3️

"Did you misplace the reasonable element of your mind. Is it even working?"

It might have been offensive if riddled at me. But must I shamelessly admit that it indeed was engaging if someone else was involved.

Because it occurs for once that Dorin's scolding isn't tossed at me. I have been his pupil for so long that my head lowered in embarrassment when I wasn't on the other side of his outrage. In fact- I must be participating with him in this panic. I don't.

"What made you think that a baby is anything but a liability to this journey?"

And to that Castle dared to firm her stare.

'He is a disfavor. But I am willing to care for him"

From my peripheral the tick of Dorin's jaw was evident. So I sniff to ease the tension. Baby Atticus looked like a little packet of flour tied to the back of Castle. She had a blue fur coat on with leather blankets piled upon, through their hood, only their little head bobbed out when they made movements to look elsewhere. Both her and her brother.

On the side of the cabinet, I pulled on my clothes in hustle, one layer after another in hurry. When I laugh they both look at me with bother. But I aim to think quickly rather than scuttle my energy on what's spilled.

"By my daggers! How can you laugh when it equally applies to you? You agreed to commence the journey earlier on my behalf and now you titter when she bought a child with her?"

He could explode, if left untamed. But I could have giggled if it wasn't my life at stake alike. So I jog through the underground safety bunker that we are abjectly stealing from. We had forged the keys to this place when Dorin used to work for a valuable plant artisan. He lived rich with herbs and spices that he restored into recipes and tonics that could keep us warm when the cold dropped like a stone in water.

As of now, he slept peacefully in his cot after he drank his tea, the one Dorin medicated with his creation. Since he was selfish enough to not take an apprentice as Dorin had offered. All we could do was steal from his stash.

"What happened has happened" I grunt loading up my sack with the vials and bottles of potions that we need. "We can't wait till dawn, it's not merely Castle now. They would notice Atticus gone before they would about Castle"

Shoving the lantern at Dorin's face when I was done. I motion him to fill in his needs, which wasn't much. He doesn't need them for cold, but oxygen and thirst.

I don't have to look at Castle to know how torn she was between having to leave her brother or choosing herself. Atticus is the closest she had who didn't stray away from her disability. He adopted the genes that made her. They almost were same. In looks and silence.

I usher her to look out as my boots push heavy on my feet with nerves and anticipation. When she is busy I pick out a vial of oil and feather a drop across my skin and upon my eyelids. In the fading light and by the small cracked mirror by the shelf I notice the waking greens of my eyes dull into brown. It's how it's always been, alteration of the raw features of my skin and eyes even before I could see the flourished one myself. I know they were green, my hair a midnight black that reaches slight past my shoulder. My skin that's inherently rosy and delicate, shadows into a pale one. Greys of endless work hours circles below my eye line and my blushed lips parched into a bloodless surface.

Though my face persisted feminists and familiarity of my real one, the dullness it shrunk with strips it of any beauty that made me look like one. With such awful sorcery at hand, I had effortlessly managed to pass off as an average adolescent till today.

I however still fare to figure out what castle saw in me that she couldn't seem to reach with Dorin?

Perhaps since I laughed when she bought Atticus with her instead of Dorin who lost his sanity. If so, then she was on futile imagery. I had mentally assassinated her twice in my mind so far. I just can't seem to comprehend what to do at the moment. I forgot a language by then.

So when Dorin pushes through and grabs her by the arm, with gentle ferocity but protective motion I sighed in the corner, transformed into a sour-looking lad with an ever twisted snarl on his lips.

"Let's leave before they -

Dorin doesn't get to finish his thought as the siren rises into the air. One for death, two for the storm, three for deserters.

It rang thrice. For us.

A fugitive act. Fear of the defector running into an Antarian trap. A torture before death that might have us bait into disclosing the sanctuary they have assembled in years.

A hell away from hell.

Alarming pair of our gaze meet Dorin, we waited for his command. He inhales widely as the rush of footsteps bolting out of their shelters increases. Lanterns and wood fire fill the passage from where we could see, confused and sleepy they seem to wake up to the need as we gather by the trivial vent in the brick wall.

And then Dorin whispers into the darkness

"We leave from the back door, walk as fast as you can. And when they catch up on what's unfolding and you are seen- run"

***

The stink from trash melting into the wind causes dizziness to rinse through me. The waste lane was the only soil that has no one patrolling across, Atticus was deeply cradled into a sleep and Dorin took the lead, shielding us with his wall-like body before venturing further.

The sharp odor made my eyes water, with the blurry vision I turn for Castle to see her lips pursed. The moon rays us with its cool glow, lighting up the path ahead. While keeping a vivid watch I realized, I might barf. Not because of how violent the stench was, but a release to my jittering heart and hammering headache.

"There are people here" whispered Dorin, his back to me as he crouched to peek through the rotting iron cart. "It's over if we step out now"

"It's death if don't leave until sunrise" Dorin gives me a look that assure me that he didn't asked for my pessimistic view.

Again I incline my gaze to check on Castle and Atticus, she holds on tight with a tension crawling up her outlines. Hope the least she understands what she has done by bringing her brother along the ride. When I turn, Dorin has his stare on her. But his were balmed with concern while mine must be erratic. Unforgiving even.

