Chapter 3. The Escape

[Borders of Askavan, Human Territory, 3 days before the auction]

Cataleia found herself in the docks of Askavan by daylight. The soles of her feet were worn and bloody from running without footwear. Her dress was muddied and her face was blackened from hiding in the furnaces of every home she had sought refuge in.

The folks of Askavan knew who Cataleia was by her dress. The nightgown was only given by the governor to his wife or to his concubines. And everybody knew what being a concubine of the governor felt like.

So with what little they could do, they offered to hide Cataleia until she was in the borders, and from there, she was to figure out what she must do to not be caught.

Tarpaulins of her bounty were posted across every bulletin board and post in the streets. Cataleia needed a shift of appearance in order to live another day. Orders had given her clothes to wear, but the girl refused to accept, justifying herself as: ‘she didn’t want to be caught like a coward.’

Cataleia was infamous because of her father.

Sir Raighlei Reiss, a knight of the Kingsguard, was a commander and a leader. However, he was banished and stripped from his noble title after failing to defend a certain city in the south, near the borders of the Valley of Ghouls, Kei’zha. The reason for his dismissal was incompetence.

Labelled as the ‘Daughter of the Failed Knight,’ their family was stripped of their lands and wealth, and the once lady – Cataleia Evangelya Reiss – had now become nothing more than a maid.

The governor took notice upon her exotic beauty during her father’s funeral, which was held by the palace. Sir Reiss, despite loathed by the Mother Queen, was pardoned with respect by the young king of the Human Territory.

But it wasn’t very long that Cataleia learned how to snap.

She had killed the governor and brought calamity upon herself after she had done the deed. There was no more turning back.

At this moment, she was the enemy of Askavan.

“Girl! Over here!” a voice beckoned her to come from a bakeshop near the docks. Cataleia squinted her eyes and throttled toward the shop, all wiggly from her exhausting journey. Her lips were crusted and she was pale as the white sand of the beach that stretch ahead of them.

Wobbling, Cataleia was caught by the baker just in time before she collapsed to the ground. “You oughta wake up a lil longer, michild,” the baker said. “Your daddy not gon’ be proud to see you wilting like that.”

Cataleia fought to open her eyes. “Sir… Wilhelm?”

“Uncle Wilhelm, michild.” He shook her. “Come inside. I’ll hide you for a bit.”

The poor girl was brought into the home of Sir Wilhelm Reiss, also a former knight but now retired, her uncle.

Wilhelm spanned his rich blue eyes across the dock and checked if there were suspicious eyes fixated on him and his niece. He could see some, in the form of simple commoners who pretended to blend in the commonfolk and speaking to bargaining fishermen.

Wilhelm gritted his teeth and brought back the girl into his small hut in the sands.

At evening, Cataleia regained her consciousness and found her uncle stirring a pot outside. The night had already fallen and the hours grew only more anxious now that the news must have spread throughout the kingdom.

Cataleia moistened her dry lips and looked around the cabin before looking at her uncle.

“Feeling better, now, child?”

“Uncle Wil,” Cataleia croaked in the lowest voice she could manage. “Uncle Wil… I…”

“I know what you have done,” Wilhelm told her in a firm voice before entering the cabin and grabbing a small straw bag. “Tonight, you will leave Askavan.”

“But I have nowhere to go,” Cataleia reached out to her uncle’s arm and pleaded. “Uncle, please, take me to father’s relatives across the Serpent Sea. They will take good care of me there!”

“Enough, Cataleia!” Wilhelm told her in a cold voice. “You will leave tonight. I have packed you some silver and clothes. Leave the Human Territory for good. I will tell them that you are dead.”

“But Aleis and mother-”

“I said you have to leave,” Wilhelm clarified one more time. “The Reiss have caused enough trouble. Sooner or later, they have you mangled in a spike near the capital. Your mother and Aleis will follow the same fate.”

“Mother has sold me to become the governor’s concubine! The governor tried to force his way on me! The silence he has now is well-deserved of him! Had he been in the south, across Serpent Sea, the women would’ve had his head on a pike too!”

“Watch your mouth!” Cataleia earned the wrath of her uncle. The girl turned frozen at his uncle’s remark and shuddered at the thought of him shouting against her.

