Just as I close my eyes.
"Uramel!", a voice cracking. "Where is Uramel?!"
My eyes snap open
The old man looked frantic, looking past the guards, searching the other carts. "My wife! Where is she?!"
Nearby, a group of guards was sitting on a fallen log. One of them, a man with shaggy blonde hair and a jagged scar running down his cheek, looked up. He had an aggressive, sharp face that looked like it was carved from flint.
"Shut up!" the blonde guard shouted, taking a bite of dried meat.
The old man didn't hear him. He was lost in his panic. "Please, sir! My wife, Uramel! She was with me! Where is she?!"
The blonde guard sighed. He tossed his food onto the ground and stood up. He walked over to the cage, his hand resting on his sword hilt.
"Shut up. Now."
"Please!" The old man lunged forward, pressing his face between the bars, reaching a hand out toward the guard. "Just tell me where she is! I need to know—"
Schlick.
The sound was wet and abrupt.
The guard didn't hesitate. He drew his sword in a smooth, practiced motion and thrust it forward through the bars.
The tip of the blade entered the old man's forehead.
It didn't look like the movies. There was no dramatic pause. The steel simply slid into the bone with a sickening crunch.
The old man's eyes went wide. His mouth hung open mid-sentence.
A trickle of dark crimson blood ran down the groove of the blade, dripping onto the wooden floor of the cage.
The guard held it there for a second, his expression bored. Then, he yanked the sword back.
The old man didn't scream. He just slumped. His body went instantly heavy, collapsing backward like a puppet with its strings cut. His head hit the floor with a dull, hollow thud.
He lay there, staring up at the roof of the cage with empty, glassy eyes.
The guard pulled a rag from his belt, wiped the blood from his steel, and sheathed the weapon. He turned around and walked back to his log as if he had just swatted a fly.
I sat frozen in the corner, staring at the lifeless body next to me. A small pool of blood began to form under his head, inching toward my boots.
I couldn't breathe. I couldn't blink.
This wasn't just war. This wasn't just violence.
This was cruel. This was evil.
I sat there, paralyzed, my gaze glued to the unmoving chest of the old man. The pool of blood had stopped expanding; it just sat there, dark and glossy against the wood, soaking into the cracks.
I gotta get out of here.
The thought screamed through my mind, loud and frantic. Panic clawed at my throat. I shifted my legs, the chains clinking softly. If I stayed here, I was going to end up just like him. Just another body left to rot in a cage.
Calm down, I told myself, forcing a deep, shaky breath into my bruised lungs. Panic gets you killed.
I leaned my head back against the cold iron bars and closed my good eye for a second. I needed to think. I needed to assess.
I have magic.
I could feel the hum of mana inside me. It was faint, suppressed by the pain and exhaustion, but it was there. I could cast a Stone Bullet without an incantation. I could probably launch it fast enough to hit the guard nearest to me right in the throat. I could maybe even burn the lock on the shackles if I concentrated enough heat.
And then what?
I opened my eye and looked at the camp. There were dozens of them. Archers, swordsmen, armored hulks.
If I killed one guard, the other fifty would descend on me before I could even draw a second breath. I'm six years old. I'm injured. I'm shackled. Magic or not, I'm not a superhero. I'm a target.
Be smart, I told myself. Don't be a hero. Be a survivor.
I slumped my shoulders, deliberately making myself look smaller, weaker. I needed to be invisible. I needed to be just another helpless kid in a cage until an opportunity presented itself.
I'm just going to wait. I'm going to lay low.
I sat there for a few more minutes, watching the soldiers. They were packing up their food, laughing at jokes I couldn't hear. One of them kicked dirt over a small fire they had started. They looked so relaxed. It made my blood boil, but I kept my face blank.
"Alright, ladies! Break's over!" A commanding voice shouted from the front of the column. "Form up! We move out in five!"
The atmosphere shifted instantly. The laughter died. The soldiers stood up, dusting off their breeches. They picked up their helmets from the grass and slid them back on.
I watched the transformation. One second, they were men with faces. The next, the steel nasal guards slid down, hiding their eyes, and they became monsters again. Sentinels of iron and beige cloth.
They returned to their positions. The two guards flanking my cart took their places, hands resting on their sword hilts.
"Hyah!"
The driver cracked the whip.
The cart lurched forward with a violent jerk.
Thump.
The dead body of the old man rolled slightly with the momentum, his lifeless hand flopping against my boot. I flinched, pulling my legs in tight to my chest, pressing myself as far into the corner as I could.
We were moving again.
The convoy rumbled deeper into the forest.
I watched the trees pass by through the bars. It was a dense, suffocating woodland. The trees here were massive, ancient pines with dark, rough bark that looked like scaled armor. Their branches were high up, weaving together into a thick canopy that blocked out the sky, plunging the road into a permanent, gloomy twilight.
