“You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”

Her sudden accusation startled me. After hours of silence I had started to believe that maybe she’d been rendered mute after all that screaming earlier.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, you have no clue what you’re doing, assassin.”

Oh shit, had she already figured out the ruse? I mean, yeah, it must’ve looked pretty silly for some alleged servant of the Chaos Emperor to struggle so much with starting a simple campfire, but had I made it that obvious?

“Does it even occur to you the lengths my brother will go to see you executed? Do you realize that he’ll stop at nothing to get me back and to avenge the Lord Hero? He is going to cleave your head from your shoulders and present it to my father on a golden platter! You have taken a member of the royal family hostage! Your life is forfeit!”

Ah, so she wasn’t talking about my incompetence, but implying I was ignorant.

“Look girl—”

“My name is Princess Ignolia!”

“Alright look, Princess Ignolia, I was just trying to get out of there without anyone getting hurt, okay? It was not my fault that someone shoved you in front of me. I was perfectly happy to just walk out the gate and make a run for it without taking a hostage.”

“Without anyone getting hurt? Have you no shame? You killed the Lord Hero! Then you gave brave Sir Gerald the most unworthy of deaths that a royal knight could ever have! You call that ‘not getting hurt’??

I decided I’d better start telling her the truth before her mind was too poisoned against me. I couldn’t exactly save the world if the princess was going to have a permanent grudge.

“I haven’t killed anybody, I’ll have you know.”

“Ha! You lie as casually as you breathe. I watched Sir Gerald fall to your spell with my very eyes! And you came from the Divine Gate instead of the god-sent Lord Ferillion! How else could you have taken his place unless you had killed him?”

“Sir Gerald, is that the guy that fainted? He should still be very much alive unless he had a bad heart to begin with. The poor guy was obviously suffering from heat exhaustion! And Lord Ferillion isn’t dead! I am Lord Ferillion!”

“How could you ever expect me to believe that? Has service to the Chaos Emperor corroded your mind that much? Driven you mad? Lord Ferillion is a god-sent hero! Not some low-life that bears the marks of evil’s taint!”

I was starting to think that maybe getting through to her would be impossible. But yeah, I guess I could see where she was coming from.

All of them had probably been expecting some chiseled jaw-line giga-chad in shining armor to come through that portal, but instead came out scrawny little me with my spooky skeleton hands.

“Will you at least believe me when I tell you that I didn’t kill Sir Gerald? The dude just fainted.”

“Even if that is true, which I know it isn’t, then you were still willing to kill everyone present when you cast that curse!”

“I didn’t even actually cast anything! That was just a load of bullshit I spun to get the knights to back off!”

“Why do you insist on lying to me? What is there to gain? Had the Lord Priest not warned them, Sir Gerald would have been only one of the dead!”

I had been working on the firewood the whole time, and a few sparks finally started growing into a tiny flame.

“That guy in the robes? I was just improvising. I wanted to get out of there with my head still attached, none of you were exactly giving me much of a chance to explain what was going on.

“Not that I had any clue what was going on myself. With the sun setting the air was starting to get colder, but Ignolia didn’t move to sit any closer to the fire. It seemed she preferred her spot over in the cold.

“If that's the case, then you should have surrendered yourself to the King’s Justice, and then explained yourself before the court! Your story would have been heard!”

“Give me an honest answer. Would my story have been listened to? Or would it have just been an execution with some extra steps?”

She didn’t respond, I guess that had actually made her think about it. Since she was being quiet again I searched the back of the cart more thoroughly. Best I could tell, all of it was supplies for the feast that I’d been promised. One large ceramic jar was full of ice packed around slabs of meat. Another crate held a load of potatoes. Some onions, carrots, the works.

Using some branches from around the ground, I was able to fashion a crude spit roast frame over the fire. I stripped a few straight sticks of their bark and used them as improvised skewers to stick the potato and meat on. I didn’t have anything to cut the potato with, or to skin it at all, but with how much my stomach was growling I didn’t care. The smell of the sizzling meat was divine to my nose.

“Are you going to sit over there and freeze and starve? Or are you going to come over here and get some food?”

She huffed.

“I will accept no charity from you, assassin. If I must go hungry and cold for a day or two until my brother and his men track you down and kill you, then that is a worthy sacrifice that I’m willing to make.”

