by D. N. Hoxa
I couldn’t get enough of looking at the people. They looked like ants, all walking in perfect lines, almost all of them at the same pace. I also noticed the others, dressed in black, who stood in place and seemed to only look around. Shivers washed down my back. Whatever these people were doing here, I did not want any part of it.
“We need to—”
The words died on my lips when I heard something moving behind us. My blood turned to stone and my entire being became ears. I no longer saw the mining site below us, just listened to whatever had moved far too close to us for my liking. There were no animals there that we’d seen, and insects didn’t exactly make that much noise.
Sim and Millie had frozen in place, too. Swallowing hard, I turned to look back.
At first, I couldn’t see anything but the tree trunks, but before I could blink, there was that noise again, like a piece of wood snapping in two. Like someone had stepped on it.
I didn’t need more convincing.
“Run,” I whispered to Sim and Millie, and turned left. To the right, we’d have to go all around the mountain, but to the left, the ground crashed and the forest that followed it could provide the best hiding place we had a chance of finding in that place. Our footsteps echoed in my head. They were all I could hear, until I heard theirs. I couldn’t even guess how many were running after us. I could just focus on putting one foot in front of the other as fast as possible.
Unfortunately for us, we’d spent the whole day walking the desert, and our energy was at its limits. Sim and Millie were behind me, but I had no idea how long we were going to be able to keep this up. If we could just reach that forest, we could hide, and if we were lucky, these people wouldn’t come after us in there—whoever they were.
I didn’t think about Lion-eyes at the time. I just focused on running and staying alive.
It felt like days passed, and then abruptly, there was no more surface to run on. I was running too fast and couldn’t stop myself in time. I tried to hold back and almost reached a tree trunk, but my fingers barely grazed it, and then I fell. I couldn’t tell which way was up or down anymore. I just rolled and rolled down the mountain, unable to take a proper breath, until there was nothing left but darkness.
My head pounded like it was being hit repeatedly by a hammer. My eyes opened and I sat up with a jolt, terrified to see what was in front of me, though I couldn’t yet remember where I was or how I’d gotten there.
Before me was the mountain, much bigger than it had appeared from the other side, and I could barely make out Sim’s face hazily. He looked just as terrified as I was, and he was running like his tail was on fire.
And Millie…where was Millie?
I couldn’t see her, but I could see the men running after Sim. After me. There could have been two or twenty—it was impossible to be sure when my head was still ringing.
“Get up!” shouted Sim, and though his words had yet to make sense to my mind, my body obeyed his command, and I jumped to my feet lightning fast. I turned around and began to run on pure instinct. Sim was right behind me, and I looked ahead, hoping to find Millie running with us, but other than the trees, I couldn’t see anything. That was okay, I told myself. She was already far away, and she was going to be safe. She had to be and we would meet somewhere in the forest, far away from whoever wanted to hunt us, catch us, or throw us in a cage somewhere.
My muscles complained more with every new step I took. I had no idea how long I was going to be able to keep going, but it wasn’t going to be much longer. When my foot caught on something, probably a broken branch, I flew forward, landing on the hard ground with my right cheek and sliding for another foot forward. My skin burned and my eye felt like it had come out of its socket, but there was no time to assess the damage. My mouth was full of dirt. My stomach turned as I spit it out and spun on my back, hoping to find something to hold onto, to stand up.
But it was too late.
I saw the guy coming for me as soon as I sat up, and I began to drag myself backward until my back hit something hard and knocked my breath away.
Fight! my head shouted at me, but my body was too weak. I was exhausted, my energy nonexistent, but I had a knife in my pocket, and I took it out, just as the man stopped in front of me. He was about my height but wider, and the sword in his hand looked much more efficient than my knife. He wore black pants and a grey shirt with something sown in the front, but I couldn’t make out what it was because the smile on his face terrified me. His big, dark eyes took all of me in as I tried to hold onto the tree trunk behind me to stand, and then he tried to grab me. I swung my knife as fast as I could, which wasn’t fast enough. He blocked my arm and slammed his fist on my face, before he grabbed me by the hair and pulled my head up. My skull was on fire, and I pulled my leg up with all my strength, catching him right between his legs. It was a weak kick and it didn’t do much damage, but it earned me a cold slap to my face that made bright stars shine in front of my eyes for a second. Then, he pulled me up and slammed me against the tree trunk. Acting on instinct, I dove down, and his fist missed me by an inch, which made him very angry. I had no control over my thoughts, but my body had done this a thousand times and I let it take the lead.
I tried to kick his feet from under him before coming up but failed. He was too strong. I couldn’t budge him, but I could make a clean cut in his gut. It must not have been as deep as I thought because a growl escaped the man’s lips, and his fingers wrapped around my neck. He brought the tip of his sword right to my chin and pierced me just a bit, as if he wanted me to taste the pain. The adrenaline erased it from my mind, but the anger in his eyes was something I felt deep in my core. This man was going to kill me, and he wouldn’t even feel sorry about it.
“Slimy human,” he spit, and it took all he had to keep himself from pushing his sword forward. Maybe he didn’t want to kill me, after all.
