The Crown Prince Thinks I'm a Guy

Freedom: Eleftheria

The afternoon sun was still bright above me. The carriage rental was only a few blocks away from one of the smaller city gates. The business keeper was nice and fair, and had prepared for us an adequate vehicle pulled by two roan horses. Old Man Farseer was as silent as he was wise. Janmira, the ghost, was gladly keeping her head low under her hood, the color of which now changed into a darker, more neutral shade than the bright orange.

I thought about that color. When I think of orange, I see the fruit with the same name and weirdly, I thought of friendship. Sweet, a little bit acidic, maybe even bitter. But, nonetheless, still something you would want to savor.

Miss Hestia was my friend. And now, she's gone.

I kept hold of her letter since the day of my escape. I had read it enough times that I could somehow already memorize some lines. Due to my careful handling, the parchment was still intact, but it was obvious that the thin paper could easily rip apart due to my overuse.

"Are you ready, Eleftherion?" the ghost asked me in her quiet, eerie voice. She drifted past me as she loaded bag after bag into the carriage. "We need to hurry if we don't want to travel in darkness. Won't you help out your older sister?"

I flinched, dreading the fact that I had to act as the dead girl's sis... brother. I approached warily, extending a hand to steal a box of bottles from her hands. "I'll gladly help out, sister Janmira. This is a job fit for a boy, after all."

With that, my thoughts were blasted into a corner of my mind as I busied my hands with the menial work of carrying and placing, carrying and placing. I tried to forget the thin piece of paper stuck inside my shirt, burdening me with an irrational heaviness.

A while later, I was leaning by the carriage's side, wiping the sweat from my brows. I can almost feel the ugly stares from other people as I moved my bare hands across my forehead. I wondered if someone would shout at me to act properly. A girl should not be wiping at her face, especially with a gloveless hand! Oh, the very atrocity of a woman without a handkerchief during her travels!

But, no. I was a man right now. A boy, really. Eleftherion, child of a commoner's house without a name. A farmhand turned apprentice for the Old Man Farseer, a simple wine trader. No special documents were needed to be seen for a commoner child, especially under the tutelage of a wizened old man.

It was unbelievable how much help an aged and respectable man can do for a young child. I wondered how easily I could have escaped in my past life if only I had sought help from another person. In fact, it was so maddeningly simple that Miss Quisling's proposed plan in the past seemed utterly nonsensical.

I laughed a little, thinking about silly things.

"Come now, boy." The Old Man called down from his perch inside the carriage. "Better get up here, or we'll leave you behind."

I smiled widely, hurriedly getting up the carriage, finding it quite hard to get up on its raised steps. I glimpsed a hand held open in front of me. I accepted the offer, finding the hand surprisingly warm underneath mine.

"Thank you," I muttered at the ghost, my eyes not meeting hers. She only nodded silently.

Plopping down on the seat beside Farseer, I wondered how a ghost's hand could feel so alive. The carriage started to lurch forward as the horses moved, the reins controlled by a straw-made boyman. These were simply magically animated objects capable of doing simple tasks. Our boyman was acting as our carriage driver. These would usually break down into their original forms by the time it was done executing its conjurer's orders.

"You feeling alright, child?" Farseer asked me after our carriage had passed through the city gates.

I sighed, realizing my body was all tensed up. "I... Alright. It's just that this is the first time I had gone past the city gates without any trouble, and without my family knowing."