Captain Garvith, born and bred to die a soldier, stood impassively outside the barred door of my cell, awaiting my salute. Surely, he had better things to do than to await a gesture of respect I had no intention of offering.

As I waited, the sporadic sound of water dripping from a fissure in the far wall had gone from merely annoying to a source of profound irritation. He should be here by now.

Abruptly, Balor the belligerent burst into the main area. “Captain!” he exclaimed, his voice echoing through the hall. “His Holiness is here, in your office!”

Garvith’s gaze remained fixed on me. “Then escort him here,” he commanded with a tone of mockery. “Let him witness firsthand the exemplary paragon she has become!”

It’s about damn time.

Hearing Balor scurry up the stairs like the sniveling rat he was, I rose from my stool with a slow stretch.

Garvith’s eyes narrowed slightly. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked as his voice gave way to an undercurrent of nervousness.

“I am preparing to take my leave,” I responded, glancing up as I heard multiple footfalls from the floor above. “I’m not going to be your problem anymore.”

Catching both anger and delight swirl across his features only strengthened my resolve. We both knew I didn’t belong here. However, he settled on frustration, delivering a forceful kick to the iron door before striding toward the central entrance of the brig as he prepared to receive his incoming guests.

I continued to listen as their footsteps got closer, and I realized someone else was with Relias and Balor. His stride was lengthy, and his steps resounded with a certain heaviness. Relias… brought the damn ox, too? Shit! I don’t want anything to do with him!

“Captain Garvith, I demand an explanation!” Relias shouted as soon as he entered the hallway. “On what grounds have you seen fit to imprison the Chosen One?” Any one of them was more than sufficient, I assure you.

“Insubordination, what else?” the Captain replied with a shrug, blocking his view of the barred window into my cell. “She struck her commanding officer for the third time this month.”

“There must surely be a justifiable cause for her to resort to such drastic measures!” Relias retorted with anger evident in his voice. “I insist that you cease these overly harsh punishments immediately!”

Garvith snorted, moving away from the cell door. “Overly harsh? What, do you expect me to treat her any differently than any other of the soldiers under my command? To do so would be a disservice to everyone here!”

“Your Holiness,” Aleph the Ox-like whispered. “I believe that perhaps a change of scenery may benefit your young ward.”

Relias frowned. “Perhaps you’re correct, but… For the life of me, I cannot think of a single safer place to secure her until she reaches the age of majority. The holy barriers in Chairo are still undergoing repair from the last demonic invasion. Events are just happening too fast this time…”

“Then the solution lies therein,” Aleph responded softly. “She should not linger in any one location for too long. Permit me to shoulder the responsibility of her development and education.” Oh, hell no!

“You, my old friend?” Relias seemed startled. “That would be quite a burden, would it not?”

“Far less burdensome than it would be for you, Your Holiness,” Aleph said with a sigh.

I chewed on my fingernail anxiously for a moment, only to realize how awful it tasted from the grime it was coated in. Wiping at my mouth, I inhaled and announced, “I express my desire to accompany the hybrid ox. There remains little for me to glean within from these narrow-minded men and their narrow confines.” A diversion would be needed, but first, I had to get out of this amity-reducing cell.

“You heard her,” Relias confirmed. “Release her immediately!” That’s right, Relias! Just keep thinking that I’m the victim here; I can do no wrong!

Captain Garvith’s face grew crimson. “Be warned, ox. This one will surely cause trouble the moment you drop your guard.”

“The intelligent ones usually do,” he smiled as a guard handed over the prison door key begrudgingly at Relias’s insistence.

“Garvith,” I uttered as I stepped out of the cell, tossing my head at him.

“That’s Captain Garvith to you!” he retorted.

“Not anymore,” I scoffed as I turned to face Aleph. “You’re tall, even for an ox, aren’t you.”

“Yes, so I’ve been told,” Aleph replied quietly. One of his eyebrows slowly raised as he no doubt took in my vibrant visage: a lanky, filthy young teenager with long, matted hair, wearing an ill-fitting doublet and patched hose. “When exactly was the last time you bathed?” he asked a little too compassionately.

“What’s the point?” I shrugged. “I’m just going to get dirty again.”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“The point, Little Dragon, is to try to keep up with it,” Aleph admonished as he started for the hallway. “Come now, let’s get you properly outfitted for your journey.”

Seven steps. That’s how many I needed to be out of range of the cell’s enchantment radius. The very moment I crossed that invisible threshold, I marshaled my aura and darted around the giant ox, sprinting down the open stone corridor as fast as possible. Two stairways up, then to the left, three doors to the right… By that point, I should be rid of him.

Yet I didn’t even make it down the corridor. A dark lasso ensnared my arms and torso. With a forceful tug, Aleph reeled me back, thwarting my escape attempt and pulling me back into the main room.

“Did you think we’d come unprepared?” Aleph chuckled dryly as he put his hand on my shoulder, still holding the magic rope. “Our first lesson will be to know thine adversary.”

“You obnoxious, overgrown ox,” I shouted in frustration. “I’ll surely make you regret this!”

----------------------------------------

Daylight streamed in through the gap between the bottom of the tent and the ground it rested on. With a giant stretch, I sat up and let out a big yawn. Nora was already awake, paging through her journal.

It took a few minutes for the dream to percolate through my sluggish consciousness. It was one of the clearer ones, where my thoughts were direct and congruent with the actions I was taking. There would be no way to convince myself that that was a chapter in that serialized fiction of events, either. Euphridia would never have made Raelynn look like such an asshole in her stories, regardless of the situation she was in.

