Day 13, 6:00 AM

“I wandered through the streets thinking of all the things I might have said and might have done had I been other than I was.”

― Erich Maria Remarque

It’s still dark when I wake up. I draw a deep breath and turn around, and the hay around me rustles. I smile, still half asleep. Back when I was a kid I always wanted to spend a night sleeping in a barn, buried in hay. I take a moment to appreciate the sweet smell of childhood dreams, and ignore the itch of adult’s reality.

Unfortunately, all I have is a moment before awakening fully. I sigh and check my stats. Redo is still red, a day and a half before it turns white again.

What happens if I die while it’s red? Do I go back to wait in hell? Do I go back, but suffer some penalty? I pick at the disturbing thought for god knows which time since growing literate, and I’m no closer to the answer. I only know one thing.

I don’t want to find out.

“Manny, are you up?” She grunts, and I’m not really certain what her answer means.

I go with, ‘Leave me alone, I’m sleeping,’ and throw myself back into the hay. I wish we had escaped the first time.

It’s not just my morning erection talking. I wish she trusted me with all her being. I wish I didn’t have to act like I’m walking around a minefield when we talk.

Ouch. That metaphor rubs me the wrong way, and I once again think how stupid I once was. If I had Redo, if I could have stepped back two weeks before the truck hit me, would I go home? Would I just knock on Mary’s door, walk in, and have wild sex with her while the kids are out?

The train of thought doesn’t help. It turns the wood into stone, and I’m even hornier. First off, you never had wild sex until you met Manuella. You may have gotten laid, you may have had decent sex, great even, but never wild. Even if Redo triggered, you wouldn’t have gone back home, bent Mary over the couch, and pounded her—

Yeah, that’s not helping either.

“Aang, are you up?” Manuella whispers after a while.

“In more ways than one,” Blunt says, and my jaw hits the floor.

“I mean I’m awake, and we are above ground, in the hayloft,” I hurriedly add while considering hanging myself right here, right now.

God, or whoever made all this, I don’t think Blunt means what you think it means.

“We should leave if you are awake,” she says, her voice still a whisper.

My brain gallops, trying to find hints of any emotion in her tone. Maybe she caught my meaning, maybe she didn’t. I hope for the latter.

“Right.” I put my boots on, and jump eight feet down into the pitch darkness. I land like a cat, the excavator I mean, crashing onto the soft ground strewn with hay.

Where did my intellect and wisdom just go? I wonder, picking myself up from the ground, glad I didn’t break anything.

Wood creaks announcing Manuella’s descent down the ladder. I walk with my arms outstretched, feeling towards the tiny cracks of light and reach the door. I pull it open, and the chill morning air hits me like the stable had sucked in a breath.

The sun isn’t out yet, but I can see just fine in the predawn light. The inn is built like a tiny military outpost. It has a spacious inner courtyard, big enough for several carriages, the main building itself large with two stories, and the stable behind me can fit two dozen animals and considerably more humans, if the snores were any indicator.

The wall surrounding the complex is a sturdy palisade, ten feet tall. I didn’t notice it last night, but now I see it’s crowned with a tangle of vicious thorns. Any intruder unaware of the feature was bound for a world of pain if they tried climbing that in the dark.

The guards look at me and nod without saying a word. I nod back and head for the gate.

We leave the place quietly and start walking. Manuella doesn’t say anything. Neither do I. The sun rises, much less impressive than it was while we were riding the old rotting boat.

It’s probably because I could lay on my back and watch the sky change colors.

We keep walking in silence, but instead of growing lighter, the day turns darker and darker. I look up, and black clouds cover the sky.

“Do you think it’s going to rain?” I ask, and she also looks up.

“Yes.”

An hour later, the sky is sobbing. We’re sitting at the base of a large evergreen. It’s dry, for now, and I’m thinking of starting a fire.

“Why do we need fire?” she asks, giving me that look.

“It will liven up the atmosphere, and while it’s not biting cold, it’s not pleasant either. We could warm up, and I could brew some herbal tea or a soup?”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“We have already eaten breakfast.” She’s right, naturally. We ate our dry rations while walking, but since we have to stop, why not have some hot soup?

“We’re already stuck here, and it looks like we’ll stay here a while. Why not make some broth?”

“As you wish,” she says, and half an hour later we are pleasantly warm. The water is boiling, and I realize we haven’t bought plates or bowls for us to eat from, only wooden spoons.

“I think it’s more or less done. Do you mind if we share the pot?”

“Go ahead,” she says, and I’m not sure whether that’s a yes or a no, but I pull the clay pot off the fire with a branch.

Bits of jerky and fresh sprouts I plucked along the way float in the water. For the finishing touch, I reach into the sack holding the eggs I found last night. Two cracked.

I probably busted them when I jumped this morning. Moron.

Still, I break them, and add them to the soup. I mix them a bit and soon they form yummy white-yellow strips.

Manuella is eyeing me and my concoction suspiciously, but I take my spoon and slurp a taste.

“It warms you up, and it doesn’t taste bad.”

