7️

My humble apologies for the ridiculously long absence this past month. But I am back and hopefully for better. Please do skim through the past chapters to refresh the plot while I wonder what will happen in the next trail of Johnny Depp. Ugh...its been stressing me out more than it should.

Please enjoy. Fingers crossed.

P.s Map reference is required.

A violent rock on my shoulder and I was wide awake. A palm seals my lips, in the shadow of the dense night I squint at Dorin, I perceive him before I could punch him. My worries deflates when I saw him. It also doesn't appease that he has a pleasing face. I was relaxed only for the sake of not being under some rancid threat.

It was our harmless, tight skinned Dorin.

He paced, scooping up the bags and sleep sheets that I had been snuffling under. Drowsy, I stood up with a yawn bubbling upon. I watch him gather his chattels as I lazily worked with mine. These were cards.

We had to escape from their clutches a day, be tomorrow or tonight.

"Are they-

He hushed my groggy utterance with a finger to his lips in warning. I scratch my head with another yawn teasing me. Not able to clamp it this once. I whisper. Though it's not a need. With the leverage of how the herbs refined by Dorin works, The drugged ones could sleep through a siren's song.

So could i.

My thoughts knock upon the window of rest, keeping me awake, alert and angry. Raining with hundreds of ways we could escape this insanity. Not that of defectors, but the miles lay beyond the horizon. I think of the offer Caelum had baited us with.

A legal citizenship of the Rixilean kingdom. Job, honour and freedom to live with our names engraved and uttered without consequence. But it still was a nonsensical risk to rave, not when we are to reach a relief by dawn.

The town of Ledras, the serene eastern tip of Antar is a flute of greed, fashion and spark. The sole corner is where peace and harmony fair while the rest broils with power and strategy. A piece of gold in a heap of iron.

Naturally, it was our feasible option, and none else.

In my haze I felt a disappointing shove, I doubled with a frown pressing on my wig.

"Hurry, we don't have the entire night in our pocket. We need to lose them soon" I grin at him, a vicious one. His furrowed brow indicates his thoughts. He believed I was flourishing into an insatiable being. Which I certainly am.

"What is there to laugh at?" He says. I shake my head in dismissal.

"What is there not to?"

I stare at the sleeping form of Noon beside the Caelum. The chief's raspy snore echoes the tent and pivots the wilds away. This reminds me that I had been sharing a space with three grown men and their alternative egos for a week.

It's logically my right to laugh at our retirement. I need to use my real voice if I don't intend to lose it in the process.

But what I mostly did find suspiciously funny was how Dorin had considered the offer. Prior to when I had almost emptied the content of my dinner down he had asked me in solitary, persuaded me with a reason and attempted to coerce a need of it. It was sickening to think that he was willing to put his life at stake for a name he carries.

"It still occurs to me that you want to home a chance at the heist this man plans" I blame, watching the drugged visage of chief Caelum with nothingness. Why do this to us? Why such a price for dignity? Why such greed?

"I don't trust them, so do you. I wished to know your thoughts- you had it displayed" he holds one of my arms and stares into me. I nod, futile to believe a morsel of it. They had enough proof to call themselves a spy. Letters from their general. Stamps from their nation. Currency with their king's face embossed and Castle with her truth. She is not one of us. And neither are we one of them.

Antar was no one's home among us.

And yet I yearn to see this world one last time before I fix my motive.

So we leave. In silence. In togetherness.

It is how it should have been since the start. But I saw the fizzle in Dorin's eyes as he steals a final glimpse at the tent Castle, Night and Atticus reside. He looked torn and angry. He looked like me. He was my mirror. And I was possibly the prick in his way. The annoying sister he can't seem to get rid of.

And then, we decide to never label our relationship. But does that refrain us from depending on each other into a bracket that seems more than a family?

I would never know. And I don't aspire to. Because I know that the only manner to learn of my respect towards Dorin is to lose him. Even if it's not permanent- I can't fathom what I'd do without his insults, classes, cooked meals or late night chatters.

I would be so lost- lost like we seem to be after the four-hour walk. According to the compass, we should have reached the Ledras outskirts by now. A border, a fence or a wall- nothing comes into view. But we don't stop. Not until we come across the first presence of human life.

A field of grass and a barn.

Cattle and sheep roam sluggishly by the wood cross compounds, the domesticated animal was something I had seen in paintings- unlike the snow bears and wild moose from Ivyaki- they appeared groomed, fed and polite. I had to learn about agricultural prospects if I had to work in such a field. The lush grass fluttered in wind and I leaned on one of my knees to touch them. I gasp when I hear a roosters call and laughter from the small cottage in the middle.

Shifts of white smoke rise from the chimney as an old man steps out in his straw hat and suspenders upon his shirt. He was dressed comically similar to me. We don't move, even though my toes felt like they might fall at any moment then, I will be a step closer to the man.

The sun shines in a selfless glow, the sky open from the trees that once crowded our views in Forrest. I don't know where to look or what to feel. So when the man squints at us and raises his hand for a friendly wave, I mimic him.

"What are you doing?" Dorin pulls my hand down and whispers.

"What? It's time we behave as if we belong" I suggest "If he is a farmer, then good. If a patrol- our normalcy will keep us from garnering suspicion"

His lips were thin, but the lights in his eyes were ready for this. He was excited. Shining to meet someone new to who new were we. To make an identity. To build a personality that wasn't buried under ice and poverty.

