Chapter 100: Serious Mela
Lola stood in the middle of the quiet clearing, the air thick with the smell of blood. She ignored the bodies around her. She pulled the small, dark orb from her pouch and looked at it again. It was still dead, no light, no warmth. Just a cold, empty rock. Every time she looked at it, the knot of ice in her chest got tighter.
’Leila, you idiot,’ she thought. ’You were supposed to be careful.’
She had followed the faint trail for two days, a broken branch here, a scuff mark there. The tracks of a Sun Elf and a human whelp. They were sloppy, easy to follow. They were in this forest somewhere, and she was going to find them. This was not about Gorok’s contract anymore, this was about the cold rock in her hand.
A rustle of leaves from above was a dead giveaway.
Three dark shapes dropped from the high branches, landing in a perfect triangle around her. They moved with a silence that was really impressive. One had a blowgun, another had a bow, and the third, a hot-headed looking one with twin swords, was already grinning.
"You have trespassed in our woods, stranger," the one with the blowgun said. She looked like she was in charge. "And you have killed our kin. State your purpose before we end you."
Lola didn’t even look at the bodies. "They were in my way," she said, her voice flat and cold.
She tucked the orb back into her pouch. "I’m looking for two people. A Sun Elf princess and the human boy she’s with. Have you seen them?"
Liesa, let out a harsh laugh. "Why would we tell you anything? We should just kill you for what you did."