Behind The Rebel Mask

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Loran

We ride, the two of us sharing one horse until the sun reaches its highest point in the sky. Then, we stop at a village to eat some more of the bread and cut my hair. It was too dangerous to cross the border into Allerakin looking like the Erelarian Princess with a name so similar.

Terrient wants to be careful, so he leaves me in the forest nearby while he goes to find someone capable of cutting it. He comes back about fifteen minutes later. I leave the tree I had huddled against for shade, and we venture into the buzzing town to the place he previously found. He ties Lottie to a post and escorts me inside.

"Bala. Hello." A man holding a pair of silver shears stood behind a tall, wooden chair.

"Lan bi ith, nay ech viershath." Terrient spoke in return to the shaggy-haired man's greeting. "All of it, to the shoulders." They were speaking Erelarian, which I spoke fluently. It was the tongue of the land.

I sit in the chair, and he strokes through my hair and then takes the shears and snips one, big, uneven cut. He then takes a few minutes to even it out, and then gestures for me to stand. Terrient hands him a coin.

"Ilang ie. Thank you." I timidly say. The man only grunts, and Terrient leads me back out.

We untie Lottie and continue our journey to the border. My hair feels so strange, just how it rests upon my neck. I feel so much lighter without the long coat of hair.

Around sunset, we reach the border. It's not under very heavy patrol, but nonetheless we ride through off of the path to lower our risk of being spotted.

I think I doze off on his back and begin to drool, because the next thing I remember is that it was pitch black and I am leaning against a slobber soaked shirt. I sit up and gaze up at the sky. "Are we there yet?" I question him groggily.

"Any minute now," He mutters, but clearly his focus is on the street signs of the small village that we are riding through. I look around and soak up my surroundings. Wooden buildings line the dirt roads. Each building is two stories and has a wooden porch with a roof held up by four or so posts. The bottoms of most of them look like shops, but the further we get, the houses look more run down. Eventually we come to one where one of the posts is broken and the roof sags, the upstairs window is boarded up, the porch is splintering, and a front window is broken and jagged.

"Mit test ith? Is this it?" I ask.

Terrient nods, dismounting. "Omama Mae's shey. Grandma Mae's house."

I dismount the house. Terrient urges me on as he ties up the horse. He steps forward carefully onto the porch and raises his fist to knock. One knock is all he does, rather than the usual two or three. He pulls his hand back quickly as if it hurt. If we are caught, all is lost.

I strain my ears to hear the sounds that lie beyond the door. Shuffling. At the slight opening of the door, Terrient shoves me inside a dark room. I bump into a frail older lady, who then topples over onto the wall, making a big BUMP noise. Terrient and I both freeze.

After a second of only hearing the crickets chirping, we begin to move again.

Terrient opens the door further and comes in, quietly closing it. "Aunt Mae." he begins calmly. "I'd like to meet someone." Haisha Mae's eyes turn from Terrient to me and back to him. "This is Princess Loraina Erelaria. We have escaped from the Allerakins, who have just attacked our home. I was riding with her when it happened, and we were able to escape. I was wondering if you could take her in."