"We are going to make it" I state, not in the perception of encouragement. Because I know we were going to get out of here. I've seen it. Felt it. Touched it. In my dreams, I have touched those beads of warm dew that slept upon leaves. In them I had my hair undone, they caressed my bare shoulder as I laughed, in them, I wore a dress that flushed my body in divinity. In them I was free. In them, I believe. Because my dreams were worth two worlds. Because my dreams are a slice of the future waiting to happen.

"You don't know that," says an irked Dorin.

"I wish I didn't" My despicable remark wasn't noteworthy as Castle shuffled into the front, gently clamping Atticus into the arms of Dorin, leaving a trail of mute protest from us as she stepped out, she looked pissed. And she was looking at her father who stood with the mob of people- ordering around with his chest puffed out. His custom-tailored robe was similar in material that Castle donned.

Appalled, Dorin and I gawked as her fingers reached into her side and slides out a gun.

"Bloody Daggers" whispers Dorin as Castle runs out in the open. When she makes it out she stood her ground facing our own people. Her father is the first to notice her, the rest pursue his suit as the chatter disperses.

"Goodness child, where did you go such late at night?" Mr. Birch exclaimed, the breeze causes her hood to come undone as her golden hair swirls in song. The song of her despair. Something in the moment I knew it wasn't merely the matrimonial venture that she was running from. It was everything that we hadn't seen or known so far.

"I swear if it's the dirty gesture of the boy that falsified yo-

Then she fires, screams and terror rise from the group of folks as the icy dust scatter into the air by the ground where the bullet was shot. Atticus startles into a fit of cries as out presence got noticed. They charged at us without a hesitation in their breath.

"She is buying us time" I thrust Dorin forward as he houses from the shock, but he does what needs to be done. Grabs my hand and run. More shots get fired by her as she joins us, she aimed at the turf - maintaining a good distance and slowing them down when they charged at us. I could pick up the noises of chains and swords. Woods and knives. Their mad warnings and hollars as we carry our body- striving it to drive as faster as it could. In the likes of a horse. Only that we were one ourselves and the one

that rides us was the odds that fuel our desires.

We run from our prison.

We run so we could perish trying.

We run until we couldn't.

Somewhere along with the wave and ripple, we lose them, we were far into the lap of cold night where no one would risk their lives to punish us. They wouldn't be hiding if they were so drawn on to justice. Giant stones and pebbles carpets our hike, into the embrace of the night my knees buckle at the sight of Dorin stopping by one massive rock.

"They won't follow us here" he utters, out of breath. A streak of loud wind pushed his attire to the opposite. Dressed in insufficient covering he still looked stable, solely required to raise his voice higher than the gust. We hear him, Castle doesn't wait for a second and gets on to prepare food for Atticus who was draped securely by Dorin's chest.

He is something that's possibly keeping the child warm. And the potion that we collectively took as of now with the exception of Dorin.

"My throat is sore" I cough aloud, measuring out the water from the flask into a cup. Chugging I rest my forehead against the rock while Dorin labored on the thick pressed sheets as he embarked to fix a tent "How did you get the revolver?"

Castle attention perks at me, and with the tension I could catch it in Dorin's spine. He awaited the answer equally. But it never comes,

'How did you know that we were getting out?'

Sadly, Dorin wasn't wrong about Castle. She does listen to everything we have to say. Even if it's our own whisper. A vultures ears he would say.

"A hunch I like to explain" I lie in white with a wink. She ignores it with amusement.

"It used to be his mothers" wheeling the subject from me, I pose when Dorin was off earshot. "The rations and commodities that you possess for the journey. We gathered it for three, she died of illness a month ago"

Playing with the knots of my boots I stall for her to stay mum. Castle seldom propelled her emotions- but tonight I witnessed so many of them to keep track of. It was sadness and guilt for present.

"Pity him not, he detests if he is given hope" I exclaim in rush.

It's a faint smile on her, but it was sufficient to consider her as one of us.

"Thanks," I say, standing up to leave for Dorin. To be of some help "We owe you for the mercy"

That night we lit a spark, a fire in the belly of our tent. Despite the farthest from the place we should be calling our home, I slept soundly. No dream plagues my slumber and neither the uncertainty of chore for dawn. For tonight I didn't belong to both the worlds, I wasn't a child of war.

I slept in the womb of mountains and sky, but the sun knocked with a new morning. First to have woken I inspect the compass, my line on the east. There wasn't a thing to do now except to brace ourselves for a walk so long that it might demand our feet, a cold so strong that it could devour us into its pit.

So we did. Three days and four nights, it took us to the mouth of glaze. The peaks of mountains that serve as a gate bares with pride in protection of Antar. High and mighty, it taunts us with its strength and history. No roads, no tunnels not a network or a channel. It's how isles of Ivyaki stood. Between the glaze and the sea of flame. An abandoned wasteland. While the sea was contaminated with radiation so vile that it ate through skin like flame. The mountain of glaze littered with monsters with acid in their touch and poison in their tongue.

And here we stood, three and quarter of us, gambling for luck in the light of fate.

I took a step forward marveling at the beauty and disbelief,

"I swear the pretty chain of the glaze in the map was so much more welcoming and approachable than this"

It was abyss, it's tip viewed by the clouds. Mountains after mountains and nothing else across our visions reach. Squinting I unfold my trekking cane and scour my boots into a tight position.

Because no matter how many more nights it takes. It begins now.