Lucky for me, a foot appeared out of nowhere and hit him in the side of his face. This kick was strong enough, and the man let go of me when his legs stumbled to the left. Surprised, he turned around to see who’d attacked him, and over his shoulder, I could faintly see Sim with both his hands in the air, waiting.
I wanted to tell him to start running already, but my tongue felt glued to the roof of my mouth so I didn’t bother. I still had the knife in my hand, so the second the man charged Sim, I charged him. By some miracle, I managed to jump on his back and stab him in the side of his neck three times before I even realized what the hell I was doing.
Warm blood coated my hand as the man fell to his knees. I had to hold onto him to keep standing after I unwrapped myself from his body. The thought that I’d killed a man crossed my mind, but it didn’t get a chance to make me feel guilty—not yet. Sim was breathing heavily, looking down at the man who’d fallen face first on the ground, no longer breathing.
I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could make a sound, I saw the dark shadow moving fast behind Sim.
“Watch out!” I shouted and ran forward, disregarding the fact that there was a dead body right by my feet and almost fell on it.
The shadow was barely two feet away from Sim now. There was no way I could reach either of them. I was too late.
But…Sim spun around like his feet didn’t even touch ground. He moved to the side when the man swung his sword, aiming for Sim’s throat, and then leaned down just as gracefully. With my mouth wide open, I watched Sim dance from side to side while the man tried to kill him, and then Sim kicked him in the gut so fast, I almost missed it. Maybe I was dreaming? I’d kicked the imp’s ass so easily three years ago, it had been ridiculous, but now he was moving like gravity didn’t apply to him, and as soon as the man with the sword stumbled back, Sim moved behind him before I could blink. His hands appeared on the sides of the man’s face, and he pulled once to the side, real quick.
The body fell on the ground, the top of its head touching the man whose blood still warmed my hand. Sim looked at me like nothing at all had h
appened.
“Let’s go,” he said and made for the forest.
Only when he moved did I see a third body on the ground five feet from where he’d been, and I definitely hadn’t killed him.
The more I ran—or slammed against one tree trunk, then another—the angrier I got. Anger was good. Anger gave me a false sense of energy I knew I didn’t have, but I was grateful for it.
Darkness had fallen. We’d kept going for far longer than I thought I could move, but it didn’t look like we were being followed. It didn’t sound like it, either. We were in the forest somewhere, and it was so dark, it was impossible to make anything out for more than a few feet on either side.
Millie was nowhere to be seen.
It was obvious that she’d been captured, if not killed already, but the meaning of those thoughts didn’t quite make sense to me until my knees shook and I couldn’t even push myself off the trunk I was resting against. A few feet away, Sim had his hands on his hips and was looking ahead, like he was hoping to see what we both knew he couldn’t.
He didn’t look as tired as I was. He wasn’t leaning on any trunk to help him stand. He was stronger than I’d thought, but I’d been right about him being a liar and a thief all along. The anger blinded me even more than the environment, and I found myself stepping forward until I slammed my arm on the back of his neck, and pushed him. I slammed him against the nearest trunk. He could throw me back with a simple push in the state I was in, but before he could, I put the bloodied knife on his cheek and pressed, just a little.
“Easy there, Morgan,” he whispered. Morgan, not beast.
“You’ve got five seconds to tell me the truth, imp,” I hissed in his ear, my anger behind each word. “Why did you go after Millie? Why are you here?”
He held both his hands up. “It’s pers—”
I stopped him from speaking by slamming his face against the trunk. I’d have liked to do it twice, but my body wouldn’t cooperate.
“The truth, Sim. The fucking truth, or I swear to God…” I let the tip of my knife finish the rest of my sentence as his blood dripped down his jaw.
“To get away!” he shouted, his voice echoing in the darkness. If someone was close to us, they would have heard it, but I couldn’t bring myself to care in those moments.
“I want to get away from Ulius,” he continued in a whisper. “From Alfheimr.”
His words literally took me back. I let go of Sim and I allowed myself to sit down on the ground. My hands were still covered in blood. The blood of the man I’d killed.
“Why?” I asked, though I couldn’t be sure I cared.
“Because I’m tired,” said Sim, wiping the blood off his cheek with the back of his hand, which now looked the same as mine. “I’m tired of this dying place. Because I want to live.”
I looked up at him in wonder. “You are alive.” In case he didn’t notice.
Then, he began to laugh. “For how long?” he asked, but he didn’t expect an answer. “You think this world will survive the decade? Look around you!” He waved his arms to the sides. “We’re dying, Morgan. The land and the people. I want to get out before that happens, or I want to spend the rest of my time in this miserable place as a king.”
I shook my head. “You’re not human. Even if we’d found the master, he wouldn’t have brought you back to Earth. You’re an imp.”
He clenched his jaw so hard, all the forest could hear him. “Then I’ll take what he has—all the gold I can carry on my back.”
It was my turn to laugh, but my laughter sounded like a pathetic cry instead. “You’re hoping to steal from the dragon god.” Of course he was. He was a thief—it’s what thieves do.
“We need to keep going,” he said, but I wasn’t done.
“What about Millie?” My voice broke. “Why drag her into this?”