It was quiet. Too quiet.
Back in Brent, the woods were always alive. Birds singing, squirrels chattering, the rustle of deer in the brush.
Here, there was nothing. No birdsong. No movement in the undergrowth. I didn't see a single animal, not a Flit, not a rabbit, not even a bug. It was as if the forest itself was holding its breath, terrified of the army marching through its gut. The only sounds were the grinding of the wagon wheels, the clatter of armor, and the heavy, rhythmic thud of boots on the packed dirt road.
Hours dragged by. The gloom deepened as the afternoon wore on. My body ached with the vibration of the cart, every bump sending a fresh spike of pain through my ribs.
Then, a new sensation joined the choir of misery.
My stomach growled. A hollow, cramping pain that twisted my insides.
I hadn't eaten since the festival. The memory of the spiced apple pastry Grawn had given me flashed in my mind warm, buttery, sweet. It felt like a lifetime ago. Now, my mouth tasted of dried blood and dust.
I licked my cracked lips, staring out at the empty, silent forest, feeling the hunger gnaw at me.
The wagon finally ground to a halt as true night settled over the forest.
The darkness wasn't absolute; it was punctuated by the harsh, flickering light of torches being struck. Through the bars, I watched the soldiers set up camp. It was a blur of efficient, practiced movement. I didn't have the energy to track the specifics of their patrol routes or how many men were on watch. I just saw the shapes of men unbuckling armor, the glow of small fires being lit fires that were too far away to offer me any warmth and the rotation of sentries taking their positions at the perimeter.
They were comfortable. They had bedrolls. They had hot food.
I had the cold wooden floor and the smell of death.
A shadow fell over the cage.
A guard, still fully armored, walked up to the bars. He didn't speak. He didn't look at me. He just reached into a pouch at his waist and threw something through the gaps.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
Three hard objects hit the floorboards, sliding through the dirt and the dried blood of the old man.
The guard turned and walked away without a word.
My stomach twisted violently, a painful spasm of hunger that overrode the pain in my ribs.
I forced myself to move. I dragged my body across the floor, the iron shackles on my wrists scraping loudly against the wood. My right shoulder screamed in protest, but I gritted my teeth and kept crawling.
I reached the food.
They were biscuits, if you could call them that. They were thick, grey discs of hardtack, dry as bone and hard as rocks. They looked like they had been baked a month ago.
I stared at them. There were three.
I looked back at the corner of the cage. The man with the light brown hair was still sitting there. He hadn't moved in hours. He was staring at his knees, his eyes wide and unblinking, lost in some internal nightmare.
I hesitated. My body screamed at me to take all three. I was a growing child, I was injured, I needed the calories.
But I couldn't do it.
I reached out with trembling fingers and grabbed two of the biscuits. I pushed the third one across the floorboards until it hit the toe of the man's boot.
"Eat," I croaked. My voice was a whisper, rough as sandpaper.
He didn't blink. He didn't look at the biscuit. He didn't acknowledge my existence.
A wave of heavy, suffocating guilt washed over me. I looked at the biscuit sitting by his foot. If he didn't eat, he was going to die. Just like the old man. And I was just going to sit here and watch it happen.
I turned away, clutching my two prizes.
I brought the first biscuit to my mouth and bit down.
CRACK.
It was like biting into a piece of slate. Pain shot through my jaw. I didn't have enough saliva to soften it. I had to gnaw at the edges, scraping off crumbs and forcing them down my throat.
It was agony. The dry crumbs clung to the back of my throat, choking me. I coughed, which rattled my broken ribs, sending tears streaming from my eyes. It tasted of stale flour, dust, and despair. There was no flavor, only the texture of misery.
I forced myself to eat. Every swallow was a battle. I ate because I had to. I ate because Roxas would want me to survive.
Once the last crumb was gone, I curled up on my side, trying to find a position that didn't hurt.
The floor was freezing. The cold seeped through my thin nightclothes, settling into my bones. The wind whistled through the bars, carrying the smell of the soldiers' roasting meat a cruel taunt.
I closed my eyes.
I tried to sleep, but my mind was a minefield.
I thought about my bed back in Brent. I thought about the heavy quilt Sylvia used to tuck around me. I thought about the warmth of the hearth.
Are they cold right now?
The thought pierced me. Were Sora and Iris sleeping in a cage somewhere? Were they crying for milk? Or were they...
I squeezed my eyes tighter, blocking out the image.
They're alive, I told myself, shivering in the dark. Roxas saved them. He has to have saved them.
I lay there, listening to the crackle of the guards' fires and the rattling breath of the broken man in the corner, waiting for a sleep that felt less like rest and more like a temporary death.