Separation

    

     

      7. Separation 

I wake up in my cage, it has been a week since I began training and I have grown stronger. I can swing the sword although slowly, many times now in succession, I can run ten times around the cave and last longer as I do push-ups.

I also feel that moving normally is smoother and I can do it with more ease, I rise and eat meat from the box next to me. I yawn as I open the lock from the cage door and start doing push-ups on the ground.

 After the push-ups, I open the door and see Alessa eating meat in her room.

“Good morning.” I say to her.

She looks up and smiles as she says good morning back. I start to run and I run quickly to the entrance, two days ago she said that I should run as fast as I can and then a bit slowly to get used to irregular movement.

As I turn to go back I can hear footsteps outside the cave, I move silently to the first room and go behind the wall. I wait in silence as I hope that they won’t notice the entrance to the cave, I can hear silent footsteps coming from inside the cave.

I take out my dagger and grip it tightly as the sound of the footsteps grow louder, should I go out and try to do a surprise attack or hope that they pass by this room and run for it? 

Some of the footsteps have passed the room already, I stop thinking and move to the corridor, I see there is one person in front of me clad in light armor. He has a sword and a shield in hand and he hasn’t noticed me yet.

As I am about to jump at his neck I can feel someone grabbing me from behind, the arm lifts me up in the air and I can do nothing about it. I try to free myself from the grip but it doesn’t budge, I look behind me and see there are two more people in the corridor.

They have the same equipment as the first person, I try to feel where there are gaps in the hands armor with my left hand and as I find it I try to stab that part with my dagger.

The moment the dagger is about to hit another hand grabs my hand, it squeezes my hand so hard that I drop my dagger. The person who is holding me up takes me to the room and pushes me on the ground.

He puts my hands together behind my back and ties them up with a rope, then he puts a gag on my mouth and ties my feet together. He stands up after that and leaves the room to go deeper in the cave.

I try to struggle to free myself from the ropes but they are too tight, I roll on the ground until I get next to a wall, I try to feel with my fingers if there are any sharp spots on it.

After a moment of searching I find a spot and start rubbing the ropes against it, it takes a while but I can feel it working. I can hear loud footsteps coming this way, I roll away from the wall and on to my back. 

It feels uncomfortable but I endure it so they won’t see that I’m trying to cut the ropes on my hands. The footsteps are getting closer and they sound like someone is running.

I look at the doorway and see that Alessa is the one who was running here, she looks sad as she looks at me. She runs to me and hugs me.

“I am so sorry what my knights did to you, are you all right?” she asks me as she grips me tighter.

“I am.” I respond.

One of the knights come inside the room and puts his head down and apologizes, after that he frees me from the ropes and says that he is thankful for saving their princess.

The other knights come inside the room as well and thank me with tears in their eyes.

“I am sorry milady but we have to return to the city at once, the tension between humans and us are growing and war is close at hand.”

“What? How has that happened, we used to have good relations with humans because we have relatives in the royal bloodline and they have in ours.”

“After you kidnapping there were many attacks on some of the villages near the human’s boarder and when we asked for an explanation they said they knew nothing about it and pressed us for the meeting with you even though you had been kidnapped. then they accused us of trying to stall the meeting and said that we were plotting against humans.”

“The king couldn’t handle it when he heard that and he threatened them with war if they wouldn’t give you back” Another knight followed up.

“That sounds fishy, if the humans would want to go to war with us they wouldn’t go around beating around the bush and make us get cautious and start preparing for it. Also in normal circumstances, they would help with the search after they hear that I have been kidnapped, only conclusion I can come up with is that there are some people that are distorting the information flow and getting us to fight against each other for no reason. I need to go to Aserppia and talk with them directly to sort this out.”

“No, if we do not return quickly our people will go to war and after that it is too late to make it right.”

“Fine, I guess I have no choice.” Alessa says with a disappointing look.

She turns to me.

"As you heard I must return to my city and I would be happy if you would come with me, I will give you a place to sleep food as much as you can eat and an education."

 I think for a moment and decide to stay here, I feel like I would lose an important part of me if I left with her.

“I am sorry but I will stay here.”

She looks sad for a moment but then she smiles a bit and hands me a small silver coin with odd symbols on it.

“Please come visit me anytime, when you come to the city all you need to do is show this and they will lead you to me and if you are ever in trouble do not hesitate ask me as I will help you in a heartbeat. I will mark my city on the map so you won’t forget it. I will also send you some food too, eating nothing but dry meat is not healthy.”

I nod.

“I wish I could have been with you longer and seen you grow up to be a strong man and I wish I could have thanked you better for saving me. I am going to miss you so much, before I leave can I ask your name?” She says with tears in her eyes.

“I do not know my name.”

“I guessed it, would you want me to give you a name?”

“Yes.”

“Then from now on I will call you as Meohrya.”

As she said that I smiled a bit, she came to me and hugged me tight, after a long hug she separated from me.

“Milady, I marked our city to the map we should hurry and depart now,”

She nodded toward him and turned back to me.

“Goodbye Meohrya.” she said with tears flowing from her eyes.

“Goodbye.”

She turned away and left the room and her knights followed her. I stood there looking at the empty doorway. After a while I can feel my cheeks are cold and I put my hand on them and notice that they are wet. I wipe them dry and continue my training.

Chapter six. Chapter eight.