The Severance Game, page 21
Just go and kick his butt—him and all his annoying friends. You can do it. Just get up from the ground and go.
I felt my hands grow hot, but I ignored the sensation. My eyes burst open with resolve and I grabbed a rock from the ground and threw it at a tree a few paces to my left.
The rock bounced off the trunk and the noise definitely caught Arian’s attention. As I listened to the sound of his approaching footsteps I grabbed another pebble and carefully slid up the tree trunk until I was standing.
When I sensed he was a couple yards away I gently tossed the second pebble out in front of me. It rolled innocently to the ground as if it’d been knocked loose on accident. Of course, it hadn’t been.
The idea was to give away my location, but not let Arian know I’d done so on purpose. He had to think he was catching me off guard, when in reality I was waiting for him.
I knew making a direct dash for my wand was out of the question. Arian was faster than me, and he was blocking my path. I had no choice but to try and disarm him first. And since he had a weapon and I did not, the only chance I had of doing that was by fighting him from such close range he would be unable to fully extend his sword.
Between that and the element of surprise, it might just be enough to keep me from getting killed.
Arian held his sword in his right hand, which was why I’d drawn his attention to the left before redirecting it to the tree I was hiding behind. Placing myself on the same side as his blade put me in a much better position to block and disarm him. In theory.
I heard his footsteps crunching over the fallen foliage. He was close now.
Any second—
Arian’s arm came into view as his sword swung around the tree, poised to separate my head from its shoulders.
I kept his strike at bay by simultaneously blocking his forearm with my left hand and his wrist with my right. He made to pull away, but I followed the momentum and harnessed it to my advantage. Instantly I tightened my grip around both parts of his arm, kicked his knee inward, and twisted his arm down.
I slammed my knee into his lowered chest and in the process cut his leg with his own sword. The blade fell from his hand as I’d hoped, but he recovered too quickly. Arian immediately followed up with a jab to my ribs that I was too slow to block. In that temporary stun, he wrapped the arm I was holding around my neck and pinned me against him in a tight chokehold that both my hands were trapped in.
“What’s the matter?” he grunted as I struggled. “The damsel princess out of ideas?”
I gritted my teeth in anger and stomped down on his foot with the heel of my boot. With a thrust I turned our entangled bodies and slammed his back against the tree behind us.
I could’ve sworn I heard the bark crack when his head knocked against it. He released me from his chokehold, but before I could take more than a step, he grabbed my left wrist and twisted it sideways.
Something snapped. A bolt of pain shot through my arm, but I had no time to process the injury. As I lifted my leg to fire off a backwards kick, he kicked my knee outwards. My body fell to the ground. Arian kicked his sword back into his hand.
Adrenaline rushing through me, I automatically rolled to my right, barely avoiding the blade as Arian plunged his sword into the earth where I’d landed.
In a last ditch effort, I forcefully swung my leg around—sweeping Arian’s out from under him. He dropped to the grass as I continued the momentum, using it to propel myself to my feet.
It was safe to say I’d never run faster. My heart throbbed loudly in chorus with the blood pulsating through my head. Combined with the white noise in my ears, it made for a beat like a violent symphony. If I added that to the blur of trees and smoke around me, it felt like I was trapped in one of my nightmares.
My eyes darted about as I searched for my wand. Finally, I spotted it resting on the forest floor twelve yards away. Checking behind me, I saw that Arian was on his feet and not far off. I bolted for my weapon with absolutely everything I had.
A burst of panicked yelling and shouting came from close behind me. It didn’t sound like my friends, which led me to believe it was coming from Arian’s men. I knew better than to waste my time by turning around to check, though. I didn’t need to see the future to know that if I slowed down in the slightest, Arian would catch up with me.
Seconds later I reached my wand and picked it up without breaking stride. I spun around in anticipation of my inbound enemy. He was twenty feet away and closing. I braced myself to fight as he drew nearer. I was done running.
Alas, defeating Arian was not in the cards for me today. Without warning (and definitely without precedent) a giant arm swung out of the trees and flung Arian backwards. Only after a moment I realized that it wasn’t an arm at all. It was a branch; a branch attached to a massive trunk with a set of golden eyes.
One of the trees had turned animate and was now stampeding about taking shots at Arian and his men. The thing must’ve wandered out of the Forbidden Forest.
Lucky for me, I guess.
However, it was pretty unlucky for Arian’s forces. That had to be the source of the freaked out yelling I’d been hearing.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, I decided to save my battle angst for another day and seize my chance at escape. But then, of course, another obstacle dropped from the sky.
Literally.
Just as unexpectedly as the appearance of the rogue tree, the same dragon from Century City that we’d defeated ages ago suddenly swooped overhead and landed in the forest.
The earth shook when he impacted the ground—crushing several trees beneath his massive tail. I saw flashes of his silvery skin and gleaming, golden eyes through the foliage. When he let out a deafeningly mighty roar, I took that as my official cue to exit.
Let Arian and his jerky friends handle this one; I’m out.
My hunter and his forces now distracted by these new opponents, I made my way out of the forest with little more hindrance.
