With a jerk forward, the wagon started to roll down the village road. Rows of village cottages and small businesses passed by as the four of them were taken further into the countryside.

Yurth was a year-round producer of different kinds of berries and gourds, as such was possible in the local climate, which meant that as the village grew smaller in the distance, the area around their group only grew more open and full of hills as it lacked the need for expansive fields.

The Publicani rode in front of the wagon with most of his retinue, minus the exception of two of the armored imperials on horseback who were following from a distance. The wagon they were currently sitting in was unlike any other Kalen had ever seen, and for reasons unknown to him it appeared to be driverless by design.

The two horses pulling it were trained even to the point that they were following behind the Publicani without interference. And in addition, because it was also a windy day and a small conversation likely couldn’t be heard, Kalen felt it was the right time to ask the question that had been at the forefront of his mind.

“Ayana, why did you volunteer yourself into this? Why choose to enslave yourself?”

His stare locked onto the brown-haired girl sitting across from him. Such a question only carried more weight the more one observed the sheer inescapability of their situation. The Publicani’s men surrounded them from all visible angles, and there was nowhere to hide in the open grassland even if they did run.

In Kalen’s mind by doing what she had done, Ayana had doomed herself.

She glared at him.

“Why does it matter to you? Do you think that you had anything to do with it? Are you that conceited?”

Ayana’s voice carried a surprising bite. One that shocked Kalen, given the nature of his question. In his eyes, he was only expressing his concern for the girl who had helped heal him and his sister from their injuries. The work of her along with Breila had made him indebted to them, and Kalen felt terrible to look across the wagon and see one of his saviors tied up alongside him.

Kalen took a moment to think of a response, so instead Ayana’s question was answered by the other occupant of the wagon who was sitting next to her.

The old man leaned over.

“Your mother was too sick, wasn’t she? Did Breila ask you to come?”

The old man who once held the position of village elder asked.

Ayana’s head snapped to him. If the presence of anger in her eyes had been debatable before, then it was clear-cut now.

“Who the fuck asked you? The corrupt village elder?”

Ayana’s voice rose.

PHWWWWIIHIT

Everyone in the carriage looked back to one of the trailing horsemen who had whistled out. His hand wrapped around the pommel of his sheathed weapon in silent threat, telling them to keep quiet.

Ayana paid no heed to the warning, but instead of continuing to yell, her voice broke down. Her body thrashed against the bindings as she let out her emotions on the old man.

“I-I can’t believe I’m here next to you…”

Tears streamed down her face as she covered her eyes.

Kalen frowned as he gave the old man a look of blame. In response the elder just shook his head. As Ayana’s tears started to grow softer, no one in the wagon seemed to have the will to say anything in comfort.

Everyone was in the same situation.

…

Hours passed and at some point, Ayana started to talk again. The atmosphere in the wagon had shed its pressure of inescapability, but it had lost the bit of mournful silence that they had been stewing in.

So Kalen and the old man began to ask questions. With Layla having fallen asleep and the soldiers present behind them, the three kept their voices silent under the sound of the roaring wind.

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“...And her condition, it never improved?”

The old man asked.

“No, she just kept getting sicker and sicker, and since no one understood what she had, it eventually devolved into her pallid color that she had near the end.”

Kalen remembered how Breila’s skin had looked strikingly gray while he was being taken onto the wagon. It was concerning to see it. A shade of gray that belonged only to iron and storms, never to a healthy body.

“And because of that, you–”

“Yes. From that point on I knew that my mother’s life was nearing its end.”

Ayana sniffled, finishing the beginning of Kalen’s sentence.

“And when she died, I wouldn’t have a place in the village anymore, without my mother, someone else from the village would soon come to present their claim over our tavern, and I would have nothing to fight them with.”

The girl uncomfortably rubbed her shoulder. Kalen reeled as he listened more.

To be confronted by the harshness of reality was one thing, as Kalen had somewhat known his village of origin was different from most. But it was another thing to be confronted with things that he didn’t know could even happen.

In the Empire, when someone like Ayana’s mother died, anyone from their village had the right to put forth a claim on their business, given the proper tribute to the lords of the land. Whether that was the church or state didn’t matter, as the result would remain the same.

Kalen shook his head.

The proposition of having a lifetime of work deprived from your descendant’s inheritance just because you were dead seemed like it came from another world altogether. It went without saying, but Willowhearth was not such a place where things like that happened.

But Kalen couldn’t speak to the rest of the kingdom.

“So I volunteered to join this wagon, thinking that it was the best chance to guarantee the safety of the two people my mother took in. It was the last thing I felt really tethered me, and I had never felt at home in Yurth to begin with.”

Ayana glared at the old man. Despite how she had mellowed out in the wagon, her accusations tossed at the once-elder had not faded after the passing of hours.

“I am not the traitor you think I am.”

All eyes went to him.

“The documents were falsified. I know them to be. There were never any such records kept by my family in the village, nor could there have been. Yurth was never wealthy enough to spare money for frugalities like parchment.”

The old man looked around the wagon, searching for ears and eyes sympathetic to his plea. He looked at Kalen, the boy who he had never interacted with before today, and silently sought trust from his odd visage.

Part of Kalen was uncertain, but the other part that had seen his actions before the Publicani’s men wanted to scorn him.

“And you expect us to believe that? Why should we take your word over the empire’s?”

Ayana’s voice questioned. It had less venom in it compared to a few hours ago, but was nonetheless still vacant of faith in the man’s words.

“Because I think you’ll soon come to learn that any word is more credible than those of these ‘soldiers’.”

The old man said, his voice biting back with an unusual tone. Sarcasm, Kalen realized.

“What do you mean?”

The old man nodded to the front of the wagon, leading the eyes of Kalen and Ayana to the horizon past the Publicani. Just beyond the group of horsemen, their caravan was coming up on a hill, with a few objects beginning to crest over it.

Kalen strained his eyes to see what they were.

Spires of iron and wood–eventually revealing themselves to be poles bearing the myriad faces of dozens of flags. As the wagon climbed to the top of the hill, the group in the wagon was finally able to see the encampment that laid before them.

“Verma…”

Ayana gasped.

The flag-bearing spires were only the markings of territory before the walls of a great encampment. Before they could fully take in the view, the sounds of metal cacophony and roaring crowds hit their ears.

Hundreds of armored soldiers laid in the basin before them. Milling about between circular pitched tents and numerous red bonfires, Kalen felt like he was looking into an artificial ecosystem.

Dozens more wagons were hitched in the low-lying field, several that were nearly identical to their own. They were alongside even more horses that were all tied up near the edge of the field.

Most eye-catching of all however, was the population of people who looked to be in the same situation as them.

Kalen started to shake as he looked down into the field, seeing all of the people who were tied at the wrists or in chains.

Being loaded off of wagons, restrained into chained lines, or forced into tents. Some were even put into the middle of a crowd of soldiers, made to fight with their bare hands against one another in the mud. While the onlooking men and women sloshed mugs together and jeered.

Kalen’s face darkened as he saw the future he and the group were heading to. Looking down at the sleeping expression of Layla, who was likely getting the last bits of uninterrupted rest in the days ahead, a deep part of Kalen felt like it was breaking inside.

‘We should have run.’