathing. The dirt path was nothing special. It was barely wide enough for three people to walk side by side. It must be relatively new, as no vines twisted across it and she couldn't spot any dead leaves. The jungle crowded both sides of the path, giving it a claustrophobic feel. She couldn't even see either moon through the dense canopy.

Something rustled in the plant life to her left. Cara tensed, reaching for a sword that wasn't there. Damn it! How do I keep finding myself in these situations? One of the nearby trees had a nice straight branch that was low enough for her to snap it from the trunk. She braced it like a staff in the direction of the noise, its broken end split into a gnarled point.

Cara's heart was in her throat as the wide jungle leaves shifted once more. "Who goes there?" She hissed. The rustling stopped, then started up again on the opposite side of the path. Cara whirled, brandishing her branch like a polished spear.

"Show yourself!" Cara whisper cried.

"Are you trying to stab me again?" Someone whispered in her ear.

Cara screamed and spun, striking out with her branch and knocking the intruder away. The intruder fell to the dirt path with a gasp and a moan. Cara pounced on them, shoving them against the ground with her branch pressed hard into their chest.

She was about to demand to know who they were and where they came from when she finally recognized the pain filled violet eyes. "Rien?"

The Demon King winced, then nodded. "In hindsight, sneaking up on you was poor planning on my part." He gasped, her branch still pressed tightly against his chest.

Someone laughed from their left. Cara twisted only to spot Atyl picking her way through the jungle onto the path. "No shit, idiot. You're lucky she wasn't armed with anything sharper."

Cara looked back toward Rien before realizing she was still perched on top of him, her face only a few inches from his own.

Grateful for the darkness that obscured her blush, Cara climbed off Rien's prone form and helped him to his feet. "I'd apologize, but that was entirely your fault."

"Fair enough." He groaned. Atyl snickered once more.

Cara glowered at the two of them. "What the hell happened?"

Rien coughed, clutching his chest and wincing. "I teleported us from Damnation to the beginning of the path to Kahla's Library. Or I tried to at least." He rubbed at his now torn silk shirt with a sour expression on his face.

"What do you mean 'tried'?" Cara asked.

"Something went wrong with the spell. You recall I told you that teleportation spells are incredibly complex? Part of it is specifying exactly where I wanted to go, down to the square inch. Which I did, successfully I might add. Until the path moved."

"Moved?" Atyl asked before Cara had the chance to.

Rien nodded. "Yes." He glanced at Cara before continuing. "I had to adjust the spell at the last minute to make sure none of us ended up teleporting halfway through a tree. Those kind of adjustments tend to be sloppy, so we all ended up further away from each other than I was intending."

"Someone didn't want us coming here." Cara muttered, mostly to herself.

Rien nodded in agreement. "Which makes it all the more likely that what we seek is here."

Cara wasn't sure she entirely agreed with that analysis, but decided that wasn't the battle she wanted to fight. "For future reference, warn me before teleporting me across the continent."

Rien gave her a sly smile. "That makes it sound like we'll be going on many more adventures together."

"In your dreams, asshole."

He laughed, the softness of the sound turning it sensual. "The kind of dreams I have about you aren't about teleporting, Sunshine." Rien purred into her ear as he passed her, strolling down the path like he didn't have a care in the world.

"I want to stab him." Cara said aloud.

Atyl chuckled from behind her. "Perhaps I misjudged you, Arathean. Having you around could be fun after all."

*****

They walked in a single file line, with Rien guiding them up front, Cara in the middle, and Atyl bringing up the rear. Cara used her broken branch as a walking stick, occasionally pausing to mark their progress into the edge of the dirt road. Every time she did so, Atyl paused with her without comment. They would catch up to Rien together, but for once Cara didn't feel any animosity from the general.

What felt like hours passed. Cara did her best to keep track of the time, but it was nearly impossible with the two sister moons obscured from her view. All she had to go by was the increasing weariness in her legs and the anxiety that doubled with every passing minute.

Cara almost missed it when Rien stopped short in front of her. She caught herself right before slamming head first into his broad back. Biting back a curse, she was about to ask him what the hell his problem was when she saw what he was gawking at.

The Library was a more of a fortress, built from dark gray stone that blended in well with the night time gloom of the jungle. Several spires twisted into the air high enough that they seemed to go on forever. Peaked stained glass windows reflected whatever moonlight found it's way through the tree canopy.

Something pulsed from within her, almost like a second heartbeat. It was so faint that Cara would have missed it if she hadn't been standing perfectly still in that moment. That pulse drew her toward the building, its rhythms an vibrating cord between her and the Library.

"Where do we go now?" Atyl asked from behind Cara, the words barely penetrating her awareness as the pulsing beat increased.

Rien had one hand on his chin and was studying the Library with hard eyes. "Our spies said the front entrance moves around, making it difficult to find. I suppose we'll have to start searching for it."

That insistent pulsing thrummed through her, lacing every breath she took with a kind of music. The Library ate up all her thoughts, drawing her in and consuming her whole.

"Are you alright, Sunshine?" The words of concern fluttered around her like a butterfly just out of reach. Cara was starting to realize that the pulsing wasn't coming from the Library as a whole, but rather from a specific part of it to her left. Her feet made the decision before her mind did.

She began to walk toward the source of that rhythm, totally unaware of the sounds of protest coming from Rien and Atyl. In the end, they had no choice but to follow her.