The lights were still there when Dev woke up the next morning. He looked around, and immediately noticed that his head was feeling substantially better, though his muscles were sore.

Getting up, Dev got dressed and entered the common room, where he found everyone else already up.

“Hey! Good to see you up,” Jay said, “Are you feeling okay? We reheated some of the soup from last night for breakfast.”

Dev yawned. “Yeah, I’m feeling much better.”

He padded over to the table and accepted a bowl of soup from Lucy.

“So, what do we want to do today?”

“We were thinking that we’ll go foraging again if you’re up to it,” Lucy said, “Then maybe we’ll try our hands at getting past the dragons.”

“Sounds good,” Dev said between bites of soup. He went through two more bowls before he started feeling full. “Wow, did y’all add more stuff to this? It tastes better than last night!”

They glanced at each other, then Jay spoke, “No, we didn’t add anything. To be fair, you were kind of out of it last night.”

Dev frowned. He couldn’t afford to let his guard down. His siblings were too dangerous. “Well, I’m up now. When do we leave?”

“Whenever you are ready.”

Dev quickly returned to his room and gathered his bag, water bottle, and knife.

“Okay, I’m ready to go,” he said as he emerged, causing the others to get up with their own supplies.

He led the way out past the dragons and down the mountain in the late morning light. As he did, he outlined the plan. “When we get down, we’ll spread out. Jay and Lucy, you search about twenty feet to either side, I’ll teach Michael. Actually, Michael, do you know how to forage?”

“Not really. I’ve been camping, but nothing survival-oriented.”

“Then I’ll get you up to speed,” Dev said. It didn’t surprise him, plenty of people only camped for fun and needed to learn how to do it properly.

When they reached the trees, they immediately split up as Dev had said, Lucy branching to the right, and Jay branching left with a glance back.

“Okay, so what you’ll want to look for—” Suddenly, Dev was interrupted as he heard a scream. Looking over, he saw Lucy on her knees in front of a dark figure.

“Hey,” he shouted, running over, Jay and Michael close behind. “What are you doing?”

As he got close, he saw that it was a boy wrapped shoddily in black cloth. In his new essence sight, the boy radiated darkness.

The boy looked up. “Kneel!” he demanded, unleashing an axiom that demanded obedience.

Dev stumbled, before righting himself. Even as he did so, he saw both Michael and Jay fall out of the corner of his eye.

The boy seemed surprised.

“What right does vermin like you have to stand between me and my love?”

“Fuck off, Axel,” Lucy snarled, surprising him. She had not been nearly so hostile for the last two days he’d known her, other than when he’d first arrived.

“You wound me, dear maiden. But neither this simpleton nor your father can get between us. I unlocked an aspect and an axiom for you!”

Dev mentally cursed, then looked at Lucy. “Lucy, do you know this idiot?”

“He’s a stalker,” Lucy spat out, getting up as Axel spluttered, “He’s been following me around since I rejected him at my fifteenth birthday party.”

“How hasn’t he been caught?”

“He’s not completely stupid, despite how he looks. He wouldn’t come close around my family.”

“But without the governor here, nobody is getting in our way,” Axel exclaimed happily.

“What does the governor have to do with anything?”

Axel looked at him and laughed. “Do you not know who you are with? That she was born higher than you’ll ever reach? Tell him of your father, my angel from beyond the stars.”

Lucy hesitated, and said, “My father is the Imperial Governor, Dev.”

Now it was Dev’s turn to splutter. The governor?

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

He heard Jay behind him cough, then say, “So when you said your dad got a new job here…” He trailed off.

“Yes, he was appointed by the empire to oversee the world when the last governor died.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” she said, bitterly.

“But they don’t matter now, Lucy! We can go off together, free of their weight!” Axel said, his eyes shining.

“You’re not going anywhere with her, you B-grade horror movie reject!”

Axel looked at him, and Dev got the feeling he was curling his lip at him beneath the wrappings. “What are you going to do to stop me? Kneel!”

Dev felt a wave of demanding tyranny wash over him again but stood firm even as the others fell behind him. “No.”

Axel snapped, and dark essence started leaking out of him as he charged Dev.

Dodging, he cursed, then said to his companions, “Y’all get back out of his range. I’ll deal with lover boy.”

Axel roared, coming at him again as Dev retreated, trying to draw him away from the others.

“You're not worthy of her, you bastard!”

Dev ignored him, intent on creating distance as Axel chased him. He had tried striking him at first, but between his emergency beacon beeping a warning at him and Axel’s oppressive axiom, he quickly switched to trying to tire him out.

