Chapter 5: The Great Escape

“Ugghh…” Sairek groaned, flopping face down onto his bed. He was so hungry and so exhausted. The hunger was probably feeding into his exhaustion. He didn’t know which need he wanted to take care of first.

He rolled over onto his back and his head lolled towards the bedside table where he spotted the book from yesterday. He wanted to take a deeper dive into it still, but his body was crying at him for his needs to be taken care of first.

If he went to bed now, he might be able to get a couple hours of rest, but then would skip out on yet another meal, but alternatively, if he ate now, he would have to skip out on sleeping. No doubt his father would resume another round of punishments soon. “Lands… I don’t know how much more of this nonsense I can take…!” He grumbled to himself.

He sighed, reaching into his pocket to pull out the letter for his father he had stowed away. He gave it a quick read over once again before pushing himself to sit upright and stand up with a grunt and placed it on the other bedside table that he had.

There was a sudden knock on his door and he apprehensively walked over to answer it. Laure was there, holding a plate of food in one hand and his staff in the other.

“Didn’t I tell you to go rest?” Sairek frowned.

“Well, we both are bad at following orders, aren’t we, Young Master?” She said with an amused smile and held up the plate closer to him in a gesture for him to take it.

Her response made him chuckle. He took the plate and staff and bowed his head graciously. “Thank you, Laure.”

“Of course. It is my duty. Good night, Young Master.” She smiled at him and closed the door.

He moved to sit back on the bed, placed his staff beside him and began wolfing the food down. Honey bread with stew in a bowl to dip it in and fresh cold spring water, though he was too famished to even bother with the whole dipping thing. He just wolfed down the bread and drank the stew directly from the bowl, then drained down the water from the cup. He had to hold his tummy after he finished eating in near record time as if food was some foreign thing and his stomach needed time to settle the new contents that just arrived into it.

Then there was another knock on the door, but before he could even stand up to answer it, the ‘guest’ opened it and entered on their own.

“Father…” Sairek grumbled. He inhaled and exhaled slowly through his nostrils. So much for hoping for maybe a few minutes of shut eye...

“Sairek, what is the meaning of this. Why are you not in bed?”

Sairek tightened his jaw. “Seriously? I just got here and I just ate my first meal since breakfast yesterday. Just what is it that you want from me–?!”

“Watch your tone, boy.”

“Watch my tone? You just barged in here and started accusing me of things! ‘Sairek, what is the meaning of this’. How else do you think I or anyone for that matter would respond to that? Do you want me to give you an apology for being famished and dead tired because you think starving and depriving your child of sleep is apparently a good method of parenting?” Sairek ranted heatedly and stood up from the bed holding his staff tightly. "If you want me to 'watch my tone' then how about treating me with some damn respect!?"

“You just don’t understand, Sairek.”

“You don’t understand!” Sairek argued in frustration. “I want to live, dammit! What can possibly be so terrible out there?!”

“A lot of things.”

“At least those ‘things’ out there won’t parent me by starving me or sleep depriving me for wanting to read a damn book and just wanting to take a walk and get some fresh air!”

“Boy, I keep warning you—” Aayron began and sighed as he rubbed his temples with his fingers. He took a deep breath to calm himself down. “Tell you what; I will let you do whatever you want... on one condition.” Sairek eyed his father silently with an icy glare and his father eyed him back. “If you can defeat Samuel in a duel, I will let you leave the castle, with no strings attached.”

“What–!?” Sairek snapped. “He’s an elite and I’m just starting off as an apprentice! It could take me a decade of constant practice and learning to even match up to him as he is now and that's assuming I'm a prodigy which I'm clearly not! You’re insane!”

“Those are my terms. If you manage, then I would know you have the capability to protect yourself out there.” Aayron smirked. “You could leave the castle and I won’t stop you. I would consider you an adult, able to make your own decisions and able to protect yourself. Defeat Samuel in a duel, that is my one condition.”

Sairek glared daggers at his father, then he turned around, wordlessly pulling out a drawer and grabbing a piece of paper and a pen. He closed the drawer back shut again with his knee and held the items up to his father.

“...If that’s how it’s going to be, fine... However, I have a condition of my own; I want you to promise me that you will follow through and to ensure that you will, I want it in writing.”

Aayron looked at his son in a bit of surprise, but he also looked pleased. Sairek studied him carefully as he took the items from Sairek, bent down towards the little table and began to write the ‘deal’ down. No doubt in his mind that his father believed that he wouldn’t be able to beat Samuel or even come close in several years, probably well after he was an adult even, but if he was going for it, then hopefully he would stop his rebellious behavior until then and perhaps even be persuaded by this 'hope for freedom' to take his tasks and studies more seriously.

He would have been right normally, but that was not Sairek’s plan at all.

Sairek watched his father finish writing and stood back up, turning around to present the paper towards his son. “Is… this acceptable?”

