The cloak felt homespun and soft, making a surprisingly good blanket. With it beneath me when I fell asleep, I woke up feeling more rested and less stiff. And though today had a chill breeze, the cloak kept it at bay, though when it did get through it was welcome. The sun was clouded over today, and with the world in shade, I found the day more bearable. I tried to avoid thinking of the day before but found it hard with a dead man's cloak and daggers on my body. At times I can still feel the sticky, warm blood on my body, see it flash through the air. 

My stomach rumbles as I walk along the road. Grimacing, I remember the hare above the fire. I haven't eaten in a day, revolted by the game after killing men but now I'm reconsidering. The whole thing had opened me up to the world I was avoiding, or at least wasn't giving thought. That there would be bandits- Onkira wasn't a paradise and the western world was the tamest in a way. I had ignored the fact that I'd have to kill, and just focused on running. Running from everything, myself, my past, home...

I forgot that what I am really trying to do is survive. I've spent too long caught up with myself that I ignored where I am- it's time to change my views. Even after killing five men, I still left my feelings get to me, refusing to eat my own food. And now for the day, I'm going hungry, all because I was too weak. Too weak to see reality, too weak to accept it. There would be bandits, Reavers, Raiders, and worse. And patrols, there would always be patrols damn the Skies. I had forgotten, Kara seems so big when you leave y=one city that I'd forgotten in this space there would still be patrols. I'm still a fool. 

Twirling my haft as I look back on every moment I've had to fight, I realize that I've been lucky. The Vovess was already wounded when I fought it, already near death. The red Assasin wasn't ready for the power I had when I fought him, and I wasn't either. I didn't even know it was there, and I still can't control it. The way it faded when the Caster was crippled... like it's a defense reaction, not something I have a hand in. It's..how did the merchants say it... passive? It's passive. I can't really on that every time, what if I do something wrong and it doesn't come? Even when I fought the bandits, I was lucky again. The archers back was turned, Hulin didn't see me and the hunter didn't take me seriously even though I killed two of his teammates. If they were aware before things started... Even with my new strength and speed, the tanned warrior would have killed me by himself. And if the Caster was any good with these daggers and tried for close combat... I wouldn't be here. 

Too many ifs, what's done is done. What is apparent now is that I need to be stronger, need to train. How? No one would train me, and I have no idea how to train by myself. Things are already going wrong. I still don't know where I'm going, just know its somewhere north and east, somewhere away from Kara. I hadn't run into any patrols yet, but I would soon and if they knew a soul eater was leaving Captin City, I might be found. There was no good excuse to a boy on his fifteenth nameday to be walking around with weapons and blood-stained clothes. I couldn't even think of a good lie, and I lie well. The fact remains, I do still need to get stronger, no matter how I feel about the way things are. And that meant practice. Slamming my spear haft through my belt loop, I looked up the road. Nothing but the pass and the green that surrounds it, as far as the horizon goes. Turning, I saw nothing behind me either. Running down the path, the sun beat down without clouds now, pulling sweat from my arms as I pumped and down my forehead. The dust of the path pulled with me as I finally saw a tree off the path, forty spans away. 

Running to the tree, I removed my cloak and placed it next to its trunk, taking out my daggers and holding them blade down. The shade of the low hanging branches helps balance the sun, creating an imperfect shade beneath the tree. Walking to the trunk, I placed my left against it as I used the blade in my right to score the trunk in vital places. The neck, the head, the gut. Stepping back, I take a deep breath and practice twirling the knives between my fingers, dropping them twice. 

As fast as I could, I lunged forward, slashing against the trunk in the marks I scored for aim, trying to cut as fast while as deep as possible. At first, the cuts were shallow, but as I focused the blades moved deeper through the bark, and as I pulled my wrist the sound of wood splitting became slightly louder. The sound of metal against the wood was uneven, yet didn't have any attachment to it. It wasn't satisfying, it wasn't grating; it was just there, and allowed me to work tirelessly. Staying low, as I've heard daggermen fight, I cut at the tree until my shoulders ached and sweat ran down my back and face, think of the tan man with the longsword as he inched it to my throat. 

I stepped back from the tree, feeling along the cuts in its bark, looking at the placement. Happy to see that most of the cuts stayed on the scored places on the tree. Sliding the knives back into the loop again, I flexed my had and back to work the muscle. Since leaving the town, where I worked on lumber every day, cutting and sawing and moving wood. After that, the only work I did was walking every day, and the occasional climbing a tree out of boredom or desperation. And hunting of course, but two days before I had been robbed I managed to lose all the rocks I had for my sling, which is why I left it there. Now however, I needed to find quickly and wouldn't trust going to a farm or off map village for fear of being hunted. As far as I've known, they haven't found anything that could lead them to me, and I'm guessing that is because there hasn't been a lead on me, seeing as I traveled on an extremely fast horse off the roads. But now I have none of that, staying away from people became necessary. No person without some serious power would deny a Grim, and all it would take is one question for a commoner to tell what they knew. Peasants walking around the open kingdom don't pass by too often, making me easy to remember. No matter is this fleeting power in the face of a true Grim, I'd be killed in seconds. Avoiding notice seemed easier said than done, however, as hunger gnawed at me from the inside. Pulling my cloak back over my shoulders, I resolve myself to finding a way to get food as I walk back upon the main path. 

