Reaching for the Stars

Chapter Four

The final day of travel, the servant didn't stop the carriage even when night fell, giving me an uneasy feeling, which was proven true when he finally stopped the carriage in the middle of the night, with only the moon's light to allow us to see our surroundings. "We're here, get out." Evidently since our journey had finished, he was done being even moderately polite to me, after all he was about to abandon me in the Silver Woods.

In the middle of the night no less, or at least try to, I wasn't going to make it easy for him to send me to my death. I stepped out of the carriage with ease, and while he watched me smugly waiting for me to cower or beg, or even just walk straight into the forest, I'm not sure what he was expecting but I still managed to surprise him as I turned around and headed back the way we had just come. "Hey! Where are you going! You must enter the Silver Woods! You swore it in front of Marquis Dagon!" I roll my eyes, pausing in my footsteps, I stare at that stupid servant with annoyance.

"Yes, and I intend to keep my word, but nothing I promised said the first time I entered the forest had to be at night, regardless of any additional instructions you might have been given, I refuse to enter the Silver Woods at night, I am not that stupid. As to where I am going, I am headed back to that town you refused to stop in for the night, you may accompany or not, but rest assured I will keep my word and enter the forest once it is morning." He seemed almost frozen with shock, my usual docile behaviour that I had at the Dagon Residence no where to be found.

Now that I was free of the restrictions of my family, I was going to stop being the meek little girl that they could bully because they felt like that, it had been advantageous to keep up the ruse when I was in the Dagon Residence because they viewed me as pitiful, even though they intended to beat up the trash as they liked to call me, they went easier when they thought I was completely weak, too afraid to kill me and face Marquis Dagon's wrath. Because while I may have been born with a weak foundation for cultivation, it did not mean I had the personality of a doormat.

How could I when I grew up in luxury for the first ten years of my life, I imagine if I had had a stable foundation, I would likely be just as spoiled and haughty as my siblings and cousins, as the entire Dagon family, but the last eight years had taught me something they never learned, what it is to struggle, to be too powerless to do anything but take a beating, or too poor to eat a meal, the very attitude they gave me because they hated that I was so weak, made me stronger in the end.

It's what drove me now to refuse that stupid servant, entering the forest at night was a death sentence, at least if I entered in the morning, I may have time to find a safe place before night fell. The town that bordered the Silver Woods was rather large, almost the size of a city, this was not because of any reason but the fact that it was close to the Silver Woods. Because while incredibly dangerous, the Silver Woods hosted all manner of rare and valuable plants, ferocious spiritual beasts that many wanted for themselves, even with the dangers, people still came here to risk their lives in order for the benefits.

I not only wanted to stay the night in this town, but needed to, I was running low on supplies, I needed the chance to buy more if I was going to have any hope of surviving the Silver Woods. "You're not allowed to! You have to enter the forest now! Do you dare disobey your parents' orders!" I paused in my footsteps to turn back to look at the ignorant fool, only utter coldness on my face.

"My parents? That makes sense, I wondered what final trick they would pull on me to ruin my life even further, but you are mistaken, they are not my parents, I've been disowned remember, I have no family, so not only do I dare to disobey their orders, I take delight in the idea that if you return and tell them that you failed to make me obey their orders they'll like beat you, maybe even take your life." He glares at me, hatred pouring off his entire body, but I didn't care, his opinion of me meant less than nothing to me.