Though him and her father were twins, they were both very different. Her father was gentler and was more refined and calm. However, Uncle Wilhelm was hot-headed and strict.

Seeing the girl tremble, Wilhelm palmed his stressed forehead and sighed deeply. “The next time you will run your mouth will be the last. Do you want your final words to be a sentence of whining?”

Cataleia clenched her jaw. “No, Uncle.”

“The king will have our heads for this,” Wilhelm told her. “People in the capital are snitching.”

“If I must leave, then where will I go? I cannot possibly leave my hound and Aleis back home. Aleis is only six.”

“Then you should’ve controlled yourself when you grabbed that vase.”

Cataleia clenched her fists into small, whitened balls and tightened her jaw. “Had I not fought, the governor would’ve continued raping little girls.”

“Had you not fought, you would not have to drag forty other people with you to the pikes.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The people who have helped you, I trust you have not forgotten their names and faces?”

Cataleia’s throat slowly became dry. “Why…?”

“News this morning erupted that whoever helped the young assassin escape will be executed before the duke and His Royal Grace. And to those who can give names will be given rewards.”

Cataleia’s chest shrank and sank.

“You must leave Askavan. You are hated here.”

Cataleia’s jaw trembled as cold sweat formed on her forehead. The young girl tied her pale, ashy hair and took a deep breath before walking to the dining table to grab a few pieces of cold loaves. Her uncle watched as she stared at him with a dead expression.

“Then I should leave now.”

“Ain’t no better time.”

Wilhelm threw the bag to her and headed into the sands to grab a fishing boat. Cataleia raced through the sands and braced herself.

“Uncle, you’re going to die too. People saw me approaching you in the docks. You should come with-”

“I have to find your mother and sister. Your father wanted me to protect them.”

“And Connie.” Cataleia closed her eyes and breathed. “Release Connie from his kennel. He is a direwolf, and he knows how to fight. He is trained. If one hurts Aleis, Connie will make sure one isn’t able to walk back home.”

“Quite a beast this Connie is, then.”

All of a sudden, they were shifting in behind the trees. Wilhelm looked at his niece and then pushed her into the boat. He threw the paddle on her face and pushed the boat farther into the water.

“Uncle…” she called out to him before grunting in pain.

Her uncle drew out his sword as several men of the Kingsguard leaped from the bushes. They all unsheathed their sharp steel and dared to step forward to challenge the former knight of the Kingsguard. Cataleia’s eyes widened. ‘No, this can’t be!’ she murmured to herself. How many people had to die because of her?

“Uncle!!!”

“Go! Go where the water takes you!”

“But Aleis and mother-”

“I will find them,” Wilhelm promised her and unsheathed his claymore. The knight’s surrounding him flinched as they saw how huge the steel he wielded was. Rumors had it that Sir Wilhelm Reiss could par the strength of the king.

“I will find them, michild.”

Cataleia held tightly against the wooden board and tightened her jaw. This was her fate. Her fate as a poor girl living in injustice. A girl like her, who could not complain.

“Uncle… come with me!”

“This is my promise to your father,” Wilhelm told her. “Leave Askavan and head to the Territory of the Wolves. And then find the auctioneer. Tell him the time has come for him to return his favor to the Reiss Knight.”

Cataleia clenched her jaw and rowed as fast as she could, afraid to lose her promise with her uncle. She never dared to look back at the bloody battle behind her. The sound of dancing swords causing sharp friction against steel caused the girl to shut her eyes even more. She curled into a ball and embraced her legs as the boat rowed away.

‘I will not forget this,’ she mumbled under her breath.

As soon as she was about to close her eyes, she felt a sharp pang on her spine. Her closing eyes bulged wide as she carefully shifted her head to see what had struck her.

On her back was a sharp arrow, lodged on the back of her left shoulder. She looked behind her and realized that the battle was done.

The once pristine sands was blanched red. Fallen knights laid under the glow of the gloomlight. An archer stood on the crawling body of her uncle, aiming his bow at her.

The archer smiled crookedly, with his majestic robe flowing against the midnight breeze. With the last seconds of her consciousness, she squinted her eyes and looked.

She could not be mistaken. Those pricely layers of exquisite robes…

It was only then when she realized that the man who shot her was the prince.