Chapter One

Zara’s plan was going smoothly. Surprising, considering all her other plans failed miserably one way or another. The rag caked in tree sap she left near a heating kiln on the opposite side of the castle filled the surrounding rooms and hallways with an adequately alarming amount of smoke. No fire would ignite. Some poor new maid might probably lose her job at worst for leaving a rag near the kiln but more likely it would be ruled an accident with no one to blame. She saw just enough of the start of the mayhem to be certain that the castle would take a while to calm down from the scare of a possible fire. And when it did people would go to sleep and forget about it until her disappearance was noticed. But by then she would be long gone... hopefully.

Zara snuck her way against the outer wall of the castle. The wall was a grey affair of old stone and moss sneaking from the seams between the blocks. The first Stars were appearing as she neared the gates that bared her from freedom for so long. At least it felt long… when was it she… 

Doesn’t matter now. She could think on it later. Her silken day gown was starting to soak in nervous sweat of fear, her stolen peasant clothes already drenched from the day of wearing them beneath the day gown.

The guards that were meant to lower the portcullis and stand guarding the gates from would be sneaks and those trying to leave her captors estate were not at their posts, called away to stop the fire. The arch that made the gates of her soon to be ex prison created a wind that smelled of early spring as she hurried trough it using its promise of freedom to stave of the shakes of fear and doubt. She took raged breaths as uncertainty of her goal pulled her back towards the certain clutches of the villains she was so close to escaping. As the view of the tight band of grassy field around the castle walls and the estates woods beyond crystallised in her vision the pull faded and she ran as if the pull was the string of a bow that loosed her like an arrow.

Her vision blurred again as she crossed the yards of the lush green band that marked her freedom. The sturdy boots she managed to acquire helped eat the distance between her and the woods. A ripping sound reached her in her frantic state and the soft earth rose towards her as her gown tangled her legs. Zara pushed off of the ground before she could fully fall and recovered from her stumble and then used the sway of the near fall to propel herself further towards the brush that edged the woods.

The only reason she didn’t collapse in triumph and exhaustion the moment she passed the tree line was the scraggly branches tearing her gown and raking at her exposed hands. She pushed on trough the nervous excitement of her escape and the last of the low brush that finally started to hide her from the possible sight of the scum that trapped her until now. The victory gave her strength to start a jog deeper into the woods and towards Dragon spine looming beyond.

When the stars were out in full she finally stopped. She fell to her knees as her exhaustion could no longer be ignored, her hands dug into the decayed litter and earth of the forest that would hide her. As she breathed, tears of joy, relief, fear and anger welled in the corners of her almond brown eyes. A few quick, hysteric loughs mixed with sobs escaped her as she tried to gather herself on the ground. She could feel herself falling apart as her goal was so close and the primal need to escape alone could no longer keep her together. Memories started to push trough. Before she pushed them away trying to forget and ignore them. Now the pain they brought steeled her and she started the second part of her plan. The Lord had hunting hounds and they could track her as well as they could track game. And these were their hunting grounds.

She got up to her feet. Her legs almost gave into the pull of the ground but Zara made them stand. She had to lose her scent before she could truly lose her inevitable pursuers. The “hunting trips” He dragged her on showed her enough of the forest so she could hide a pack of supplies and find it again. Then she would have to find the stream He always lost his pray in when He actually hunted. It was the closest to the castle and opposite the direction she planned to escape towards. So she guessed she could best trick them that way.

It took her longer than she wanted to find the clearing and the tree she stashed her pack on. She bound the pack on a branch of a wild walnut tree that kept the clearing from the bush of the rest of the forest. He liked to take her here when He got bored from following His hunters on His hunts. It was five days since the first spring hunt and like she knew He would He got bored and dragged her here. She could again taste the cold wet mud and grass as she climbed the walnut to reach her pack. He left her when the hunt grabbed His attention from her, like always He told her to stay put “Ladies should rest after entertaining me.” He said, arrogant self-absorbed son of a dirty, blighted whore.

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She untangled her pack, and climbed down with it. She opened it to check her supplies. The food she had packed was still almost edible. It would last her for a day or two. Enough to get far enough to be safe to start to hunt, an empty water skin, a slightly rusted hunting dagger and a sling she pocketed from the armoury were inside too. So was a tick waxed blanket, it would suffice as a shelter from rain, she hopped. She repacked her belongings and set off toward the stream she would use to lose her scent.

