“Excuse me!” Pedr shouted, sweeping his way through the crowd with Belch attached to his hand. He pulled her with little regard for her comfort, at times yanking her roughly. She couldn’t believe it when Pedr told her. “Out of my way!”

Every single one of her instincts pushed her to accept Pedr’s plea to escape. She struggled to come up with a valid reason for why she felt so pressured into taking this step. Yet she grinned anyway, unsure of the road ahead, knowing life can get so much better than this.

He pulled her through the crowd, slowly departing from the center stage. Aidan’s speech had only recently ended, and everyone was on their way home. The merchants and vendors, too, packed their wares up and prepared to leave with their carriages.

Belch did her best to keep up—not to be dragged along—in an effort to expedite their escape. Pedr promised two carriages in the color blue would provide her with the freedom he entailed.

But what even was freedom? She didn’t understand. Rather, she didn’t get the point. It would be the second time in a single season, her life flipped upside down. First, she was a beast. Next, she was a weapon. And who knows what Soucrest had planned for her.

Are those the ones? Belch thought, looking ahead down the street to see two carriages that could be blue. It was hard to tell in the dark, with only street lamps and dim, colorful lights bleeding into the civilian-infested street. As the moon started to rise, another tint of green blended in with the dark.

“Watch where you’re going!” a passerby hissed at Pedr. He shrugged them off, continuing his pursuit.

Pedr stopped, peering through the crowd. “That’s it,” he said, turning to Belch with a smile. “We’re close.”

She nodded, following him anxiously.

When they arrived, Pedr knocked on the door. Immediately, they were greeted by the same man who stuck the letter in Belch’s pocket and stole her card. He now wore a mask over his face, but Belch recognized him by his brown eyes, short stature, and long hair. “Come in,” he said, helping Pedr up into the carriage. “Make yourself a ‘ome.”

Belch jumped in, and another closed the door behind them. The carriage started to pull off the street, and they moved about as slow as they walked on the road.

“Thank you,” Pedr said. “For coming for us. I… didn’t believe you would.”

The man waved in dismissal. He walked to the barrels near the back, pulling out two bottles of water, tossing them both to Pedr and Belch. “Are you ‘ungry?”

“Excuse me?” Pedr asked, pulling the cap off his water. He downed the bottle as fast as it could pour out.

“’Ungry,” he said. “Ahem. H—hungry.”

“Ahh,” Pedr said. He waved his hand flat. “No, I’m fine. What about you?” He turned to Belch.

Belch grabbed at her stomach, feeling it rumble. It was time for dinner. Before she could say yes, the man tossed her a small, green bag of chips. She ripped it open at the top, pouring some in her hand. The chips were wavy, tasting of salt and cheap potato.

It didn’t make for a proper meal but a binge-worthy snack. Still, with nothing else to eat, she devoured it all without mercy—all the while proving why they called her Belch.

When she finished, she looked at the bag, not with hunger but guilt. Damn her name; she had always despised it. But she had nothing better to be called. What else could she be called? Belch was a name that fit her well. Too well. Hating the name was like hating herself.

“So you’re both from Soucrest?” Pedr asked.

The thief nodded, sitting down on the bench across from them. The other, who hadn’t spoken once since they boarded into the back, sat quietly looking out the window outside to the street. From inside their mask, Belch spotted something peculiar. Yellow eyes.

“I like your eyes,” Belch said, cupping her mouth instantly.

The masked person gasped, a hint of femininity in her voice. Her eyes pulsed from behind the mask, glistening. “W-what?”

Belch flushed. She instinctively turned to Pedr beside her, giving her a gaze that said, Did I do something rude again?

“No one’s ever said that before,” she responded. She wore a square-shaped stone hanging from a silver string over her chest. She pressed her hand against it before looking at Belch. “Why did you say that?”

“I’m sorry,” Belch said, scratching the top of her head. “I didn’t mean anything bad by it.”

The short man laughed. “Don’t ‘orry about her, kid. Her name is D-Delta.” He spoke her name, ensuring he didn’t mispronounce it with the quirk of his speech. “And my ‘ame is S-Slater.”

Delta nodded. She turned to Belch. “I like your eyes too.”

Belch lowered her brows. “No one’s ever said that to me before either. They say the opposite, usually.”

Delta nodded her head. “The same goes for me.”

