Freedom

Chapter 4

Hours have passed by and it has not stopped yet. Asher and I weren't sure where the owner will be going but we hope it will go far out because apparently, the treasure we are finding is in the middle of nowhere up in the mountains. The mountains are usually far out from our hometown based on what he said.

Asher is the only person so far I have met and I'm sure I can trust him. I don't know but, I feel like I can trust him.

We didn't really talk the whole ride. He felt tired and so did I. Though through the ride, I could feel this heartache in my chest and I know that very well. Guilt. I feel bad for leaving the castle. Though I didn't even know If my parents will even miss me. Since I wasn't a perfect daughter to them, they are probably fine without me. I sigh and look at Asher sleeping soundly.

Maybe I do love my parents even if they treated me badly. I mean I do care for them but I wouldn't live with them if I wanted to.

Coming outside the castle is definitely different. I always thought everything was happy out here but apparently not so much. So many people are working hard to earn money. Some have to feed families too, yet all I do is wake up late in the morning every day.

My father makes me go to private lessons. All kinds of private lessons. From studying to dancing to learning a new instrument. I had done that since I was born. I'll definitely say the outside world is better than being stuck in the castle. This experience so far has been quite stressful but that's alright. I'm really curious to see what will come next. Again this thrilling feeling is making me do things I did before. It's honestly exciting.

I let out a breath and lean my back against the wall behind me and stretch out my legs so that they are now straight. I turn to look out to see the green trees and green grass everywhere. I can even see the sky, it was really blue and the clouds looked so fluffy. I naturally hold on to the necklace around my neck that use to be my late grandmother's. "I miss you" I whisper to myself.

Soon enough, I hear a groan. I turn to see that Asher has finally awoken after who knows how long. His eyes flutter open but close back. "Is he sleeping again?" I say in my head. I wave my hands in front of his face and there was no response. I just lay back and sighed. "I wonder how long this will take," I tell myself.

I have not even closed my eyes yet but that's probably because I'm too scared to close my eyes. Anything could happen. I continue to look out at admire the greenery. About a good 5 minutes, the wagon stops. I try to pop my head out to see what was happening. My eyes grew big when I saw a guard walking towards the wagon.

I feel nervousness rise in me again. "Ash!" I whisper shout. No response. "Asher!" I whisper shout again. No response. He was sleeping like a baby. I groan and shook his arm. He just shifts his body to the other side. "I can't believe he's actually doing this" I groan in my head.

This time I shook him Violently by his shoulders. His eyes pop open and his head hit knocks my head by accident. I fall back as quietly as I could without making a noise. I put my hand to where the pain was on my head and rubbed it.

"Ouch!" I shout quietly. Gosh, that was painful. I swear I could have passed out.

"Why did you shake me so hard?" he says annoyed. Seriously?

"Guards," I say. He frowns and blinks a few times trying to process what I said. He raises his eyebrows when he realized what I said. He peeled his head out and quickly faced me.

"We just need to check what you have in your wagon" We hear a voice says, probably the guard. The armed man walks just next to us and we quickly ducked our body down and covered sheets overhead.

"Yea sure" We hear another voice. Probably the owner. My heart beats faster as seconds go by. I was suddenly pulled closer to Asher. He pushed my back so that I was closer to him. Our faces were just inches away. I could even smell his minty breath. I have never been this up close to anyone, including a man.

I hear footsteps slowly retreating away from us. "Okay you are good to go," The guard says

"Thanks!" The Owner says in relief and the wagon starts to move. "What? We manage to pull through?" I thought to myself.

I slowly pull the sheets off our heads and we got up slowly. I look at Asher with a smile but he was too busy looking outside.

"Is something wrong?" I ask softly.

"We should be-" Asher stops at mid-sentence when the wagon stops again. We hear alarming footsteps coming near us. Before we could even hide ourselves the owner of this wagon looks at us and rolls his eyes.

"What are you love birds doing here? I knew I heard noises" He says angrily. I was frozen with fear and I didn't even dare to move. "You are lucky those guards didn't catch you. Now get out!" He says pissed. Asher mumbles something under his breath before he grabs my wrists, pulling me out with him. We landed on the ground and we ran to a nearby tree.

We stopped and caught our breaths. "Shit," He says.

"What? Do you need to use the bathroom?" I ask confused. "I don't think there's any here" I continue as I look around is. Just tress and probably wild animals around. I turn to look at him and he gives me the 'what' face?

"What? No, I was just- Never mind" He shakes his head and proceeds to take out the map from his bag. Okay?

"So... what are we going to do now?" I ask as I look at the map.

"Doesn't look too far. Just need some walking" He closes the map and puts on his bag.

"Walking?" I ask as we start to walk forward. "How far is it?" I continue.

" We just need to walk up this mountain and see if it's this one" he sighs

"Wait so you don't know if it's this mountain?" I ask with some annoyance in my voice. I was really tired and I'm starting to perspire.

"I hope this is it," he says and we stop in front of the path that connects around the mountain. I look up to see how tall it was. It was pretty tall, hopefully not too steep.

"We have to climb all the way up there?" I say slightly annoyed.

"Yup," he says piping the 'p'. "Let's go" he claps his hands together and starts to follow the path.

I just follow behind him. He was just too fast or probably I'm just not fit for this. This is going to be a long journey.