---

The road seemed to continue forever, curving back and forth for what looks like no reason. I walked with my spear haft held in my right hand, giving me a sense of comfort and I passed over the smooth and dusty path. The uneven grasses and weeds seemed a darker green than before, but maybe that was because the sun pulled its clouds over itself again. The day looked like it is getting darker, and the road seems like it's getting longer, and my doubt is getting stronger. The fact that I still don't know where exactly I am going is digging into me. I hope that eventually I'll find a place to rest, and maybe a map or a person that can point me into a direction of a place where I can live freely. The Freelands are to the east I know, but the distance is not something I can fully understand. But either way, I'll have to leave this region.

I look up at the gray sky that is still bright through the clouds as I thought. A number of people stay in the same region their entire lives, surrounded by the same rivers. The true rivers of Onkira are not like I've heard other rivers to be- they are several miles across, and have had entire naval battles fought on them. Many are wider than lakes, and travel the entirety on Onkira, crossing over each other to create lands that are separated by these rivers. The lands between them are known as regions, and unless you live in the smallest regions- such as Hadons region, which I would have traveled the width of by now and is only big enough to fit that small Kingdom- many never leave their regions, due to the size and the nature of the other regions. Most Kingdoms are always at war with one another, and all regions have predators over the span of their large terrain. 

However, when the first human explorers came into Onkira, in order to get to the other regions they built the famed Mage Arches- bridges that spanned the entirety of the width over the rivers, miles long and always a mile wide. Though they weren't just built by Mages alone, they were always magically made, and tales say that they could take weeks to build. I never thought I would see them, but staying in this region within reach of the Kara Kingdom, on flat plains, gave me no place to have and many to die. To leave, one has to travel a Mage Arch. 

To think that I would be so lucky. Walk across a Mage Arch... history that has stood for a true thousands of years, and has never broken nor cracked, not a single one. A peasant, an outcast, walks across the Mage Bridge to an entirely different region... a different world. Sighing and swinging my spear hard to the side, I realized that this was all on ht assumption that I made it there alive. That I could make it anywhere alive. There was no benefit to being hunted, and I don't really know that there could be. Now I see that I wasn't listening to even myself; I think of walking into a town for direction yet avoid a farm out of fear for being caught. I need a better mind. 

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

A soft sound in the distance catches me- voices. Looking up, I see guards walking down the road to me, only thirty spans away. There look to be two of them, both in Karan Cuirasses with I'm sure had a purple emblem on the breast. Both had a sword on their hip, while one seemed to be left-handed and the other right. No, there are three of them. The other is walking behind them but shorter and has a sword on his right hip as well. None are wearing a helm, but when I see the cross-bolt strapped to the hip of the shorter man I break out in sweat. I had no need of attacking them either way and bringing more attention to myself was not something I was in any way interested in. Yet I knew that they could know of a man on his leave form Kara, a soul eater to kill on sight. Two leathered guards were most certainly a problem by themselves, and both trained. They would also be prepared, I had no chance of catching them off guard while walk towards their front. And beyond that, one hit from a crossbow is death, a crippling blow regardless which would mean death. Keeping my head low and eyes down maybe my best chance of passing unnoticed. Sliding my spear haft into the back of the belt loop within my cloak, I walked quicker than I wanted to as we neared, ready to leave them behind. I considered pulling my hood up but decided against it, thinking of how they would look at me. As I neared, I heard their voices as they talked about some brothel near the Third Watch, musing about taverns, girls, and ale. As I walk to their left, the one closest to me glances at my face before turning back to his friend. Just as I reach his side, he looks back at me again and reaches his hand out and grabs my arm. I feel fear swell through me as I stand there, waiting for him to say something. His friends stop in, the shuffling of their steps paused as they look back. 

"What are you doing out here kid?" His voice is gruff, and as I look him level in his brown eyes he lets go of my arm and squints at me. "Who're you traveling with?"

"Idiot, do you see anyone round here?" His friend looks at me, eyes moving up the cloak and breeches. I feel tense and try to relax, but it doesn't work. "Who'd you steal that shit from?"

"I didn't steal it, " My body starts working again and I take a step back. "They were already done with it." My hand closes into a fist as I think of the people that I killed, and I want to grab my knives. 