“Why?” Belch asked. “Are you… a beast too?”

Slater laughed, and Delta looked at him critically.

Delta sighed. “Don’t call yourself a beast!” she snapped.

Belch was taken aback by the sudden tone shift in her voice. Delta looked down, annoyed.

“If you have yellow eyes,” Pedr noted. “You must be an elf, is that correct?”

Delta nodded.

“So all of Gemkind are in the back of a carriage; I never thought I’d see the day,” Pedr laughed.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“An elf…” Belch said. They were supposed to be rude, more vicious than the beasts. “But your eyes are cool.”

Delta gasped again. She pulled off her mask, with her ears immediately popping out from the black hood attached. Her skin was a tad less pale than Belch’s but not too far off; the closest Belch had ever seen to her own. They also shared the same black hair, with hers shorter by only a few inches. Still, it was long enough to go up and over her shoulders to lay over the center of her uniform.

“And now you’re smiling?” Delta asked with a frown.

She cut the smile to a line. “Sorry,” she bowed her head down. Delta laughed in front of her, prompting Belch to lift her head. To Delta’s right, Slater looked horrified.

“Is there something wrong?” Belch asked.

Slater hesitated, clearing his throat. “I’ve… never seen ‘er laugh before.”

Delta settled down, extending her hand out. Belch accepted it. “The name’s Delta. And you? I got mixed signals about your name. What should I call you?”

Belch paused. “I have two, or three, depending on if you count my number.”

“Your number?” Delta blinked.

Belch waved away her hair above her eyes, showing the green tattoo on her forehead, Nine-Thirty-Seven. “But normally, I’m called on by either Vessel by Aidan, or more commonly, Belch by my peers, the other beasts.”

“Where did they find the name Belch?”

“They gave it to me,” Belch explained, “after I burped after one of my first meals in the beast camp. It stuck ever since.”

“Well,” Delta said, fondly holding her hand. “I’m not going to call you either of those.”

Belch frowned. “Really?”

“Of course not!” Delta turned her head, bringing her hand back into her lap. “I’m not a tyrant, so I won’t call you Vessel. Neither you nor I am beasts, so a ‘beast’s name’ just won’t work for me, so Belch is out of the question. And you, sweet girl, are not an object, so I won’t call you by a number either.”

Belch couldn’t help but smile. This elf girl in front of her… got it. She got it all! It felt like she understood. The words Belch always wanted to hear were right in front of her.

“I didn’t know you hated that name,” Pedr said. Guilt spelled like letters on his face.

Belch looked at him with her smile holding together like glue.

“You always responded to Belch… I’m sorry if that was the wrong way to approach you all this time.”

“It’s okay,” Belch said. “I have many names I’m called, and I respond to all of them. But… I never had a name I could truly call my own. Belch is the closest thing I have, but… it’s not good enough. For me, anyway.”

Delta nodded, agreeing. She beamed a smile. “How old are you?”

“I don’t know,” Belch said. “Sixteen? Seventeen? Somewhere around there?”

“Practically an adult. When we get to Falcon Hill, I’ll need to introduce you around. You can’t enter a city that big without a friendly introduction. But, I suppose Ryuso isn’t that far off, in terms of size…”

“What’s it like in Soucrest?” Belch asked.

“The cities? Or the kingdom in general?”

“Everything!”

“Well,” Delta paused. Her fingers snapped. “There are a lot of plains, a lot of flowers scattered about. The cities are big, and the people are always seemingly happy. It sounds too wonderful to be true, I know, but it simply is for the most part. There will always be bad days, even when the sun is out. But more often than not, the kingdom is happy.”

“Flowers!” Belch said, perking up, palming her hands around her knees. She tugged at her shirt, gesturing to its color. “Are there any that are colored purple? I’m looking for a certain kind.”

“There are many,” Delta smiled.

Belch frowned.

“What’s wrong?”

“So many, you can’t tell me the one I’m looking for, can you?” It was like she heard that somewhere before.

Delta reached for her hand. “We’ll find it when we get back, alright?”

Belch smiled genuinely. She barely knew Delta, but in minutes after meeting her, she already felt as comfortable around her as she felt with Pedr after a week or two of them spending hours together, studying and testing. They were bonding over what felt like nothing, and it simply worked. She felt like she had the friendliness of Kiba, only if Kiba didn’t lure one along for the sake of his stupid jokes.