Sim ran his hand through his hair. “Because of you.”
My body leaned back, and if it wasn’t for the tree behind me, I would have laid all the way down. “Because of me?”
“I knew I couldn’t make all this way alone,” he whispered. “I needed someone who had something to gain from this trip and someone who could stay alive and keep me alive, too, if it came to it. I needed someone who could fight, and when I saw you take her in your home that night, I knew you’d follow her.”
The anger disappeared. Raw sadness took its place in my chest. Sadness and disappointment.
All this time…I’d known who Sim was from the beginning. I’d told Millie a thousand times that he was a liar—yet I’d fallen for his game myself. How pathetic.
“But you don’t need me. You never did,” I whispered, part of me refusing to accept his words. “You can fight. I saw you. You killed that guy with your bare hands.” And that third body I’d seen—Sim had killed that man, too. Who else?
“Of course I can fight. I’m not stupid,” he said. “But I needed to be prepared. What if I got wounded? How would I remain alive?”
“So you lied.” Liars lied. Stupid people—like me—fell for it.
“So I lied,” he confirmed with a nod, like it was no big deal at all.
But it was. I’d followed Millie because I heard truth coming out of the lips of a liar. I heard truth because I wanted to hear it. I wanted a chance. And now here we were.
“Don’t look so desperate,” Sim said, his voice ice cold. “I was right, wasn’t I? One of us could have never made it all this way alone—and you”—he pointed his finger at me and I wished I had the strength to break it—“gain much more than I do from this trip.”
But he was wrong. All I’d achieved so far were deeper feelings of hatred for myself. Of guilt.Of shame. There was a reason why I’d spent three years in Vanah, never really attempting to go back home. It’s that hatred. That guilt. That shame. Because they were stronger than the gratitude I felt back home, for Charles, for the life I always felt like I’d borrowed. I was an intruder in my own skin, in Charles’s home. What if he hadn’t found me that day? What if he’d found some other kid instead and given them a life they’d appreciate much more than I did?
Other kids would have been satisfied with him, with all he gave them. Other kids wouldn’t have wanted more. Other kids wouldn’t have felt like a part of them was missing, and they wouldn’t have shut Charles out by trying to find what it was.
I was grateful for Charles. I loved him with all my heart. But that still wasn’t enough to make me stay when he asked me. It wasn’t enough to make me appreciate what I had. It was never stronger than the guilt that had sucked away my soul little by little for the past three years. Because if I’d stayed home, Charles might have still been alive and I would have been home with him.
“Come on, we need to get going,” said Sim, waving for me to stand.
I turned my head the other way because I couldn’t let him see my tears.
“Morgan, we’re a day away from Arkanda,” he said after a long pause, realizing I wasn’t going to answer.
“So go. You’ll make it. I’m sure you will.”
Another loaded moment of silence. “Don’t be a fool, human. You’ll only ever get this one chance.”
And I believed him. “I know.”
“Suit yourself,” Sim said, and the next second, I heard him walking away, deeper into the woods.
Finally, I was alone.
I’d come all this way because of Millie. She’d opened my eyes, slapped me with the truth when I refused to see it. She was the reason why I was a day away of potentially making it back home.
She was captured. She could be dead. She could be…many other things I didn’t want to think about.
If I left her now, what would Charles say? If I left her now, what would I say to myself? There’s only so much self-loathing a person can live with, and I was at my limits.
No. If I was ever going to meet the dragon god, it would be with Millie by my side. I was going back to that mining site for her all on my own.
Ten
I’d lost consciousness right there where I’d sat against that trunk without even realizing it. When daylight pried my eyes open, I actually smiled at the miracle: nobody had found me. I was still alive.
The forest around me was silent, except for the occasional chirping of a bird. I could see a lot better now than I did the night before, and as I looked to make sure I was alone, I found myself hoping to see Sim. Squeezing my eyes shut, I focused. Sim wasn’t there. He was gone, probably much closer to Mount Arkanda now. He might even make it—who knew? So he lied and he cheated. I couldn’t hold that against him. It was who he was.
I just wished I’d been wrong about him, that’s all.
Physically, I was feeling as well as I was going to feel, considering. I was hungry, very thirsty, but all that could wait until after I found Millie. Thinking she was already dead wasn’t doing me any favors, so instead I pictured her in a cage somewhere, waiting for me.
“I’m coming,” I whispered under my breath, and with the knife of the masters’ guards squeezed tightly in my hand, I began to walk back where I'd come from.
All my instincts warned me. I was making a mistake.
Of course I was making a mistake. Whoever the people who had Millie were, there were a lot of them and only one of me. Even if I could read minds or predict the future like those fighters in the arena in Micco, my chances would still be very slim.
I knew all of this, yes, but I also knew that I had to try. So try I did.
I reached the mountain with the chopped off tip much faster than I thought I would. A thin layer of sweat covered my skin. The sun shone today, brighter and hotter than it had on all the other days I’d been on this fucking trip. I would try to take that as a good omen.
I didn’t bother to try to climb the mountain this time—that’s where those men had caught up with us. This time, I was going to go around it and see if I could sneak into the side unnoticed.