Repeatedly striking a commanding officer? Calling Aleph, who had the soul of a saint, obnoxious? Playing on Relias’s sympathies? All while acting like a filth monger?

“Morning!” Nora chirped as she looked up from her journal finally. “How’d you sleep?”

“Mmm… Didn’t wake up once,” I replied with another stretch. “Which reminds me, I’ll be back in a few.” I did drink some tea before bed, after all.

On my way back from my morning ablutions, I ran into Aleph, standing with a few soldiers loading more cumbersome supplies into a few awaiting wagons.

“Good Morning, Little—”

I grabbed him tightly before he could finish his greeting, hugging him for all he was worth. “I’m so sorry!”

“Whatever for?” he asked as he returned the hug.

“Everything,” I sniffled. “I’ve caused you a lot of trouble, haven’t I?”

Aleph chuckled, patting my head gently. “Yes,” he admitted. “However, I believe I have done the same for you as well, so all is in balance.”

He was undoubtedly referring to only my most recent blunders, but I didn’t correct him. Instead, I held onto him for a little longer. “I’ll do better, I promise.”

“You’re already doing so. Let’s get you and Nora something to eat. Relias has already checked the provisions set aside for us,” Aleph replied as he led me over to the mess tent. “We all have another long day ahead of us.”

With two bowls of grainy porridge and a waterskin to share, I returned to our tent.

“Hey Nora…” I started after setting up for breakfast. “Do you think you’ve changed a lot since childhood?”

Nora looked at me with her curious, violet eyes. “I’d like to think I’ve aged like a fine wine…”

“So you were pretty awful at first then too, huh…”

“Excuse me?” she folded her arms. “That’s three now, in less than twenty-four hours. Another, and I’m giving you a yellow card.”

“I think… I might have been a jerk when I was younger,” I sighed as I took a bite of breakfast. Maybe I did deserve to suffer a little. Perhaps this was all Karma. But did I have to drag my best friend into it, too?

“Pfft, you? No way!” Nora waved her hand. “Can’t picture it. Do you remember that old Little Orphan Annie book? The one the toxic trio stuffed in my locker because they thought it was funny?”

“Yeah, I remember…” Nora was adopted, not orphaned! At least, as far as we knew…

“You wouldn’t let me throw it away because you kept saying it wasn’t the book’s fault. Then you said you would keep it as the first gift your best friend ever gave you.”

I shoveled some more food into my mouth. “Uh-huh.”

“And where is that book right now?” Nora asked, arching her eyebrows.

“Third shelf of my bookcase, next to my teapot set,” I affirmed. “But I’m talking before then.”

Nora’s eyes grew wide. “You mean before we met?”

“…Yeah.”

“When you were in the hospital?”

I couldn’t stop staring at my half-empty bowl. “Before that.”

“Oh Rae…” she sighed knowingly. “Tell me about your dream, and let’s just… say it’s just that for now, okay?”

It was getting easier to confess. The idea that I could treat it as a disassociated experience let me hand it off to another for analysis, at least temporarily.

“Adolescent angst,” she concluded.

“Expand on that a little,” I urged. “For us slower ones.”

“Look. Let’s… okay. Raelynn. The Chosen One,” Nora started ticking off faux facts as she spoke. “Told her Purpose at age six…. trained for six years at Fort Turri under the supervision of Captain Garvith. That would put her at age 12, give or take, right? Maybe thirteen… you did say, a young teenager. But anyway…” She straightened up. “Given the environment she was put in and what we know, who could blame her for being a little moody?”

“I— She… she called Aleph an overgrown, obnoxious ox!”

“And?”

“She meant it… Why would she do that?”

“Hormones, angst, depression,” Nora shrugged again. “Take your pick, but it might even be the trifecta.”

“They were just trying to protect her… I think.”

“Well, protection isn’t just physical. I can’t imagine going through that sort of psychological torture. Here, grow up fast so you can kill something no one else can handle! Seems unreasonable if you ask me.”

“But I should just do it if I’m the only one who can, right? What’s the point in wallowing in self-pity and getting mad at others who have nothing to do with it?”

“Ah…” Nora looked around nervously. “We’re starting to take this a little farther than just a dream analysis.”

“I don’t remember anything about my childhood, Nora,” I laid down on my back with a strenuous sigh. “Not a thing before waking up in the hospital… The little bits that made sense on Earth were just cobbled together from the perspectives of others. I kept it vague enough to keep myself out of those tedious day programs. Right now, that dream has the same chance of being true as anything else I’ve come up with.”

Nora didn’t bother to deny my admission. I wasn’t expecting her to, to be honest.

“I’m still not going to call you Raelynn,” she muttered. “I like you better.”

“Well, if that dream was any indication—”

“I like her better, too!” Nora declared. “Better an angry, awkward adolescent than a marionette! At least she had feelings!”

“Very nasty ones,” I agreed.

“I’m telling you, all teenagers feel like that sometimes. But anyway,” Nora paused to flop down beside me. “About yesterday’s events.”

“Yeah?”

“It all made sense, except for one just thing.”

“Only one?”

Nora cleared her throat. “Why did Epiales have a corpse?”

I stared at her to emphasize my ignorance. “Ah?”

“By the Corpse of Epiales!” she declared with a swing of her arm, performing a poor imitation of Captain Corwin’s epithet. “Why a corpse? Aren’t demons spirits that fake a body? Wouldn’t the body disappear if its spirit is destroyed?”

My eyes widened in horror as dawning realization punched me straight in the gut. “We need to talk to Relias right away!”