Sairek took the paper in his left hand and read the terms. The terms didn’t particularly matter to him. He made sure there were just the usual couple of details that he needed. Aayron Ceareste, would allow him, Sairek Ceareste, to leave the castle, if he defeated Samuel in a one on one duel, all in his father’s handwriting, with his signature. Samuel would recognize it was real if he saw it for sure. Sairek made sure there was no fancy wording so his father could wriggle out of the deal. There wasn't.

“Acceptable.” Sairek agreed and held the letter up to the royal jewel at his breast. The gem glowed for a faint moment and so did the paper, before the paper disappeared right from his hand. Sairek smirked faintly. “And it’s going to stay safe being stored right in here.” He said, tapping the jewel with his left index finger.

“Of course. I expected no less.” Aayron mused, then turned around to grab the other letter. “Now what’s this?”

“For you, from Avotash Masirean. I’d read it now, it’s quite important.” He answered, walking slowly back away from his father.

“Don’t go anywhere. I’m not finished with you yet.”

“For crying out loud. I’m just going to the bathroom! I've been in the tower all night without break, you know.” Sairek growled, though it was a complete lie. He was making it to the door out of his room. And he had used the bathroom earlier.

“Fine, but after that, it’s more work for you. Your punishments still aren’t done for what you did.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Sairek grumbled, tip-toeing his way towards the door. He had his own private bathroom, but he wasn’t headed for that. With his father’s back still turned to him reading the letter, Sairek quietly opened the door, stepped through it, then shut it behind him.
When it was closed, he hovered his staff towards the metal knob, then whispered “Balinzer.”

He kept the flame low, but heated up the knob of the door intensely. He was sure the amount of heat would make it quite painful and hot to the touch of bare skin on the other side of the door and unlike him, his father wasn’t wearing gloves. In a couple moments, his father would realize he was gone and then would probably make for the door. The heat from the knob would buy him a couple of precious minutes, preventing his father from immediately opening the door and rousing anybody nearby in alarm that his son was escaping.

Rounds of punishments after punishments for never following everything to the word?
Constantly being ridiculed, missing meals, missing sleep and constantly expecting to be the top of the crop?
Freedom only after he defeated Samuel? A task literally designed for him to be unable to do for years to come?

Screw that.

He hated it. He hated all of it.

He didn’t care about his title. He didn’t care about his responsibilities. He didn’t care what it could do to the country.

Nobody else cared what everything else did to him. Nobody else cared for what he wanted. Nobody else cared for how he felt... so why should he?

Sairek took a few quiet steps in the hallway but quickened his pace and picked up the noise of his footfalls as he got further away from his bedroom door until eventually he was in a quiet sprint on the soft carpet of the marble floor.

He began to run away.

Sairek made it to the end of the hallway and down the spiraling steps, bouncing down them quickly until he made it to the ground floor. He glanced towards the gates to see if was manned still and it wasn't. No doubt the elite from earlier probably finally went to bed. It was nearly six in the morning, after all. If he had been trying to escape from the tower, he would have already done so.

How fortunate.

Sairek dashed towards the door and glanced behind him just in time to look up the stairs and see a few men beginning to appear from the upper floor hallways. Not good. He thought he would have had a bit more time than that. Which only became worse when he suddenly heard a loud bell ringing in his ears, which was used as a state for alarm, which would alert everyone in the castle that something was amiss. They wouldn’t know exactly what yet, but that something dire was happening. The alarm concerned him greatly, because when the alarm went off…

Sairek pushed through the doors and his feet thudded against the cobblestone pathway until he made it to the steel gates that lead out of the wall and thudded uselessly against it with his smaller body.

“Dammit! NO!!” He cursed in frustration and desperation, slamming his staff against the large locks of the door uselessly. The magic that activated in such an alarm was meant to keep whatever was outside, to stay outside, but it did also had the small side effect of also keeping what was inside the castle unable to leave through the front doors as well...
...And there was only the front door. Not unless he improvised, like going over the wall or something… Somehow. Not that he would have much time to do that either.

Sairek gripped his staff in two hands and swung down at the lock with all of his might, but all he got from his efforts was from the magic around the door and the lock to bounce the force of his attack, causing him to skid along the cobblestone path and nearly fall backwards as it repelled him.

“DAMMIT!!” Sairek swore again, slamming his left fist into the steel door in frustration. “I just want OUT!”


“For the love of Yggdrasil, you are punching a steel gate kid! Of course it’s not going to give away!”


Sairek looked up in the direction he heard the voice, which was up above him and somewhat to his right. There, he spotted the girl from before that he had met at the beach, up on top of the walls to the gate, currently looking down at him.

“What…?! Y-You!” Sairek let out in surprise.

“Yo.” She greeted casually, with an equally casual wave down at him from below. “I think that may be the second time I caught you crying. We really need to stop meeting up like this.”

