"I'm scared Alex." The Princess confessed. "I'm afraid that if I ever become soft for anyone in this village, they would devour me. I'm afraid that if they ever come to know that my sister is disabled, they would destroy her. The Lord doesn't care about us anymore. Some princes are even eyeing us despite us all having the same father!
"I constantly have to act rude and impudent and go against my true self. It feels like I'm constantly walking on a tight rope while juggling multiple balls. Neither can I fall from the rope nor can I let the balls slip. This stress is constantly eating my mind. I don't even know who the real me is!"
While talking, she came back from the river bank. As she was sitting back down on the rock, I looked at her face. It said it all, the pain, the misery, the bottling of emotions…Any more of living in this Hell and she might just break!
However, I couldn't just keep on reading her face. I had many questions but the time was limited. The knights might come back anytime. After all, a dirty slave couldn't just chat with a beautiful princess all day.
"What happened to your sister?" I asked in an attempt to calm her down but, as soon as I said those words I realized how dumb I was! That was not how you console someone!
'I should have just stayed quiet! Why did I even try to continue the conversation? I was never good at consoling people…'
If I could just take my words back, I could have but alas, what you have said can never be redone. If my hands were free, I would probably have face palmed myself.
"Lily was normal when she was born." Making my thoughts go silent, Princess Josephine started to talk about her sister. "However, as she grew older, she started losing the sensation in her legs. The doctors couldn't tell why this was happening. Everything inside her body was functioning normally and yet she was losing sensations from her feet.
"Now when she is 22, she is completely paralyzed from the waist down. Thankfully, the paralysis stopped there but we don't even know if it will stay that way! This is also the reason why I never tried to escape from the village. Escaping alone would not be impossible for me but I can't leave my sister behind. It's because of me and my acting that everyone is afraid of approaching Lily and me…"
Phew!
The Princess blew a heavy breath into the air after finishing her words.
"Now I know why you want to escape from this village." I couldn't just waste any more time on useless questions. I needed to clarify things first. "So, let me get this straight, you want to help me escape the village and hope that I'll come back to save you? How can you be so sure that I'll help you? How will you even manage to get me out of this Hell?"
She smiled as I bulldozed so many questions at her and said, "Hope is like light. No matter how small it is, you will always cling to it when you are surrounded by nothing but darkness. All I can do now is hope that you come back to save me. Although, I have a feeling that you will certainly come."
She gave me a warm smile.
'How could people feel something like this? The only time when I felt like something is about to happen and it actually happened was when I rode my last train. I still don't know what it was all about. I've already stopped thinking about it since I'm afraid that it might happen to me again!'
"Before I tell you how you can escape, I want to ask you if you are a Minder."
"No. I am certainly not a Minder. Although I can't tell you how I suddenly got stronger, just know that there are many limitations to my abilities. I'm also new to this so I've yet to explore into this new kind of magic." I answered honestly. I could have mentioned about the status window and Delta but I kept it to myself. Unless my life was in grave danger or I trusted someone very deeply, I shouldn't expose my secrets.
"If that is so, then things will be very troublesome for you." Princess Josephine said gravely. "I plan to send you deep into the forest but your chances of survival will be close to nil. I would suggest you to consider your choices deeply."
"Princess, if I were to stay in the village, death is certain for me." I lowered my head, mocking my own luck. Never in my life did I have to make such a life or death decision! "With me openly talking about freedom, the smallest punishment I could get is death from starvation. On one hand there is a definite death and on the other there is a highly probable death. What do you think one should choose?"
Sigh!
She sighed heavily after listening to my answer and said, "Okay Alex, I will now tell you how I plan to make you escape. Although you could run away from the village through that broken wall but now that you are a criminal, you will be under more surveillance. Also, if I simply make you vanish from the village, the blame will come to me and I might even be exposed. Your death must become apparent to the villagers.
"As I have told you earlier, many maidens would be sent to the Kurkhaza on the third day of week thirty three, which is seventeen days from now. I will send you along with them as an appetizer for Kurkhaza. It will be shown as a punishment for your misconduct. That is all I can do for you. You will have to somehow manage to slip away from under the nose of the guards without them noticing.
"The guards would then keep it a secret among themselves because if they don't, they will be punished. They would then just tell everyone that you died successfully from the punishment. Meanwhile you would have entered deep into the forest and be gone far away…if you somehow managed to be extremely lucky. Keep in mind that Kurkhaza lives twenty kilometers east from this village so you will only have around an hour to act."
Sigh!
This time, it was my turn to give out a heavy sigh. I looked up at the Princess and said, "That's all? Don't you think you should help out more if you even want to make sure that I survive! Seventeen days of preparation is too little! Also, how am I even going to run without even alerting the trained knights?"
"I'm sorry Alex but that is all I can do for you." She said while looking at a strange rock she just fished out from her pocket. "As for the trained knights, I will somehow arrange newbies for this batch to ease the tension for your escape. I will see what more I can do later but first, I want you to scream with pain at the top of your lungs. I'm afraid that our time is over; the guards would be coming back soon. I need to show them that I actually punished you heavily!"
"Wait what? But I'm not finished yet. I still have-"
"Screech!"
Before I could finish speaking, she said something and my whole body started to feel pain. It felt like small needles were poking all over my body. However, the pain didn't stop there; the needles grew in size with each passing minute. The pain was getting unbearable when I opened my mouth and screamed at the top of my lungs.
"AAAAGGGHHH…"