Pedr tapped his foot on the ground. “How can this carriage support me?”

That’s right! Belch thought, realizing that Pedr couldn’t come with her on her carriage ride into Dormoor. So why now? He had joked about crushing a horse by simply riding it before.

“We have warhorses pulling this carriage,” Delta said.

“Warhorses? Aren’t they pretty hard to control?”

“We have a good stable master,” Delta said. “It isn’t only horses she can tame either. She can make bears juggle, and lions sing—literally.”

Pedr frowned.

“What’s a lion?” Belch asked.

She received a laugh from everybody in the carriage. Rarely had others' laughter hurt quite as it did there. She felt stupid, surrounded by their apparent joy in her naive question.

“An animal that doesn’t sing,” Pedr said with a grin. “An animal that would rather bite your head off than string their vocals to a tune.”

Slater looked out the hole through the front, past the driver. Delta stood up to join him. Belch couldn’t see much from her angle, but she saw the wall of the eastern gate in view, meaning they were close. Unlike the rest of the chain-link fence perimeter, solid stone reinforced this gate with tall, heavy wooden doors that were pushed open and pulled closed. As Pedr described it, it made for easier expansion to have fences demolished rather than heavy brick.

“We are approaching the exit,” Delta said. She turned to Slater. “You may have to leave and retrieve the others.”

Slater nodded. He turned to the back door, but he heard a loud, obnoxious knock before he reached for the knob. He opened the door, and a body flew inside the carriage before a girl jumped in and slammed the door shut.

“Quin?” Slater hesitated. “What’s ‘oing on?”

The body thrown inside started groaning. “They’re all gone…” the boy said, blood seeping out of his knees.

“What?” Delta asked. “Vason and Meek? What happened? Dean, explain!”

Dean turned over on his back, looking up. He looked on the verge of speaking, but he trailed off, snapping his eyes shut and grabbing his head in agony.

Quin stepped up. “They were captured,” she said. “A man in a white mask grabbed both of them. Somehow… he teleported them or something. It’s not exactly clear what happened. I barely managed to save Dean. We have to go!”

“No,” Delta said softly.

Kiba? Belch thought, worried. Right, they wouldn’t want to lose me this easily.

“What do you—”

“Mason,” Delta said. “We have to wait for him.”

“He’s dead,” Dean whispered from the ground. “Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.”

“No,” Delta denied. “Surely you’re mistaken—”

“DEAD!” Dean bellowed.

“We have to go. Now.” Quin demanded.

“I can’t believe it,” Delta said. She sank into the bench. “I won’t believe it.”

The only one who stood was Quin, looking the strongest out of everyone in the back. More confident, understanding in what was wrong. She rushed to the back, speaking to the driver. “You’re going to have to hurry it up. We can’t stay here much longer.”

“Right,” the driver said from the other side. “Going as fast as we feasibly can.”

“I’m ‘oing to inform Kylo about this,” Slater said, standing and walking to the door in the back, twisting the handle and slipping out.

Delta looked frightened, terrified like the world came crashing down on her. How many names did Quin say were lost? Three? All gone. All because they came for Belch?

“I’m sorry,” Belch said.

Delta looked with sorrowful eyes. Her eyes matched Belch’s own.

“I’m responsible for this. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have come here, right? I’m sorry. I really am a monster.”

Delta shook her head. “It’s not you I’m upset at. It’s them! They were stupid enough to die on such a simple mission!”

“Vason and Meek aren’t dead,” Quin said, finally joining the bench to the left of Pedr. “At least, not yet. Not that we know of”

“Then we are found,” Delta scoffed. “They’ll torture them. They’ll get the information they need to indict us. We’ll lose our jobs, be exiled! Our lives are over…”

Belch and the rest were speechless.

“What the hell?” the driver said from the front. “This isn’t good!

Everyone’s head snapped to the rectangular window outside. Belch hurried to the window, arriving after Quin and Delta sprung toward it, their heads peering out to see the giant wooden doors pulling to a close. It shut, and a shockwave shook the carriage beneath them. Confusion could be heard all over, from within the carriage to the outside street, as people started panicking.

The shaking stopped first for Belch but hadn’t yet ceased for Delta as she clenched her stone necklace, retreating to seat herself on the bench. “What are we going to do?”