At the speed I was moving, I arrived at the town stables in minutes. Once inside, I saw my friends and Daniel arguing with the establishment’s proprietor.
“What do you mean you sold our carriage and two of our Pegasi? You said we had thirty days!” Daniel yelled at the heavily bearded fellow.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s been over two weeks. No one goes into the Forbidden Forest that long and still comes back. I thought you were dead.”
“Well, we’re not. But you definitely are if you don’t get us a ride out of here!” Blue retorted.
“Look, I don’t have any more Pegasi, just the three others that you left. But you can have that carriage over there.” The bearded man gestured to a rundown vehicle in the corner. “Some of your stuff’s even in the trunk.”
The dragon’s roars reached the stable.
“That will have to do,” SJ said. “We must leave. Now.”
Lacking other options, we hastily attached our three Pegasi to the rickety carriage and climbed in.
Without the other Pegasi and the levitation potion SJ had placed on our former carriage, there was no way we were getting into the air. We had to settle for escape by road. It wasn’t as fast a means for getting away, but it was probably a safer option given that one of our enemies, or even the dragon, might’ve otherwise spotted us in the sky.
When Sadie and the other two remaining winged steeds were strapped in, we took off like lightning. With speed and fortitude, we rode out of the stables, leaving antagonists, monsters, and who knows what else behind in our dust.
The Encounter
J, are you sure you don’t have any more portable potions up your sleeve?” Jason asked as he inspected the broken wheels of our carriage.
“I am sure,” she responded. “I used the few extras I found on the Therewolf stage to escape those men in the forest. If we are to move forward, I am afraid we will have to think of something else.”
All enchanted options having been exhausted, and no tools or supplies to help, the five of us surveyed our busted up carriage and tried to figure out how to proceed.
We’d been riding for a while and were in the clear in terms of attackers. That good fortune aside, two of the wheels on our rickety carriage had snapped under our weight a few minutes ago. Meanwhile, the gaping hole in the floor of the vehicle was growing wider—threatening to crack the whole thing in half.
We’d tried to fix it ourselves using wood from the trees, vines, and the different forms my wand could take. But none of our solutions proved reliable for very long. If we had some actual tools, maybe we could have salvaged the situation. Alas, we didn’t have much to work with.
There had been no tools in the trunk of the carriage, just some bags of our stuff that the stable manager hadn’t sold yet. Among these random items were a few empty canteens, extra throwing knives of Blue’s, and some miscellaneous pieces of clothing we’d packed.
Although not helpful to our carriage problem, I was grateful for the latter. While SJ’s SRBs kept us clean throughout the ordeal of the Therewolves and the Forbidden Forest, I was still feeling kind of gross. I’d been wearing the same thing for more than two weeks. My outfit was torn in multiple places, and its essence reeked of incarceration. So I was glad to find spare leggings and a dress that I could change into.
The others, too, opted for a costume change when we pulled over. They made use of the various spare clothing items as they tried to shed the memories of what we’d just lived through.
As I straightened out the hem of the long-sleeve, mustard yellow dress I’d put on, I wished fixing up the carriage could be this easy. If we were going to get to the shores of Adelaide any time soon, we would have to find another way of crossing the realm.
That’s where we were beginning our search for Ashlyn—Adelaide. More specifically—the ocean off the coast of Adelaide near the underwater kingdom of Mer.
With the enchanted saltwater taffy from the Valley of Edible Enchantments, we now had what we needed to search the waters outside the lost princess’s home kingdom. We also had something else to guide our search—a theory.
Before the carriage had broken down I’d told the others about my meeting with Harry the White Rabbit, sharing his revelation about the wormhole-esque holes in the In and Out Spell and showing them my new Hole Tracker.
In the process, I’d hit a few buttons on the rim of the wristwatch. When I did, different holographic maps of Book started appearing, displaying upcoming holes in the In and Out Spell across the kingdoms. I’d noticed that some of these holes showed coordinates off the coast of Adelaide, leading to my theory . . .
No one had ever found a trace of Princess Ashlyn when she’d disappeared at sea a year and a half ago. But if holes (wormholes, as it were) regularly appeared in the ocean close to Adelaide, that alluded to the possibility that maybe the reason Ashlyn was never found in our realm was because she wasn’t in our realm at all.
That night we met in Adelaide, Lonna the mermaid had expressed awareness that there were holes appearing in the In and Out Spell. So what if Ashlyn had actually been sucked through one of these holes in the ocean and was sent to another land altogether? That would totally explain why no one ever found her.
Brilliant, right?
The others thought so too. And they felt (as I did) that this theory was our best lead once we arrived in Adelaide. Now all we had to do was get there.
We couldn’t count on our remaining steeds to transport us across the many kingdoms to the beaches of Adelaide. It was different when they’d had SJ’s levitation potion and two other Pegasi to balance out the distribution of our weight. We would never make it like this.
As we searched for ideas, I kicked the dirt at my feet. It clouded in the air for a second and then danced upwards in the breeze—getting in my face.
