Indigo walks closer to the sea. He breathes in the smell of waves crashing down upon the soft land, listens to faraway voices—who’ve yet to hear about the fall—chanting victory songs down by the shore. His boots sink into the sand. The beach is a place he’s been forbidden from exploring for so long, and therefore a place he’s persuaded nobody will seek him out, for only a being missing a sane mind would walk straight into the face of danger: which is exactly what he intends to do.
He sprints, past the guards who are still unaware of the catastrophe, and past soldiers who lounge about drinking ale. There must have been a traitor, Indigo thinks as he makes his way through the fleet, swiftly, using shortcuts and knickknacks he learned from the stolen tome. It’s impossible for them to have found us. Perhaps the villagers didn’t sense the barrier put up around the village by the Council, but I did, and it should have rendered us invisible. If our best healers were clueless when it came to its existence—he bites his lip and avoids a thick puddle of mud—then I doubt an ordinary soldier could have stumbled across it.
Before he disappears entirely into the shadows, Indigo glances around. He makes sure to take in all their faces, for it could come in handy later on if he were to meet a familiar one in battle or camaraderie.
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A crisp crack fills the air.
A soldier pushes navy-blue banners that don emblems Indigo has only heard of in stories meant to discourage curious minds from coming near the ocean. From afar, he grabs his sword, points it toward the forest, and shouts, “Who’s there?”
Indigo kicks aside the branch that mistakenly found its way beneath his boot. “Shit,” he mutters while dashing the other way. I guess searching for the one idiot stupid enough to betray the Council will have to wait, he thinks as he curses under his breaths once more.
As he hears another yell, “Simon, you fucking loser, it’s just a squirrel or s’mthin, sit down!” his shoulders drop with relief. Surely, he thinks, that they won’t bother following his trail if they believe he’s only a woodland animal.
Indigo rolls up his sleeves and takes a deep breath. He has made it far from the enemy’s camp and closer to an emptier part of the beach, where the entrance of a cave rumored to hold a dangerous beast stands tall before his figure. “All right,” he mutters, before taking one step onward, inside. “I truly hope their claims about this place were also a lie…I don’t feel like fighting again tonight.”