The short man moves over to poke his buddy and point to my clothes, and his eyes narrow as his hand falls to his hilt "So who'd you kill for 'em?" The man closest to me looks at me as I open my more to deny it, and his tone and body becomes hostile as his hand also falls to his hilt. "With 'em, bloodstains on that cloak, ain't no way somebody ain't dead."

"People die all the time, " I say in irritation, but when his hand reaches out and backhands across my face with a strong smack I realize that there's no way I can create a good lie in time enough for me to get out of this. "They were already dead." This wasn't a lie, they had already died when I took this off of them. 

"Already dead?" The man closest to me seemed happy to do most of the talking. "How'd that come about?" 

I looked away from them. "When Captin was attacked, my family was killed, and I didn't want to stay. The people were dead when I took this off of them before I left, and I've been walking on the road to get anywhere."

They looked at each other, then looked back at me."Captain was attacked? When? How bad was the damage?" Looking at them, I saw the bundles on their backs for the first time and realized that if they left the watch before the attack then there is a strong chance they would have never got the news. And thinking of the distance and how little people would stop at another farm, even if they did go to a farm to stay for the night, not many people would know. "The town was burned, a lot of people died. I'm not sure what else there was. " That also means that there was no way they could know about me, so I don't have to worry about them know ing who I am. "Can I go now?" 

"Why are you traveling alone? There's a village three days from Captin and another two days from that one. Ain't a boy gon travel alone like this. You ought to come with us, stay safe on the road."

"I'm fine. I'll travel alone. " I turned away and started down the road again but swear I could hear him open his mouth. "Leave him," one of his friends said, and turned back down the path, "We've got to get back to Captin." 

I walked away without turning back, and the tension left my body slowly. Hearing the guards talk as they walked from me, I felt assured that they had more to worry about than me. At the moment I was just happy that they left me alone, and felt good that I had nothing else to worry about. Well nothing to worry about in this moment, nothing beyond being hunted across the kingdom by people who could kill me in seconds. But as far as I knew, I would be fine if I stayed away and out of sight. 

Then again I as I pull my spear haft out of my cloak, I suppose I don't know much. 

---

The caravan coming down the road is kicking up more dust than I thought one could, and it clouded the road at their feet and the horizon behind them. When I was stopped by the guards yesterday, I hoped that I would get a break, a rest. But the caravan seemed armored, and on the top of the middle wagon, a person sat cross-legged with a large crystal chain wrapped around his next- the only casters Kara.  In shock, I moved back into the grasses and found a bush off the road. The Karan slave might be able to sense me- the Grims used to use them on missions during their raids, and hunt out people who could do what I can do. And slaughter them in droves. As the horses dragged the three wagons closer, I saw that the man had a staff across his lap, and his eyes moved across the grass plains slowly. The other men around them walked in full Karan armor, the foremost with a purple cloak on his shoulders. I prayed that they would turn down the left path but as the first wagon passed it I knew that my chances were low. The path was only forty spans away- and there was a woman. Standing there, with a staff in hand and a sword on her hip. If she saw me, it could be a problem. I couldn't risk her seeing me and wondering why I was hiding in a bush as the kingdom caravan passed by. 

The caravan pulls closer as I push myself between the branches, and when the leader looks in the direction I've hidden I stop moving. The first wagon passes with the purple cloaked man leading, most likely a Captin or someone of rank. As the first wagon passed the dust kicked into the air, and I squinted through the dust as it fell... and the caster was looking me in the eyes. Or at the bush, his head turning as the wagon pulled up alongside and past it, riding into the distance. As the last wagon moved forward, I looked past it to see the woman walking as well, and stopping in the dead center of the road, putting her staff into the ground. She had on a tunic of shorts that came down to her mid thigh and had on light brown breeches. A bundle was on her back, strapped over with a rope. She had on black boots and had small and thin gray streaks running through her hair. And she simply stood in the road, watching the wagons roll past. The Caster did nothing as he passed and eventually turned back toward the front, watching silently with his hand on his staff. 

As the sounds of them going faded, she stood there still and spoke not a word. "What did you have to do to think that you would be seen by a Royal caravan?" I didn't respond and tried to stay completely still but for my hand slipping to my dagger. "I can see you there, and hear you as well. Come out, I don't need to kill you." How did she know? I can't even hear myself. 

I stood slowly, dagger in hand. "Who are you?"

She turned her head to look at me as I held my daggers out in front of me. "You're trying to leave the Kingdom, aren't you? " A smile faintly touched her lips. "You don't know what you're doing, and we happen to be going the same way. Come with me."

I stepped slowly onto the road, trying to find a way out. "How did you know? Why should I trust you?"

Her eyes squinted slightly as her head followed me. "Because I know what you can do."