I swatted and the stuff blew away from me, swept up by the wind into the sky. I watched it go. As it floated out of view and my eyes fell upon Daniel, I remembered the day we first met at Lady Agnue’s. Just before our introduction I’d made the mistake of touching our school’s In and Out Spell. Recalling the magic dust drizzling off it caused an idea to abruptly pop into my head. The legitimate kind, not the crazy kind. Which was sort of unusual for me.
“Hey guys,” I said. “What about the magic train?”
An hour after ditching the faulty carriage, the five of us (plus our Pegasi) arrived by foot at the magic train station in the kingdom of Middlebrook.
The magic train was the only form of realm-wide, government-regulated transportation in Book. Stations could be found in each of our twenty-six recognized kingdoms.
It was not a free form of transport, so we were thankful for the small sack of gold the Therewolves had given us that morning as a thank you gift. The reward was enough to buy the five of us passage on the locomotive and board our Pegasi in the rear compartment with the other traveling pets.
I’d always thought of the magic train as a brilliant innovation. It provided speedy, smooth travel to citizens across the realm, and it served as a means to safely dispose of and regulate the use of magic dust.
The In and Out Spell that encompassed our realm dropped magic dust particles periodically. The majority of magic dust, however, was collected in the northern mountains. There was something about the cold climate and various classifications of rock there that caused the magic to be absorbed from the air in huge quantities—collecting in giant, crystallized chunks within the mountains
When gathered in large quantities, the concentrated dust acted like a strong and clean fuel. For this reason (and in order to keep the enchanted powder out of the hands of magic hunters who would’ve tried to abuse its power), the government passed a law making it illegal for citizens to collect it.
Furthermore, they’d set up a special department in charge of gathering the dust for the specific, mutually beneficial purpose of powering the magic train. The substance was now solely used to fuel this communal locomotive, making it faster and more energy efficient than any other form of transportation in the realm.
The five of us stood on the platform of Middlebrook’s train station amongst a sea of other passengers. It was fascinating to see everyone from this side of the tracks. My family utilized the magic train from time to time. My mom and I, for example, took a combination of several train lines and carriage rides to get to and from Lady Agnue’s each year.
However, as royals, the two of us had always boarded the train privately before it was open to the commons, so we’d missed out on all the hubbub the others and I were experiencing now.
Seeing it like this was definitely much cooler. The sounds, the smells, the luggage, the vibrantly dressed people of every sort—it was all so busy and bright in the best possible way. I would have gladly gotten lost exploring it for hours if we’d had the time.
Unfortunately, we didn’t. And also unfortunately, the colorful bedlam was terribly confusing to navigate through, causing us to have to hustle even more.
None of us knew the way exactly. I had never been to this particular station. Neither had SJ or any of the others. The five of us wandered about like lost chickens for some time before finding the proper booth to buy tickets. Then we had to venture on an entirely different trek to locate the area of the platform where we presented them.
When we finally made it there, no one paid us any mind as we waited to speak with the man at the window. When it was our turn and we handed him our papers, the fellow behind the counter gave us five clunky necklaces in exchange. They were long, dark purple lanyard chains with miniature snow globes dangling from the ends of each one. I realized, of course, that it was not artificial snow inside these petite orbs. It was a small sample of magic dust.
Again, because of the way royals traveled, neither SJ nor myself had ever personally paid for tickets. Consequently, we were unfamiliar with these necklaces. Blue had to explain that they served as proof of having paid for passage, as well as being fun souvenirs.
I placed the rather lengthy cord round my neck like everyone else and proceeded to make my way to the train’s entrance.
The platform was so crowded you couldn’t help but bump into people. I had to fight to actively push my way forward and avoid being carried away like a leaf in the current of a river.
“Excuse me. Excuse me,” I repeated as I brushed shoulders and rammed into one person after another.
Hmm, and I thought move-in day at Lady Agnue’s was a chaotic affair.
This was just—
I rammed into someone with a very forceful thud.
“Oh, sorry,” I said, composing myself. “I didn’t mean to—”
I looked up to meet the gaze of the stranger I’d collided with. The instant I did I couldn’t help but instinctively jump back.
The fellow I’d hit was super creepy. He had dark, shoulder-length hair pulled into a ponytail, a golden tooth like a prospector, and foggy eyes. The sheath on his belt appeared to be holding a dagger (a well-used one based on its worn leather grip). And the scars on his hands and chin were serious—definitely not the kind of thing a guy got from shaving.
The man wore a wrinkled camel-colored jacket that matched the tattered fedora on his head. He eyed me up and down for a second—squinting at me as he did so, his nose twitching. He seemed to be both interested in and perplexed by me. I didn’t stick around to find out why. I hurriedly merged back into the crowd before any further exchange could pass between us.
As I boarded the train behind Blue and Jason, I glanced back and saw the man still standing in the middle of the platform amongst a sea of people. Only now he was joined by three other equally sketchy men wearing hats and earth-toned clothing. He whispered something to them as he pointed in my direction.
I ducked inside the train and followed my friends through the cars with haste.
Eventually our group found an empty passenger box and filed in. I looked behind me to make sure no one was following then quickly shut the door and released an exhale of relief. Regrettably, the others noticed the worried look on my face.