“You–!” Sairek repeated again, then hesitated.

There was a small awkward silence between the two of them as the bell continued to ring in the background. “Um… are you like, going to ask how I got up here or something?” She asked.

“Yeah! How did you get up there?!” Sairek let out.

“Grappling hook.” She answered quickly just as the doors of the castle opened and they both looked over before looking back at each other. “And that’s how you will too I guess! Here, quick!” She yelled, reaching beside her and tossed a rope down to him. “Throw that big stick of yours you got up here or over the wall and climb up! Hurry!”

Sairek was out of time to think of anything else and immediately obeyed, tossing his staff up to her, which she tried to catch, fumbled it, and it sailed over her shoulder and on the other side of the wall.

Sairek groaned, but she just looked down at him with an apologetic shrug. Regardless, he jumped up and began climbing the rope as fast as he could, while she held the rope as best as she could manage. The wall with her hook didn’t have the best leverage which was only proven more as Sairek neared the top and it suddenly slipped. Sairek yelled out as he felt the rope slacken and he reached up with his hands just in time as she grabbed his arm, using her feet against the indents of the wall to keep herself from topping over with Sairek.

“Agghhh… What the heck…! Just how heavy are you…!?” She demanded. “Y-Y'know, b-before coming here, th-there was a book on you that I read..."

"S-So? And what the heck, reading about me–?" Sairek blanched.

"The book said... that you weighed eighty-four pounds! Eighty-one pounds! You do NOT weigh eighty-one pounds!” She shouted in complaint.

“A-Are you calling me fat!?” Sairek scoffed.

“You weigh as much as a cow carcass! And I’d know!”

“Is now seriously an appropriate time to be judging my weight!?”

“It would certainly help right now if you weighed less!”

“Listen, I am NOT fat!”

“Then drop whatever you have that weighs so much!” She demanded, slowly beginning to pull him up. Sairek managed to reach up with one hand, gripping the wall and could start to pull himself up a little on his own.

“It’s my clothes! They are heavier than they—they look, j-just hurry and pull me up before they start pulling me back down–!” Sairek demanded.

She grunted with a heave, pulling Sairek up a few more inches and with more leverage, he grunted himself with his own effort. Their combined strength finally managed to come together to pull him over onto the wall, where he flopped down on top of it and they took a few seconds to catch their breath. Sairek moved to sit up and glanced back down, a few soldiers were staring up at them.

“Sairek Ceareste, get down here this instant!” One of them yelled at him.

Sairek rolled his eyes and ignored him, then looked at the castle again, just in time to see Samuel come out, along with his father beside him. That gave him goosebumps. He turned back around towards Nayleen. “We gotta go. Like, now.”

“Yeah, before they open the gate. Follow me.” She ordered, then she knelt down and jumped right off of the wall.

Sairek gulped and looked down.

Like, it wasn’t that tall of a wall that falling would kill you, but… well…

He watched as she dropped down onto the ground and landed in a smooth roll forwards, carrying her momentum. She reached over and grabbed his staff and stood up and turned around. “Your turn, come on!”

“B-But—”

She sighed. “When you land, let the gravity of the fall allow you to tuck your legs in as your feet make impact, but keep them firm and carry the momentum of the fall forwards so your legs don't take the full impact. Convert that forwards into a roll! It’ll cushion some of the impact of the landing! It’s easy to do!”

Sairek gulped again. The explanation kinda didn’t make sense to him but he did see her do it, so that helped him figure it out. He took a deep breath and yelled as he jumped off the wall. When he felt his feet make impact, he tucked his legs in and carried the momentum forwards—

“Ow! Crap, dammit, ow! Ouch!” He let out as he began to sprawl halfway down the hill and past Nayleen, who slowly turned her head to watch him tumble and roll past.

She slumped and loosely shrugged her shoulders. “...Good enough, I guess.” She carefully skidded and slid herself down the hill to meet the groaning Prince who was sprawled out onto the ground. “Are you okay? Can you walk?”

“I, I think so…” Sairek grumbled, slowly pushing himself back up onto his feet.

“Good. Now, can you run?”

“I don’t think I have much of a choice.” He huffed.

Nayleen reached a hand down. He grabbed her with his left hand and she hoisted him up with relative ease and handed his staff back to him, but kept her hand clasped around his. “Let’s keep riding down the hill to the west. That’ll take us past the town walls and lead us into the forest. Hopefully we’ll lose them in there.” Nayleen nudged her head in the direction she gestured in, pulling him around at a brisk pace.

“O-Okay.” Sairek accepted without struggle. He was confused on why she was helping him in the first place, but he wasn’t about to argue. He would have been swiftly caught and probably would have been about to face a fresher, even harsher round of punishments right now if it weren’t for her.

