The barking grew more ferocious as our scent became fresher, and I froze in place. Aidan seemed to be just as immobile as I, but the other three leapt into action. Hissing a curse, Ayan plunged off into the mist, brushing his hand affectionately against Liesl's as he passed her. Kotaro flung Aidan's wrist out of his grasp, pulling me nearer him. Wordlessly, he looked at Liesl, and she led the still senseless Aidan further away from us.
"Go." Kotaro said firmly as Liesl seemed to hesitate, shooting a worried glance our direction as the shouts grew increasingly nearer.
She heaved a sigh and nodded, pushing Aidan back into the enveloping arms of the fog. Ayan reappeared in a moment, leading a horse. His face was tight and almost devoid of emotion.
"If Liesl is hurt because of that stupid bastard, you could be a whole lot closer to sitting on the throne." Ayan growled, his voice turning sing-songy as he tossed the reigns to Kotaro.
An almost triumphant shout resounded through the air, and I could hear the soldiers' thundering footsteps growing nearer with every passing moment. Kotaro, however, didn't seem the least bit hurried. He looked at Ayan and raised a meaningful brow.
"Go on." Ayan said. "Get outta here, or it'll all be for nothing. I'll distract them."
Kotaro nodded curtly, slapping Ayan on the back. "Stay alive."
He leapt gracefully into the saddle and looked meaningfully down at me. I frowned slightly and moved forward. It felt like it had been an eon since I'd been astride a horse, and besides, how was I supposed to mount in my condition? Looking up at him, I began to intensely overthink my every move.
"Yes, we have all day." It was the first time I'd ever heard him speak anything close to sarcasm, and I was taken aback.
I pursed my lips together, unsure how to tell him I didn't think I could mount. In the back of my mind, I knew there was no other way, but my body rebelled against the thought. Perhaps I could distract them by telling them I needed to find David. Otherwise, where were they going to take me? I had no other connections in the city besides David, and I had to get to him in order to find my father.
I struggled to focus on anything other than my fear in the face of being recaptured, and frustratingly, I seemed unable to move at all. As if it might help, I opened my mouth to say something—anything—that would make them understand even a fraction of my situation. Behind me, however, Ayan cut me off with a chuckle.
"Allow me to give you a hand up." He said.
Before I knew what was happened, he lifted me off the ground, and I had just enough time to haphazardly sling a leg over the horse's back before he'd tossed me up like a sack of potatoes. Terrified by the unexpectedness of the situation, I clutched anything I could get ahold of as tightly as I could and desperately tried to reorientate my brain. First things first, I had to get into a better position, but I was floundering around like a fish out of water.
Apparently, Kotaro judged we didn't have time for such frivolities as making sure I was securely in place. The horse jumped into a gallop before I had the chance to properly catch my breath, and we were off at a fierce pace. I squeezed my eyes shut in shock at the sudden force of the wind, all my thoughts fleeing my brain.
After a few moments passed, as the shouts and furious barking became dim background chatter, my mind returned to my body, and I realized my fingers were tightly closed around something warm. I opened my eyes carefully, and a warm blush crawled up my neck to the roots of my hair. My left hand was grasping Kotaro's thigh, and the other had a death grip on the flesh of his bicep.
Swallowing and clinging to some absurd hope that he hadn't noticed where I'd place my hands, I relaxed my grip. Shifting my position so I was touching him as little as possible, I gingerly closed my fingers around the material of his shirt on his shoulders. I didn't know why he'd chosen to help me, but I felt sure he'd change his mind if I bothered him.
Rigid and uncomfortable as I was, I had no space in my brain to think about anything else. I didn't even notice that we had left the fine parts of the city near the palace behind us and plunged into the back alleys and dingy streets of the lower town. The raw stench hit my nostrils, but I was too absorbed in watching the broad, black back in front of me for any sign that he would abandon me to even wrinkle my nose.
The minutes passed like small eternities, and my already sore muscles began to ache with burning fervor. I bit my lip tightly to try to distract myself from the pain, but it was useless. Finally, I took a moment to look at my surroundings and realize how lost I would be if Kotaro decided to abandon me. At the thought, renewed fear pulsed through me at the uncertainty of what he was going to do with me.
"Where are you taking me?" The words escaped my lips unbidden, and at his answering silence, I began to fear I had upset him.
"Did you want to find your father, or would you prefer I take you back to the prince?" His voice rumbled.
I looked up quickly, but I couldn't see his face well enough to judge his expression. Could it be that he was taking me to find my father? An almost petrifying hope welled within me at the thought, and I half leaned forward.
"You know where he is?" My voice was breathless and almost inaudible.
"No, but I know someone who knows how to find him." He said.
"Who?" I whispered, my fingers tightening on the fabric of his shirt.
A warm, calloused hand closed over mine suddenly, and Kotaro carefully loosened my grip, moving my arm down to encircle his waist. Terrified, I attempted to move it to its previous place, but he pulled it back down—this time with a little more power. The force pitched me off my precarious balance, and I fell against him. My nose smashed into the muscles right above his shoulder blades, and tears sparked to life in my eyes. The numb pain was of no consequence, however, as the strong scent of sage invaded my nostrils.
My mind went blank, and I looked up at what I could see of his face with wide, uncertain eyes. I knew that smell intimately well by now, but I had never thought, never guessed...The comforting hand in the dark, the arms that had kept me from discovery that night at the ball—could they have belonged to him?
