Salaa lit her hands, letting the light shine around.
The light from her hands began reflecting off what looked like little glass shards in the walls. Tolkalee let his necklace glow brighter causing little colored lights to dance around the room. There were crystals in the walls reflecting the lights and causing the room to light up with color.
"Ooh! Pretty!" She looked at Tolkalee. "What are they?"
"They are little crystals, like this one," he crouched down to show her his necklace. "And if you shine light on them long enough," he covered Salaa's hands with his and let his crystal go out. The crystals in the walls continued to glow. "They keep glowing," he ended in a whisper.
Salaa's eyes widened. "Wow. That is so cool!" She let her hands glow brighter.
Amana scowled and shook her head. "No." Salaa looked at her pleadingly. "Please, Mana?"
Amana sighed. "Fine."
Salaa smiled happily at her. "Aren't they amazing, Mana?"
Amana ignored the hand. Salaa sighed. "Come on, Mana, they're not trying to kill us."
Weak, Aran said. Everyone here is weak.
"Thanks!" Salaa said. She took her sister's hand and led her down. "Come look, Mana! They're so cool!" Amana sighed but followed.
Salaa showed her sister around. As soon as the elf guy had left, Amana had become more welcoming.
"Tolk you know why we can't bring them with," Seth scolded.
"We can't leave them here," Tolkalee snapped back. "We have to leave as soon as possible. The herd is headed this way, and I will not leave these girls to deal with it. Would it be better to take them with us, or leave them to die?"
"I'm not saying leave them here, but I am telling you to think about where we're going. Do you really want these girls to come with us to a war?" Seth asked.
Tolkalee went silent not knowing what to do.
Amana knelt down next to her sister. "Salaa, we can't stay here."
"But why?" Salaa whined.
"Salaa," Amana said quietly. "You know that if we stay here, Adan and Aidar will kill them."
Amana sighed, pulling her sister up. "Come on, Salaa." She helped her sister up the ladder and followed Tolkalee.
Seth handed Salaa a piece of toast and had her sit by the fire. Then he went and joined Tolkalee and Amana. "We are headed to war," Tolkalee explained. "Not far behind us is the giant scorpion herd. Not giant as in there are lots of them. Giant as in the are huge. We want to know if you'll be okay here, or if you would rather come with us."
Amana sighed. "We can fight. And as much as I wish you could take Salaa, she's better off with me. We can take care of ourselves, trust me."
Amana smirked. "I doubt that. We'll be just fine."
Seth shook his head, getting incredibly frustrated with her. Tolkalee just shrugged, pulled his coat on, strapped one of his swords to his waist, and walked to the door. "Come on, I'm gonna show you why you can't fight this herd," he motioned for Amana to follow, and walked out the door.
Amana scowled and followed. Inside her head, Aran hissed. He thinks we're weak.
He trudged through the snow that was now past his knees, not really caring if Amana followed or not. The wind was still howling, and tearing through them. He continued for probably twenty minutes, covering a lot of ground. Stopping just under a hill and waiting till Amana was right next to him.
Amana scowled at him. "Well?"
He said nothing and walked up the hill. Once over the ridge millions upon millions upon millions of moving bodies could be seen. They weren't moving forward, they were just walking in circles. They were huge twice the size of Tolkalee and Seth combined. And there were millions of them. "One sting, one little graze, and you will die. The venom takes immediate effect, if you only get grazed you'll have maybe ten minutes. A full sting and you have less than three."
Amana shifted her skin into metal, smirking at him. "I'm a shapeshifter. I can handle them."