Pursuer (Alwahi Series) by Monique Morgan Read Free Book Online Page B

see the great power within her, and they will have her as their own,” she gasped, her voice slightly monotone.
     
    Zanas knew immediately who they were speaking about, but still she rushed into Panrrela’s tree and searched for Asenya. There was no sign of her. The space that she had spent so much time in recently, felt empty, as though she was long since gone. Zanas sank to her knees, grief washing over her. She felt that grief turn to anger, a hot boiling fury. She could use anger. Anger would get her to her sister. Anger would tear down every piece of their world to find her.
     
    She exited the tree and looked up as the sky began to spill over onto her. It was suitable it should rain, as though Alwahi herself mourned for her daughter. Zanas smiled, a plan already forming in her mind.
     

Chapter 6- The Beneath
     
     
    Zanas hurriedly gathered gear into her pack, and then tightly braided her long black hair. Next to her lay a large club that glowed brightly in the dark corner of the tree dwelling. Arrelia had followed her into the rain-filled forest, and they found a large colony of the insects Zanas had seen when she first entered the woods. When they returned from their excursion, she had immediately gone to their tree and began to pack for a long journey.
     
    The club, covered in insect juice, would glow bright for a few days; but it would eventually fade to nothing. She tried not thinking about what it would mean to be stuck miles beneath the earth. Stuck in a tunnel, with no way of knowing where she was, or where she was headed. Zanas could hear Arrelia behind her going through her things, and then she walked over with something held in her arms. Zanas noticed a beautiful black cloak made of soft fur.
     
    “ You will need this, it will be colder beneath,” Arrelia stated.
     
    Zanas accepted the gift, holding the soft fur in her fingers. She recognized the work of one of the villages best seamstresses, the woman was notorious for tanning the softest skins. Zanas had no doubt that Arrelia had paid greatly for this beautiful piece.
     
    After Panrrela’s premonition, Zanas’s first question was to ask how she could go beneath. They had all stood there staring at her.
     
    “ No one goes beneath,” wheezed Panrrela.
     
    “ No one goes beneath,” the sisters echoed in unison.
     
    “ No one goes beneath,” Arrelia whispered. Zanas turned and began to walk away, angry and determined to find the beneath on her own, when she heard Arrelia add, “But I’ll show you the way.”
     
    The villagers almost seemed to fear the beneath, if fear could be used for such a fierce tribe. They believed that going into the beneath would mean a heinous death. But for Zanas, these fears meant nothing; there was no place she would not go for Asenya.
     
    Now they sat, quiet, both knowing but not saying that they would soon be parting. Arrelia had grown up in the village her whole life. Zanas could understand how difficult it would be for the girl to give up her society. And understood when Arrelia could not.
     
    They began their long trek. The village was surprisingly quiet, and Zanas saw not a single person. It was like an eerie ghost town. Their feet seem to echo through the long, tree lined pathways. Arrelia had explained to Zanas that they would have to hike to the center of the island. At the utmost crust, they would find the opening to the beneath. It would take them all day to reach the entrance if they ran at a hard pace the whole way. This would be an exhausting journey.
     
    The mist of their breaths, in unison, saturated the air. They ran through the trees, their arms moving in a rhythmic dance, their feet pounding at the damp earth. She heard the animals of the forest startled by their sudden eruption from the trees. They halted for nothing. They thought of nothing. The only thing that raced through their brains was the need to match each step, and pound forward into the earth of the forest.
     
    When they