Winged

~~4~~

Silva braced herself, but a sudden shift in the wind sent her crashing into trees, tumbling down into greenery. She sank to her knees.

But had it been the wind? Her wings spasmed, lifting as if on their own accord.
Thud! An arrow vibrated in the trunk an inch from her face. She got up and ran, whistles of more arrows sounding in the quiet forest around her. Sobs wracked her chest, her new heart breaking from the injustice of the ceremony, turning her hopes to bitterness and her dreams to nightmares. They still hated her. They were trying to kill her.

Water was up ahead; a fast-flowing river that carried away more souls than anyone cared to remember. Drowning sorrows that sat bottled behind firm countenances, overflowing with the waters as they surged down the mountain.
There was no escape. Die by water filling her lungs, or blood if an arrow hit her chest? But she had to try.
Her mother had taught her to never give up, so she scrambled up onto the overhanging boulders and jumped. Icy water rushed up beneath her, but only her feet met the white wash. She skimmed over it, crashing onto the sand bank. Jumping to her feet she continued, leaping up and over small trees with a surreal vibe pulsing through her body.

Then she felt it.
With every beat of her heart, an echo sounded in her ears, just behind her head. Her wings beat in time; her heart and wings beat up and down, up and down, pushing her over the land and into the air. Each heartbeat sending her blood catapulting through her arteries and signalling the upward stroke of her wings.

Dizziness clouded her vision, but she refused to look back and stared ahead—at thunderclouds marring the horizon.
She fell down, her toes brushing the tops of trees, her back muscles aching with each stroke of the wings and each shooting pain that accompanied. She would black out from the exertion before she died at the hands of her haters. Perhaps that wouldn't be so bad.

But her wings kept beating. Some untouched part of her mind urged them on, urged them further. She wanted off this cursed land.
Her breaths came in ragged gasps. She shoulders drooped as the coastal wind blew past her face, nearly freezing her nose and once cherry-red lips. Stained with bruises, her skin now resembled rotting tree branches that lay forgotten on the ground.

The ocean loomed ahead, a vast sapphire gem stretching as far as her weak eyes could strain to see. The sparkling surface cut with angles of white peaks and black troughs, housing untold secrets of despair and danger. No one dared cross the endless depths without a death wish.
But maybe she had one. She was as good as dead on this land anyway.

Landing on the sandy shore, she gasped for breath, hands on knees. Nearly toppling forward with the black weights that hung between her shoulder blades.
She looked back once, and set her jaw with determination. Listening to the rhythm of her new heart, she closed her eyes and felt the wings on her back, felt the steady up and down motion that swirled the grains beneath her. Tiny spirals of air disturbed the windswept dunes, lifting her off the ground.

Angling towards the approaching clouds of bad omens, ominous rumblings echoing off the water's surface and settling in her chest, she knew this was no choice.
But instinct.