"Remember to speak like them, the accent and polite courtesy- I don't know what has morphed in years, but let's saunter with what we know" wiping traces of dust with the sleeve of his shirt, he mumbles the final encouragement before pushing me gently as an experiment.

Waddling through the grass, reach the man and notice the bulging belly and crescent grey grandpa hair. I bow down to him in an Antarian fashion. An arm to back and one to the waist, ditto to how Dorin's mother had taught us.

"Pleasant afternoon, sire"

Dorin mimes a second later, he does it with more confidence and familiarity. Almost like a native would.

"Ay, such polite lads" the man laughs warmly as we stared at him with a masked confusion. "You seem like one of us, we don't hurt our backs when it comes to the kindred ones" switching the large shovel he carried, he inspected us- as to a certain that we indeed were one of him. Domestic and scantily privileged.

But he appeared too innocent to see pass through us,

"What brings you here?" He asks his poky hat casting a protection to his vision. He watched us with big brown eyes while we squinted under the sun to even make out the shape of his nose.

So I turn at a soothing angle, surprised to see the welcoming smile on his face.

"We are travellers from the neighbouring village, we expect to reach the town route we are heading to" I hesitate, drawing in a breath "But I am afraid we are out of resources and in-kind need of food and shelter for the night"

Dorin takes over in a slip as the man's face contorts.

"We have a farming apprentice and could help with the day's chore as a payment. We are lost here and can't let my little friend here dissolve to bones" Dorin loving brushes my mane of a wig. This results in a carefree laugh and agreement from the one we are fooling.

It was a ticket to his place. A nice, cosy home with half a dozen children running around. An ageing mother, bitter wife and two small rooms to fill them all in. We sat on the floor watching the kids run and tackle one another. Suspecting how near they all seem to be by their age- I bet this woman had a kid each year.

They were willows, and the man we met introduced himself by a name I forgot the next moment. But his ancestral name streamed my thoughts. Only for I was clueless about mine. Lavera- it must have its lineage, should have come from someone. Had meant a worth at some time.

I haven't had those stern dreams of a person calling me by my name for the past weeks.

Iris.

He would call me.

With a voice that touched me, if the tone had a colour, it would be blue. If weighed in-depth, an ocean. If tested with time, it has to be dawn. And If an emotion- it was ice and storm. And every time I dread a future where I know it was bound to happen. I couldn't stray from craving to steal a glimpse of his face.

It is always in a lavish chamber, with elegant luminous and my racing heart. Each wise I search for him, at times in haste and rest in fatigue. It is always the unexplainable fear that gnaws me. But at the junction, he calls my name. I am weak in my knees, I am barren on my head and most horridly, I am longing for him in my heart.

A dependence is so vile that I seem to reach for the owner of such a haunting voice like an air to someones lungs.

I would've resorted deeper into my zoning if it wasn't for the question thrown my way.

"Your friend bears a valid concern" Mr. willow motioned at Dorin and offered a mug of milk which I gratefully accept with both my hand "You really are lean for a boy of your age?"

I blink.

"My age sir?"

"Yes, I suspect you to be fifteen the most"

I turn eighteen in two weeks. And I had to refrain from the offence I felt as Dorin snickered.

"You have such pretty features though" adds his wife, though sour in lines- she gave me a look of admiration. Her apron was stained with grease and gravy, but it had small flowers embroidered on it. They looked beautiful on her - but then again, anything with feminine touch looks enticing to me since I was depraved of wearing any of them. I chose to be this "You will fill in to become a handsome man when you grow up, and if you had the blessing, you might even get to serve as a model during those spring balls that the royals sponsor in the town of Ledras by East"

I freeze mid-sip and Dorin splutters out a choke.

"What do you mean by Ledras in East?" Dorin asks as the wife watched us with confusion. It was the oldest daughter with a shaved head and a charcoal board in her grasp answers from her seat in the corner.

"Ledras - East, opposite of south that we are in" there was a chime of annoyance in her utterance. But that didn't pacify me from blurting like a chicken chant.

"Where are we in the south then, don't mind me asking" my toes curl under the wrap of my boots. The children seem to rattle in applause as they played a game of crystal stone, the wife left for the kitchen with a lack of sensitivity to what we were going through, and Mr willow answered on behalf of his daughter.

"You are at the mouth of Keld" his chest raised with pride "The city of iron and carnival"

Dorin doesn't require my assistance, he already was shuffling through his pocket. The compass that we followed. He read its hands, and by the twitch of his jaw, I know what it means.

We walked into their trap.

They had a scholar with them, a ventim. They had our entities ceased, they had knocked us into a state of unconsciousness. There was enough time for them to snoop and recast our aids. But it doesn't end with that-

The girl flips her book shut and quirked an eyebrow at us.

"What a great opportunity to be accidentally present in our city during the Festival Of Found"

My worries ran, and my sanity slowed. I sat with a heavy torso- not being able to even look at Dorin I wondered what must be feeling too.

Why south?

Why keld?

Though I want anything but to listen, the girl provides us with the centre of information we seek. And she does it with anything but mercy.

"If you haven't yet, you mustn't miss the trails of warriors that takes place this week"