Impetuously, I reached up and took hold of his hand. Shutting my eyes, I recalled the darkness of my prison cell and the feeling of the hand cradling mine until sleep overtook me. Those fingers, long, calloused, and folding over my small hand—they were unmistakably the same.
"Why?" I didn't realize I'd spoke until the word had already left my lips and was hanging in the air between us.
"What?" I felt Kotaro's voice rumble comfortingly against me.
"Why are you doing this?" I tried to get a better view of his face.
His features were impassive as usual. However, the corner of his mouth quirked slightly—not into a smile or a frown, just a quick tug of his lips. The tiny change to his expression came and went so quickly that if I hadn't been watching him so intently, I wouldn't have seen it at all. He pulled his hand free of mine, and I knew what would follow, then. He would play stupid and leave me with no answers. That's what everyone else had done to me, and I prepared myself to hear some ridiculous excuse or an admonition to mind my own business.
"I couldn't let you become like me." His voice was firm.
I was taken aback by the frankness of his answer. He'd blankly stated the facts instead of dancing around my question in an attempt to distract me. I wished I could see his whole face, wondering if that might give me more information. I lifted slightly in the saddle to try to get a better view, but apparently, I moved more than I thought I did, because his hand closed over mine, making me stop.
"Hold still." He said, and if I hadn't known better, I might have mistaken his tone for gentleness. "We're almost there."
"What do you mean 'like you?'" I said.
"Do you really need to ask that question?" Any hint of gentleness was gone, replaced by something that wasn't exactly condescending but was a clear indication that I should know the answer to my question without needing to ask it. "The minute they get their hands on you, they won't let go."
I frowned slightly. It was true, though. Kotaro didn't own himself. He was a slave to King Erik's every wish, and even if he weren't, there were likely many members of the court who would use him as a pawn to elevate themselves even a step higher in the political world.
"You're naïve." He said matter-of-factly. "You'd better learn how the world works—and fast. No one is going to give you a break simply because you're too childish to know any better. They'll see your innocence as nothing more than a way to take advantage of you."
His voice was sharp without softening the reality behind the words he spoke, and it stung to hear him. He was so gruff and to-the-point without sparing even a thought for how I might feel about it, and I didn't know how to respond. Sitting there, it was like being a child again and facing a scolding, and the feeling was not a good one.
Perhaps the biggest reason his words stung so much was because I knew they were the truth. I was woefully ignorant of the workings of the world—especially the political world. Ridiculous as it was, I had used my father—the man who had raised me—as the basis for my judgment of others. I had allowed myself to think people like Adella were few and far between. Unlike him, I hadn't grown up watching people willingly slit each other's throats for a chance to win the king's favor. That world was totally foreign to me, but was that so wrong?
"But what's so wrong with seeing the good in people?" I said softly, my voice so small I thought he wouldn't hear me.
Kotaro snorted. "Good? People aren't good. Everyone exists solely for their own gain, and you either learn to live the same way or you get trampled."
I flinched slightly at the added vehemence in his voice. Was that what life had taught him? I remembered the image of the broken figure of the boy in the dungeon and shuddered. He had clawed his way through the dredges of society, fighting tooth and nail for survival. As broken and troublesome as my childhood had been, I had had a few sweet moments to even out the horrible ones while he hadn't. He'd had no fatherly figure to speak kindly to him when he was hurting. Could he think that King Erik was the rule rather than the exception for humanity?
Maybe I was wrong, though. The force behind his words threatened to bring the last foundations of my beliefs to ruin. My father had taught me to look for the good in people, but Kotaro would have me believe there was none to be found. How could he explain people like Una and Liesl then? They had been nothing but selfless and good to me. Before I could pose the question, however, the horse slowed and then stopped.
"We're here. Go find your answers, and whatever you do, don't set foot in this hell again." Kotaro's voice rumbled as I looked up to take in our surroundings.
We'd stopped in front of a ramshackle building in need of many repairs surrounded by a filthy yard littered with stinking trash. Looking up at the building, I saw a sign hanging above the crooked front door that read The Miller's Dart. The name was vaguely familiar, but without giving me the chance to think where I'd heard it before, Kotaro slid me neatly to the ground.
I gasped and looked up at him, but he was staring at something beyond me. Turning, my breath caught in my throat at the sight of the familiar figure. Mouth slightly gaping, features haggard, and a dirty bag slung over his back, he was still the same man I'd known since my earliest memories.
All my worries and questions fled from my mind. Everything was going to be okay, because David was here. The contents of his letter refreshed themselves in my mind. We were going to find my father now. I took a faltering step away from Kotaro, one thought washing over me:
I am the firstborn of someone who fought the brutalities of the king of Falaea. I am not like the girls I grew up calling sisters. I am not defined by the words they spoke over me my entire life. I am simply me.
I am Bree.
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There we have it. . .What do you think? Still full of questions I hope! Keep your eyes out for something from me in the near future!
I've turned in my last assignments and am free to update a little more often now. I meant to post this chapter yesterday, but I didn't end up finishing my paper until later in the day, and then I forgot. . .oopsies! Though it's doubtful I'll be able to keep up an incredibly consistent schedule with all the holiday festivities happening around here, I'm going to try to upload as much as possible.