Damn it, how far can he run? He chanced a glance behind him and saw that Axel was only twenty feet behind him. I need to find a way to beat him.

Dev strained his mind, wracking his brain for ideas. With the emergency becon, the only thuing that can stop him is exhaustio or environmental hazards. Suddenly, an idea popped into his head. And if he remembered correctly, it was just up ahead. He just needed to make sure that Axel followed him.

“I’ll love her no matter what, Axel,” Dev shouted, pulsing his axiom to hit Axel in the face with his will.

“You take that back! I’m going to break you!”

Dev redoubled his pace, Axel quickly following after. Dev rushed through the trees alongside the path, and when he saw some familiar landmarks, he started yelling again, but not to Axel.

“Hey! I’ve come to steal your blueberries again! Try and stop me! And after that, I’ll burn the whole forest down!” He pulsed his axiom again, hoping the creature that stalked them the previous day was still hanging around.

He reached the clearing, and nearly froze as he saw a deer skull emerge from the trees opposite the bush. The skull was a clean white, and surrounded a nest of vines hanging from the antlers, which transitioned into a humanoid torso fused with the legs of a goat.

Leshy. The name popped into Dev’s head, but he didn’t remember much of anything about them.

The leshy spotted him and roared, causing Dev to run to the side, just in time for Axel to run into the clearing and hit the blueberry bush. The leshy’s eyes snapped to him, and Dev saw a green gleam underneath the eyesockets of the skull.

Unfortunately, his brilliant plan was put to the test when Axel dodged in the same direction as him, and the leshy followed immediately after on all fours.

Shit! He thought, as he immediately doubled down on his run once more. Now he had two things chasing him. Then he felt Axel pulse his axiom, and it got worse.

The leshy stumbled, then roared, releasing an axiom of its own, the sovereignty of the wild washing over them. They stumbled in turn, before continuing, Dev in the lead, with Axel close behind him.

They ran down the mountain, which transitioned to a slow jog, then a fast walk as they dragged out over several hours.

Dev saw signs of several other groups on the mountain, including a pair of tents pitched at the stone pillar he had encountered and guessed was an inheritance.

As they slowed down, Dev started grabbing plants as he passed them, especially once he was out of range of either’s axiom. Better to let them exhaust each other.

Towards nightfall, Dev saw that Axel had fallen behind the leshy, and froze, before looking around for ideas. If he didn’t have the leshy at his back, who was to know how far he’d keep going? Then he saw the leshy stumble. Forest spirit it may be, but it wasn’t immune to exhaustion, and they had already made it down an entire, albeit small, mountain

Dev pulsed his axiom and barely got a response from either of his pursuers. He pushed on, and soon, he saw Axel stumble off to the side of the path to rest.

This would be the perfect time to escape

He quickly found a sturdy tree, climbing it quickly. Once up, he dug into a ration bar and the plants he had managed to forage. With a quick gulp of water, he settled in for whatever rest he could get.

------

The next morning, Dev woke by nearly falling out of a tree. It wasn’t light out yet, but he climbed down the tree anyway, his head feeling like it was full of cotton. Not far away, he could see the collapsed leshy. He carefully walked around and collected more greens, squinting to see through the darkness.

As dawn approached, Dev pulsed his axiom and shouted, “Come on, the chase doesn’t stop because you get sleepy! How will you earn Lucy’s love if you give up now?”

It wasn’t his best taunt ever, but it clearly worked as both Axel and the leshy startled awake.

The chase started up again, but as they ran, the leshy started feeling less and less domineering in its axiom. After around fifteen minutes of this, they started going uphill again, climbing through the valley between two of the smaller mountains. Dev turned to look behind him and froze as he saw Axel shout, and the leshy stumbled one last time before rolling onto its back, submitting to him. Axel approached it, commanding sharply, “Get up and carry me…”

His last words were lost to the wind, as Dev took off at a dead sprint.

By the time the two caught up to him, he was approaching a new section of the trail, where a swift-flowing river ran alongside it.

Sorry guys, I can’t distract him any further. Hopefully, this is far enough.

Dev reached for the emergency beacon around his neck. Nothing happened. Shit, how do I activate this thing? Do I activate it? *Bleep*, Warren never said. I don’t want to need to get hurt to activate it.

Dev cast around for more options as he ran, and spotted his next option upriver, where a group had pitched tents in front of a waterfall. Sorry, random people. You’ll make a good distraction.

“If you can’t even catch me, why do you deserve Lucy’s love?” he threw over his shoulder even as he sprinted for the camp by the waterway, followed by Axel’s scream of rage.