She skirted the edge of the field surrounding the castle walls as she needed it to find the stream, it was on the other side and she could only find it quickly if she used the castle to orient herself. Time dragged on as she sneaked her way through the shadows of the trees. Memories of hearing the Lord complaining that a poacher was seen in his woods. She also heard him cheerily describe what he will do to him when he found out that his woodsman found him yesterday. They haven’t returned before she escaped. She prayed to all the Names of the Stars she ever heard of to not let the returning woodsmen cross her on their way back.

Hours passed as she tiredly trekked through the woods and her tattered gown was starting to snag on more and more branches. It was probably midnight by now she guessed. She was tiring and she still had to cover enough ground to deter Him from looking for her. Some small time later she heard the brook she was searching for. Her pace quickened and she followed the sound of flowing water.

When she reached the bank of the stream she was surprised to find the water level higher than she remembered. The confusion ended when she remembered the snows of this winter and she guessed this was it, and it was a good thing, she could better lose her scent in more water.

Zara finally stripped of her gown. She was about to throw it on the ground when an idea struck her. A bad idea but her good luck so far convinced her that she could pull it off. She spread the gown on the ground and knelt next to it. She reached for her dagger and pulled it out of her pack and its sheet. The idea brought a smile to her face, her victory over Him would feel even more complete after this. She cut her palm, the pain drowned in the maniacal need to assert dominance and show Him how much better she was than Him. The blood pooled on her palm as she dipped a finger into it and started to write. Slowly. Messily. Shakily. She wrote what she never could tell Him before. Curses she didn’t know she knew bubbled from her mind, and were examined and discarded until she found the perfect ones. She admired her work and then tied the gown to a branch near the stream like a flag to her freedom and strength, to His inability to break her. Her very soul trembled at the thought of His face when He sees the gown with which He thought He collared her. She left it flowing in the breeze.

She packed her knife and swung her pack over her shoulder. She would follow the brook against the current until dawn broke then she would exit the stream and head deeper into the woods. The nearest town was two days sea-ward. That’s where they will expect her to go. They think she is stupid, she isn’t.

The Dark-blighted stream was sapping her strength more than she expected. The Stars were fading into the sky slowly so she would follow the stream until they were gone completely but until then it was cold water, strong current and grasping silt of the stream that was flowing of into the cursed Dark and away from where she planned to go. All flowing waters flowed from the Dragon spine to the one ocean or another but this one it seemed was taking its Dark fucked time to do that and it wasn’t helping her mood. The surging energy from her new freedom that picked her up again and again in the first hours of the escape was gone, all that was left was a painful and cold ache in all her muscles that seemed to take even more of her energy.

The last hours of the night both dragged on forever and blurred together into a painful slog that slowly stripped Zara’s hope, but when she looked up the Stars were gone and she let ought a sigh of relief as she turned to the Spine-ward bank and stepped out. The morning air chilled her soaked legs further but the hope of sun and the day’s warmth to come pushed her into the woods again. After a few steps in the direction of safety her throat ground against her breath and her body reminded her that she was both thirsty and hungry. Walk half a night up a stream and end up thirsty, brilliant. she thought.

She turned back and pulled out the water skin she had and filled it with the brook water, she drank directly from the stream not caring that she plunged her head beneath the surface to do it. She pulled back and took in the air. She was free. Finally. She could breathe fully again. When was the last time she could do that? Two years? Yes, two years of the castle and she could finally feel her lungs expand to their fullest extent. The air tasted wonderfully. She pulled out a strip of now week stale jerky. It tasted better than anything she ate in the castle.

She finished her strip of sustenance and got up to walk further, but as she reached the first trees away from the brook she trudged through until now, a strange feeling overcame her. It was a fear. She felt fear before but this… this was different. All the memories of the castle came back. Her legs were cut below the knees and she found herself on her hands in the mud again. That brought on more memories. Horrible memories, even memories she thought safe now seemed tainted by the rest. She keeled to her side and folded in on herself. Her lungs full to the brim just moments before were now empty and she could feel them trying to kill her, suffocate her by not moving. She saw Him again. Not fully, just His satisfied smile as He watched her suffer. The world went black.