We had walked for about another thirty or so minutes before we had made it out of the forest. By this time, I was thoroughly tired of walking. As were my calves. As the trees thinned, I could make out the road, a dirt path that wound around the forest and would eventually dead end into the entrance to the caverns, if Tom’s map was correct. Though we hadn’t seen or heard any hint of the mob since the bears, I kept looking back over my shoulder, convinced that they would appear, having found us once again. It had been too quiet of a hike through the forest, in my humble opinion. Almost too easy.

“We’re right where the map says to be,” Tom said conversationally. He pointed at the map that he held in his hand. “Back on track.”

I didn’t answer. This trek was turning out to be much more difficult than I ever could have anticipated. I found myself missing my room, wishing I’d never jumped out that stupid window. Nothing about this was going well. But I knew that if I’d stayed there, I would never have the opportunity to find out what was really going on. Was I truly a hostage? If that was true, what did that mean for me? What did I hold over the Demon King as to ensure his compliance with the treaty? My entire identity hung the balance of the answer to that question. Even further, if I’d stayed and this treaty went even more poorly, the Queen had said she’d not hesitate to kill me. I couldn’t ignore that little fact, as much as I wanted to. I kicked the small stones in front of me on the path, watching them tumble down ahead of me until I caught up to them once more, only to kick them further.

“Hey, I can see the entrance!” Tom exclaimed, pointing to a dark maw in the mountain about a quarter of a mile ahead.

“Nice,” I said absentmindedly, not really listening and lost in my melancholy thoughts.

Then, I realized what he’d said, looked up to see what he had pointed out, and grimly smiled. Finally. The sooner I achieved my goal, the sooner I could wash my hands of this nonsense and be back to curling up in my room with a book, ignoring everything.

Something behind us made drew our attention; we both turned our heads curiously to look back.

“Ope,” he said.

“Fuck.”

It was the mob – they’d discovered us, just as I feared. A few of their numbers must have stumbled onto the same path we had. Would any of this journey go well at all?

“I don’t think they’ve seen us yet…” I whispered, pushing Tom off to the side, hoping to take cover in the thinning trees, just as we had before.

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In the distance, perhaps about a quarter of a mile away, a head turned and zeroed in on us.

“Fuck!” I shouted. “Too late. Run!”

We took off, those same pebbles scattering under our feet as we lengthened our strides as much as possible. My short legs had to move almost twice as fast as my much larger companion, and inside, I seethed. Or at least, I would have, if my lungs weren’t burning so hot that I thought they were going to catch on fire. The friction just from breathing the air alone was causing friction in my throat, but I continued to run.

My feet pounded the path, shoving dirt and rocks to the side, one after another, and every step took us feet closer towards our goal.

“Hopefully we can lose them in the caves!” shouted Tom.

I didn’t have the spare breath to answer. He was faster than me, surely, but he kept at my side, staying with me. Why were these people so intent on killing us? If they kept chasing us, I was becoming thoroughly convinced this whole running business was likely to do the trick, though.

The angry crowd was approaching, having seen us begin running, and followed suit. A haphazard glance backwards showed torches bouncing up and down with their running stride. It also showed how quickly they were gaining – we weren’t fast enough.

I knew it was my fault; Tom was keeping pace with me, and I wasn’t near as fast as I wanted to be. My little legs held me back, as well as my lack of athletic abilities. It wasn’t as if I had much occasion to sprint towards cavernous mountains in my spare time as a princess.

I glanced back again.

A little shriek escaped my lips; they were even closer than I’d expected. I tried to pick up the pace, but my muscles were aching, the pounding from my steps were jamming into my knees, and I could barely keep up the pace I was running at before, let alone increase. The air wasn’t enough to sustain me, but damn, we were almost there.

I could only hope that we could reach the caverns in time to lose our new companions.

“Come on, Callie, we can do this!” encouraged Tom, a determined look on his face.

“They’re heading into the Cursed Caves!” shouted one of our pursuers. “Hold back!”

Confused, we each looked at each other, but continued our hectic, breakneck pace. We would have to deal with that later. The fate of the kingdom depended on getting into – and through – those caves.

A few more feet and we were at the entrance. It was the height of half a man, and maybe twice as wide, opened up into pure darkness, directly into the side of the mountain.

“Age before beauty!” Tom said, pushing me in front of him and through the mountain’s maw.

“You’re older than me!” I protested but allowed him to shove me through to safety.

I laughed at the strangeness of our situation, glancing back behind us to see the mob standing there, perhaps halfway back down the road, just watching. Unnerved, I shivered, and took the first step onto the cold, wet stone.