“Fine, be that way.”

If she wanted to be stubborn, that just meant more for me. Without any forks or knives, I was wary of handling the hot food, but a poke with my bone finger told me that my new hands didn’t seem to care at all about the heat. I felt like a caveman eating a plain potato with my bare hands, especially while the princess stared daggers at me.

Oh well, she already had such a stellar opinion of me, what did I care if she watched me eat a porkchop as finger food?

“Gods, you even eat like a complete savage! Where is the shame any civilized man would feel? Or was all of it burned out of you when you swore service to Aradante?”

“I don’t exactly see dining ware around, do you? Or perhaps I should just stare at the food until it suddenly appears in my stomach? Oh, maybe I should fashion a bowl and eat out of it like a dog?”

“That would only be appropriate for the likes of you.”

After finishing my food I leaned against one of the trees and realize I was getting more than a little bit drowsy. The princess still looked wide awake, and judging by her stares she still thought she could kill me if she just gazed hard enough.

“Look, I’m tired. If I got to sleep, should I expect to wake up to your bashing my head in with a rock or something?”

“It’d be no less than you deserve, assassin.”

“Right… Thought so.”

An idea popped into my head. Just like before with the knights, I began ominously chanting random foreign words and did some spooky hand motions.

“Wait! What are you doing! Don’t you da—”

“Ninth Dark Art! Cursed Rest!”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I thrust my hands toward her, and the fire chose that exact time to spark up. She shrieked and backed up into a tree, desperate to get further away from me.”

“What— what did you do to me!”

“Oh, just a little curse to make sure you behave. If you should try and bring any harm to me while I sleep, then the curse will stop your heart! Oh, it’ll also get you if you try to run off in the night!”

The anger that had been carved into her face for the last few hours was wiped away and replaced again with sheer terror.

She finally stopped staring at me and buried her face in her knees. My faux curse had exactly the effect that I’d intended. Yeah, I felt like an asshole again for scaring her like that, but I had to look out for my own safety here. If I stayed up all night keeping an eye on her to make sure I wasn’t attacked, then I’d just be exhausted later and make it that much easier for her brother to catch up.

Also, I couldn’t have her wandering off alone. One, she was still useful as a hostage for now, at least until I got further from the city. Two, I’d feel bad if she got lost or picked up by someone with actual ill-intentions. I laid my head down and closed my eyes. I dreamt about how nice life could’ve been if I’d been able to actually curse Yuki.

I woke up when the first rays of light from the morning sun poked through the trees onto my closed eyes. For a brief moment I was terrified and confused that I hadn’t woken up in my own bed. After looking around I spotted the sleeping princess propped against another tree. Our campfire had died out sometime in the night.

“So it wasn’t all just a weird dream then…”

I was still very much in the fantasy world, still a wanted man, and worst of all still had those weird skeleton hands. But, I was still gloriously free from my sister’s wrath. In all honesty? It was an overall net win. Go ahead world, throw whatever you want at me.

The morning air had a slight chill to it, so I got right to work gathering more kindling to get the fire started again. There was still plenty of cold meat and potatoes on the cart, the ice had barely thawed at all overnight. I thought that was a bit strange, but I suppose it could’ve been magic ice, or magic jars. Fuck if I know. I just know that I had breakfast handled.

At some point during the night Ignolia had either realized that I wasn’t going to get up and murder her, or she’d passed out from sheer exhaustion. Either way, she was actually kind of cute with her mouth hanging open and a line of drool dripping down. Once you got past the bad attitude and the hostage situation, she wasn’t half bad looking. In another life I’d have definitely just stared at her from across the bar and never approached, I’d be too afraid of rejection for that. Lemme tell you though, there would have been a fantasy about having a house and a dog while I finished my drink before going home.

I found that it was significantly easier to get the fire going the second time around now that I had a better idea of what I was doing. My food was already almost done cooking when the smell of it drifted over and finally roused Ignolia from her sleep. She panicked a considerable amount more than I had when she woke up and found herself in the wild instead of whatever cozy royal suite that a king’s daughter would have. When she realized that the previous day was all just a horrible nightmare, she looked like she was going to break down and start crying.