She remains suspicious, but I dig in. A hot soup on a frosty day with rain pouring several yards away is an adventure, the kind of adventure I never got to have, and it looks really basic.

Steven was twelve when I died. I could have taken him camping once or twice.

The unwelcome thought assails my mind, and my heart shakes. Fortunately, Manuella takes that moment to try the soup. She blows on it twice and doesn’t slurp.

“This is good." And we share soup.

***

The rain trickles to a halt, and there are only three hours before nightfall.

“I failed to take the weather into account,” Manuella says, frowning. “We should take the road, then turn into the forest half an hour before sundown.”

She falls silent, but I can tell she’s got more to say, so I stay quiet. “And we should stay off the road from now on. We are leaving an easy trail for the pursuers with every person we meet. If we suffer two or three days of rainfall, the pursuit might catch up.”

I don’t think she’s rational. If we’re stuck, so is the pursuit.

“Won’t they stop when we stop?”

She shakes her head. “Let’s go. We can talk while we walk.”

I stomp out the embers and follow her.

“The messengers will ride in rain, wind, and snow if their message is urgent. And we are planning to topple the king. There is hardly greater urgency than that.”

What about heat and gloom?

Luckily, Blunt isn’t interested in cracking dad jokes. “But they don’t know we’re planning to do that.”

“And yet they fear that is exactly what I will try to do. My brother and I are symbols. As long as one of us is free, we are dangerous. That is why they humiliated me the way they did. That is why they turned me into this instead of executing me. If I had died and caused a public outrage, my brother would have gained support. However, if I were a whore, spreading my legs for commoners, I would turn him into a laughingstock. Even his allies would shun me. He told me that. The king,” she trailed off, her face pained.

“You have a brother?” I ask, she finally shared that piece of relatively important information.

“I do. He is five years younger than me. Father’s men saved him when the castle fell, and he has been on the run ever since. He was just a boy, ten years old, when our house fell to ruin.”

Manuella retold me more or less the same story as last time, about the paranoid king cleaning up the state for his son, the knight who betrayed them, and how her father had died. The version is different, less personal, less honest, more historical. She doesn’t mention the grimmest details of her suffering and humiliation, only that her father ordered her and her brother to stay alive no matter what because they were each other’s shield if he ever died.

I listen, asking questions I already knew the answers to, answers which she could share with strangers.

“So, if we defeat the king, you might not become a king, but you may become a duke,” she finishes, adding something new.

“I don’t really care.” Blunt says, and I wonder once again whether randomly saying what comes to your mind straight is really the definition of bluntness. I wish I had a dictionary.

“What do you mean you don’t really care?” Her voice shakes. I hope it’s from the story she retold and the emotions behind it, and not out of shock or fear.

“Your brother is the son of a duke.” I start, struggling to come up with something passable to say. “As far as we know, he has led no rebellions, and he obviously hasn’t toppled the king. When we topple the king, I will become king, and he can assume his birthright, and become the duke. Doesn’t that sound logical to you?”

She steps into a puddle and stops, staring at my face to see whether I’m serious. I do my best to appear serious. And I really mean everything I said. Even if he’s my brother-in-law, I’m not putting a useless twit on the throne because family.

“If we lead an uprising, and end up on top, deposing the old ruler and his regiment, I will become a king and you will be my queen,” I say it seriously straight to her face. “If your brother feels that is not deserved, he should have conquered the country on his own and freed you himself. Trust me, it wasn’t that hard getting you out of that brothel.”

The last line slipped out. I think Blunt said it, but I’m not sure.

Regardless of who was responsible, it landed like a slap against Manuella’s face.

Shit!

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

She’s pale and her chin quivers. She spins away from me.

“It is fine. I have entertained similar thoughts more than once, each time telling myself king’s assassins were watching me from the shadows, or that the brothel staff were actually professional warriors masking as, as…” She chokes, and I lay my hand on her shoulder.

She slaps it away.

“I will be your whore, your casus belli, you can abuse me however you see fit, …”

I watch her shuddering back, and my mind races.

Should I hug her? What will happen?

“… as long as you…”

Should I leave her be? What will happen?

“… grant me revenge…”

Should I tell her the truth? What will happen?

Hypothetical consequences slap my balls. I have no good choices. Whatever I choose is a fuckup. The only thing left is honesty.

I grab her shoulders and force her to face me. She’s terrified. Her eyes are red. Redo is red. She’s staring at me, and I know what I need to say. Yet, I can’t say it. Not even Blunt can. It’s too long. Too complicated. And her words made me too angry. Redo is red.

“You will be my queen. Not my just cause. You will never be my whore, you will be my queen. I will never abuse you, and I am willing to die for your sake. Get that into your thick skull.”

I draw my knife and slap it into her palm.

My hand stings as I grab her wrist and pull her hand against my neck, looking her straight in the eye.

“If you don’t believe me, put me out of my misery, and go, do whatever you want. You have enough money and enough of a head start.”

Her eyes tremble, glued to mine. I can feel her pulling her arm back, trying to move away from me, and then it hits me.

That was needlessly stupid on so many levels. Then I realize something else. Was that also being Blunt? Was it Rage? Was it me?

Who am I?