Going adjacent to the spiraling stairs from where Sairek tumbled down to, there was a small incline they had to hoist themselves up first, and then the hill continued to slope downwards, past the walls, until descending into the next set of steps that spiralled down to ground level. Eventually if they kept going this way, the steps would end, and the hill would continue to slope downwards past the walls which weren't built, but that's because this continued down to a sheer cliff face.

Sairek wasn’t quite sure about this, but it’s not like it was one continuous slide. Rather than running down the stairs, they would slide, then meet the next set of stairs on the way down, climb another lip and continue, up to a point they would reach past the town walls, though that’s also when the hill became steepest. The hill was naturally a part of the wall and that was the part he was most afraid of trying to scale down. It was nearly a direct drop.

They both skidded themselves down two more sets before Sairek dared himself to glance behind him and clenched his teeth. By now his pursuers had made it past the gates and were moving down the stairs faster than he’d like. He could also see both his father and Samuel looking down at them. They weren’t out of casting range either. At this rate…

“We gotta go faster. Hold on to me, I have an idea.” Sairek growled.

“Oh? Well, if you say so.”

Sairek turned around and held his staff out and then he chanted “Waert!”, creating a more controlled and not too powerful jet of water, but enough to soak the grass in front of him. He sat down as he kept the spell going into a stream to wet grass. “Sit and hold behind me and push…!” He ordered Nayleen.

“Roger!”

With a big shove, she pushed their momentum down the hill and they began to slide down it like a slide, picking up speed as gravity began to pull them mostly downwards. So fast they began to move, and each end of the hill that would proceed into the next set of stairs had a small lip to them, allowing them to “jump” over one set of stairs, and land onto the next, where Sairek kept his spell going to maintain most of their momentum until the next set of stairs.

"WOOHOO–!!" Nayleen chirped loudly.

Sairek screamed too. It was much less dignified than hers.

They jumped one set of stairs, then the next and then the next and… then there were no more stairs; just a long curve that became steeper and steeper until it was near drop as they continued to slide down the hill at an alarming rate.

“H-Hey that’s a bit too fast!” Nayleen warned him.

Sairek cut off his water spell and quickly concentrated energy not from around him, but from the royal jewel instead. A limited, but far faster method of channeling energy that would could also help amplify his more simple magic and could also have some consequences later depending on how all of this went, but for the moment, not slamming into the ground at the speed they were currently going at took precedent. As they got closer to the ground, he held his staff out and chanted “Ethirul!”

The ground below them began to shift and churn, dirt turning into sand and creating a generous moundful of it below them that he hoped would help cushion their fall. To slow their speed, Sairek tightened his legs and dug his heels as best as he could into the dirt, clenching his teeth with the effort. His legs immediately burned and ached from the attempted effort.
A short moment later, the attempt caused them both to be flung off from the hill and into the open air. Both he and Nayleen screamed, or, maybe Nayleen cheered again; he wasn’t exactly sure, but they both fell down a good twenty feet before slamming hard into the sand below.

It didn’t exactly cushion his fall to stop it from hurting. His head spun and ringing was in his ears, but after a minute to collect himself, it at least felt like nothing was broken and he clearly wasn't dead. Nayleen landed somewhere behind him and he heard her let out a woozy groan, but was picking herself up faster than he was.

“That was crazy. But fun! I kinda want to do it again.” She chided as she sat up, looking back up the hill.

“I’ll… I’ll pass… I think I'm going to vomit…” Sairek groaned, pushing himself onto his hands and knees.

They took a moment to pick themselves up and both turned around, looking back up the hill. They could still make out figures, some of which were looking from the stairs down at them both. He could still just barely make out who was who in the new morning sun. His father’s gold and sapphire jeweled crown glinted in the sunlight and Samuel's white and gold robes next to him made it easy to tell it was him.

“Well, I got you out! You happy?” Nayleen asked playfully.

Sairek was about to answer, when he heard his father calling for his name from atop of the hill, then a few seconds later watched Samuel raise his hands in the distance. His eyes widened in alarm, he knew what that meant.

Instinctively, he grabbed Nayleen in a hold, which made her yelp in surprise. He dove them both out of the way, just as the sand where they had been standing suddenly dropped, sinking down into a giant deep pit into the ground like a mini sinkhole. One just big enough to pull two children down with it, that is. He hadn’t known that was coming specifically; just that diving and getting out of the way seemed like a general good course of action.

“H-Holy shit!” Nayleen yelped in a curse.

Sairek had to agree. This far away and still Samuel was able to target them both, with just a damn clap of his hands! There was no way he was going to duel that!
Sairek stood up and pulled her back up onto her feet with him. “If you really must know, yes, yes I am. I am freaking overjoyed and you just witnessed why! So shut up and let's and run!”

There were no complaints from her as Sairek took her hand and they quickly retreated into the thick cover of trees.