She fought back her tears, but even she couldn’t exactly hide the noises her stomach was making as she watched me take my food from the fire.

“Good morning princess! Sleep well? Slept like a baby over here, best rest I’ve had in eight years!”

“Oh, do the memories of all your sins normally keep you up at night, assassin?”

“What? No? Also, can you stop calling me that?”

“Ashamed of what you are? Is the guilt finally catching up to you?”

“No, I just haven’t ever murdered anyone, so I’m not an assassin.”

“Do you really think so little of mortal lives that it doesn’t register as a murder to you?”

She was being impossibly stubborn. It seemed that no matter what I said to her she was just going to spin it back around on me.

“Fine, whatever! Be that way! I’ll just be over here enjoying a hot meal.”

She huffed, crossing her arms and turning away while I ate, which was immensely more preferable to her constant berating of me. After I finished up I did my best to bury the remains of the fire, covering the ashes with dirt and rocks. Ignolia scoffed at me.

"I'll have you know that my brother is a superb tracker, hiding the fire like that will not fool him."

"What? Oh, this? I wasn't trying to hide it, I just wanted to make sure that any stray embers didn't burn down the forest after we move on."

"You find the life of some trees more important than that of a man? I should have known."

"Christ on a bike, how do you keep doing that? Is that some innate skill that royalty is just born with around here? You just instinctively know how to take any statement and twist it around like that? Whatever! It doesn't matter! I won't be dealing with you much longer after I've sorted everything out."

"Ha! By now the word of my kidnapping and the murder of the god-sent hero will have reached all of my father's allies. You won't find safe harbor in the lands of any of our neighbors!"

"What? Who said I was going to hide with your neighbors?"

I hadn’t considered leaving the country just yet, I had really only planned on finding a cave or someplace to hide for a bit while I tried to call 1-800-Johnny. Her face went pale, her eyes wide.

“You couldn’t possibly mean to take me all the way to Rushshire?”

Rushshire? Was that an enemy of theirs? Whatever the case, it would probably be a decent place to escape Damadell’s fury for the time being. First though I wanted to figure out more about it.

“You guessed it princess! I wonder what price Rushshire will give me for you!”

“No! Anywhere but that place! Do you have any idea what they’d do to me?”

“I doubt it’d be worse than whatever your father had in mind for me in your dungeons, or what your brother has planned.”

“Nothing that they could do to you would ever compare with selling me to those barbarians!”

Tears began streaming down her face, as she was now convinced that I actually intended to pawn her off.

“Oh calm down will ya? I’m not going to actually sell you… As soon as I can find a safe place, I’m going to drop you off with some noble so they can arrange for you to get home. Then I’m going to hide until I can get things figured out. Till then, you’re just insurance to keep me out of the dungeon.”

She sniffled a few times, but it seemed that I had eased her mind a bit.

It took some persuasion and the threat of another curse to get her back onto the cart as I didn’t want to get physical with her again.

We set off again down the road. I realized with some annoyance that I couldn’t read the language on any of the signposts that marked the roads. That meant I had absolutely no clue where we were actually heading except vaguely west (and that was only if sunrise and sunset were in the same directions on this world as Earth).

“Alright princess, I have a question for you!”

“You’ll never get any state secrets out of me. I’ll die first.”

“Not what I wanted, but okay, good to know. I just want to know which was is the closest town?”

“Why are you asking me? The sign is right there.”

“Well you se—”

“Oh! I get it! This is to see which one I will try and lead you to, so that you can figure out if there is a trap waiting there to capture you!”

God this girl was getting annoying.

“Christ, no. Look, I’m not from here, I can’t read your language!”

“You expect me to believe that you can speak it so fluently but can’t read it at all? Ha! What sort of simpleton do you think I am?”

Well, since telling her the truth didn’t work out, I was going to have to resort the the old “curse” method. I waved my hand at her as I mumbled more gibberish, and she nearly fell off the side of the cart as she tried to duck away.

“Tenth Dark Art! Liar’s Correction!”

“Gah! What have you done this time?”

“This curse will squeeze your heart if you do anything but truthfully answer my questions! I will release the curse once I am satisfied.”

“You truly are the most vile person that I have ever met, assassin.

“Yeah yeah, whatever, now start answering my damn questions and stop being a pain in the ass.”