HUNTED SOULS

~ Chapter 5 ~

3 days later

Being left with her thoughts and endless farming land only let that unpleasant stone ruminate in her gut. She was out now, but not until reaching the capital city could she consider herself escaped - out here she was open and vulnerable. Her feet trudged along in the dirt as she chewed on bark, feeling her body grow weaker. Trees and edible roots weren't exactly the sustenance of Royals, but she'd hardly ever seen what sorts of foods they ate anyway. Her mouth watered.

Saph was, however, finally on the outskirts of the city. Villages now were very frequent, the roads between them paved instead of trodden soil. She was able to move stealthily enough to secure herself meager provisions. One bread loaf and one dirty discarded cloak later, Saph found herself blending in with the common folk well enough. Her arm hidden beneath the folds of cloth, she could worry less about passerbys asking questions or making reports about her appearance. But the closer she got to the city, the more the crowds of people made her arms and neck itch in discomfort. It occurred to her that she'd never been around so many...in the daylight.

Can they tell? Can they see me?

There was no method for commoners to see her true identity, she knew that logically. The fear of being caught and slaughtered by them was not new to her, but somehow the strangeness of being seen made her skin crawl in a more disturbing way.

Nauseous from the crowds or dehydration or both, Saph stepped away into an alley to breathe. She wasn't far from the capital city limit, and the stone wall surrounding it towered over settlements in the distance. The outskirts before the wall were understandably crowded beyond belief - merchants shouting about their wares, children running haphazardly, people milling about with baskets and tools. All of them crammed between little makeshift tents and huts, tiny houses, and the occasional shelter or shrine.

Saph exhaled and exited the alley and kept moving through the congested streets. No one payed her any attention as they bumped into her, jostling her on their way to their respective destinations. No one cared to look at her. It was almost...less suffocating that way.

At first glance, life outside the wall of Samora seemed lively enough, not too downtrodden. But really the businesses at the forefront of the streets were the most palatable places; beyond them, things were more...disagreeable. Miserable, even. As Saph walked by, she caught glimpses of shadowy figures at the edges of the streets. Other figures, scrawny and dirty, hunched over in the alleyways or begging by food stalls.

A commotion happened somewhere off to her right, and Saph moved towards the edge of the street as a diere-drawn carriage forced its way through the crowd. The poor animals, lithe and delicately furred, were clearly distressed from pressing through the crowd. It seemed the paved roads outside the capital were meant for traveling nobles instead of enhancing the area for the commoners.

It might be more difficult than she anticipated to hide in the capital discreetly. The divide between the two social classes were glaringly obvious as the carriage moved past in an almost irritated fashion. But the farther into the capital she could get, the farther she was from their reach. Hopefully.

I need to climb the wall. Tonight.

~

Hours later, a heavy darkness fell upon the outskirts of the city as the activity in the streets waned. The only light emanated from the many roughly made torches along the main streets. It seemed that no one at all cared to be out after night fell. Or perhaps, they couldn't be?

It wasn't long before Saph had her answer.

Perched comfortably on a shabby rooftop not far from the giant wall, she crouched in the shadows, observing. She heard the heavy clanks of gates rattling open, and the dull thumps of many synchronized feet on the road.

Pouring out of the gate came groups of what looked like military. Heavily armored soldiers marched at the front and sides, sporting green capes and flags bearing the Royal Samoran crest, a beautiful laurel plant.

In the middle of the procession marched people who looked less like soldiers and more like special forces. They carried themselves steadily, uncompromising in their structure and pace. They wore white battle robes, with the imperial crest of violet amaranths etched into the edges of the flowing fabric.

Saph clenched her jaw. The white forces of the Imperial Rulers were here too? This was dangerous for her. Their constant patrol in each of the three districts had only intensified over the years. Many of the shifts trapped with her in that spiritless prison had met their deaths by the hands of these people, as had countless innocent commoners accused of associating with shifts.

Saph suspected that the imperial family was only becoming more ruthless with their forces as the next coronation approached, and the situation was likely the same in the other two districts. They were ensuring that the dead clan, Saph's clan, remained scattered and too weak to attempt to usurp the throne. There were hardly any shifts left after twenty-five long years since her clan had been decimated. At only twenty years old and captured since a child, Saph had never known exactly why or how it had happened. Her younger memories remained hazy.

She watched carefully as the white amaranth forces and foot soldiers spread through the dimly lit streets. It could be her imagination, but they seemed to be moving more hastily, looking more on edge than they should. She had no clue why, there was no reason to be in these empty streets.

She waited for a company to pass by below her before she continued moving towards the wall. Before long, she found herself alone in a dark spot behind a closed business, the wall only a few leaps away, huge in its stony silence. She listened to the military move further away.

She tilted her chin up to see the top of the wall. Even in her weakened condition, it shouldn't be too arduous of a climb. She just needed to make sure she wasn't spotted.