Twelve Realms

Chapter 5

Aerid

I instinctively crouch to the ground, then realize that Mama Dulci is sitting in plain sight. I help her to her feet and try to move her to a spot away from the windows. I don't want to hurt her, but we have to move as quickly as possible. 

"What's going on?" she asks.

"The soldiers are back, I don't know why- they just left- I-" 

My instinct in a situation like this is to sneak out, climb a tree, and get as far away as possible. But I can't leave Mama Dulci. She's already injured, and if I leave her here, it's practically a guarantee that she'll either be captured or sent to the next realm- which, for her, means eternity in the River. Both of those options are equally bad. 

"Do you have a cellar, or a basement, anywhere hidden?" I ask, trying not to sound too frantic. 

"No," she says, regretfully. "Stairs are getting harder for me in my old age." 

Shit. "Do you have somewhere, anywhere hidden? A large closet, maybe, or a room that's tucked away?" 

Mama Dulci nods. "My wardrobe in my bedroom is large enough to fit a person inside." 

"Perfect." I take her arm and begin to lead her there. She places a hand on my shoulder.

"Aerid. It's only large enough for one person." 

"It's okay. You hide in there, I'll make it some other way. I'm good at getting out of the village unseen."

She looks at me with worry-creased eyes. "Are you sure?" 

I nod. "Besides, I've got eleven more segments left. You're on your last one." 

We make it to her bedroom without being spotted through the windows, though we do have to stop every once in a while as the soldiers storm through the streets outside. It's sheer luck that they haven't barged into Mama Dulci's house yet. And I know they will, any second. They seem to be looking for something, someone specific this time. I hear shouts of, "did you find her?" and "where is she?" I can't think of who they're looking for. Someone connected to the mayor, maybe?

I help Mama Dulci into the wardrobe and am just about to close it when I hear the crash of the door being thrown open in Mama Dulci's front room. 

I only manage to get one of the doors closed by the time the soldier barges into the room.

"I found her!" he shouts carelessly over his shoulder. 

He turns to Mama Dulci with a hateful look upon his face. "You're coming with me, witch." 

"What?" I blurt. "Why?"

The soldier looks me up and down with a sneer on his face. "It's not your business which village hags have been sheltering wanted criminals, boy. Run along now. Quickly." 

He unsheathes his sword and advances on the wardrobe. I now realize that in trying to hide Mama Dulci, I've accidentally trapped her. This is my fault. Mama Dulci will go to the River because of me.

Before I know what I'm doing, before I've ever registered just how bad of an idea it is, I walk right up to the soldier and wrench the sword from his hands. 

He's surprised enough that he lets go, and the sword flies across the room to clatter to the ground. One small success on my part that, now that the soldier recognizes me as a threat, will probably count for nothing. 

He pulls a dagger from his belt and lunges at me. I duck, slamming my shoulder into his torso. He staggers backwards, but quickly regains his composure with a new fury in his eyes and runs at me again. I grab one of his wrists as he raises the dagger, and his other as he tries to punch me to get me to let go. We stand there, deadlocked, wrestling for the dagger, for a few moments, before he aims a kick at my shin. I react in the nick of time, jumping out of the way, and the soldier's foot lands sideways on the ground. He loses his balance and begins to fall, and I let go of his unarmed hand as he plummets towards the ground. 

I try and use the soldier's moment off-guard to yank the dagger from his hand once and for all, but I instead pull him towards me and, as he falls, the blade-side-up dagger comes to sheath itself in his chest, right where his heart is. 

Instantly I let go as his shirt begins to darken with blood. I stand there, shocked, paralyzed, unable to move or to process what just happened. 

Mama Dulci, however, can. 

"Aerid," she says in a barely controlled tone. "You need to get out of here."

"I-" I say, frozen. 

"Aerid, get out of here! Run! Before they catch you!" 

I hear thunderous footsteps in Mama Dulci's front room. The backup that the now-indisposed soldier called for have arrived. I hop over his body and shut the doors of the wardrobe. 

The soldiers barge into the room just in time to see me hop through Mama Dulci's empty window frame and run as fast as I can. 

Unfortunately, the soldiers seem to be just as fast as I am. I run in an irregular pattern so their archers can't shoot me, but it slows me down, and at this rate, I have only a handful of moments before I'm within stabbing range. 

But what can I do? I can't scale a tree fast enough to lose them, and even if I could, those archers could shoot me down faster than they do sparrows. 

The only solution I can see is to keep running. Normally my muscles would tire by now, but there's so much adrenaline running through my veins that I have at least five more minutes of full-speed sprinting left in me. And my clothes are much lighter than the armor of leather and plated metal the soldiers wear. I might actually stand a chance. 

I clench my jaw and speed up, running faster than I've ever run before. 

I hop a log, unable to see what's on the other side. My feet give way from below me as the terrain dips steeply, and I begin to fall.