Page 14 of The Freedom You Seek
“Jelric?” My voice sounded timid and hoarse. Some of his blood trickled into my mouth, and I gagged at the salty, metallic taste as Jelric fell silent and ceased moving altogether.
“Jelric?” Repeating his name, I didn’t care about tasting more of his vital fluid. The relief that I’d stopped mybetrothed’s attempt to rape me morphed into something horrible, something equally bad.
Shivering, I noticed how much of his blood was already staining my skin red, and when I saw his empty, wide-open eyes, I shrieked.
My panicked scream ceased, and I turned my face, vomiting right next to me, again and again.
Only when the heaving stopped did I direct my eyes back to Jelric. The creature who had tried to rape me. The monster I’d killed. And then I screamed as loud as I could—until I was too hoarse to make any more sounds.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” I cast my eyes over the pathetic town, then pinned Antas with them as if he were an enigma I needed to solve. Maybe it wasn’t fair to think of this place as bad as I did. Thain had called it quaint earlier, but honestly, I didn’t know what was supposed to set Credenta apart from all the hundreds of small, unimportant towns across the continent.
When Antas finally deigned to answer me, he just nodded absentmindedly. I sneered at him in utter annoyance. I’d never had problems with patience before, but those last months would have worn down even the most hardened warrior. Searching for something so unspecific wasgrating on my nerves. And all of us had no illusions—we didn’t knowwhatwe were searching for,whereit was, andwhenorifwe’d be able to find it.
“You are starting to sound like Thain, Dion,” Antas said with a warning undertone, and I could feel a muscle in my jaw tick at the comparison.
“Not fair. You’d wanted my company to help you, but so far, I’ve been fucking useless. Of course, that annoys me.” I ground my teeth. Honestly, I had no idea why I was so on edge lately. This development had started recently, only a few days ago at the most, but I was filled with so much anxious, nervous energy that a minuscule spark would be enough to ignite me.
“You know that Fig prefers having you around. So do I. And think about it, what would you have done if you’d stayed at home?” Antas’ eyebrow shot up, and my jaw ticked again.
“I’m starting to question Fig’s judgment to bring us all on this—quest or whatever it is.”
“So you want to tell me you are doubting my reasons as well?”
“It just takes much longer than anticipated. We’ve been months on the road, Antas. Four months, to be exact.”
“Some things take time. You cannot brute forceeverythingin your life, Dion.” Antas sighed deeply, which drove my annoyance to even greater heights. I hated being treated like a petulant child by him just because he was older than me.
“Did you have any new hunches, then?”
“As a matter of fact, yes, and I am sure we are where we’re supposed to be. I also know it will be you who’ll figure out what we need from here, Dion.”
I couldn’t help but frown at the absurdity of what he implied. I stopped walking and turned to Antas, but before I could retort, four men dressed in uniforms hurried past us.
“Out of the way!” one guard snarled at us and dared to bump into me as he passed.
My hand balled into a fist, and I scowled after the group in general and that one male in particular. If it hadn’t been for Antas, who lifted one eyebrow at me in warning while shaking his head, this would have been exactly the spark triggering my explosion.
I narrowed my eyes, trying to ignore the irritation that climbed up my back. Someone had to teach those buffoons that such rude treatment not only alienated the people and made them hate uniformed men but—more importantly—annoyed me to no end. It itched in my fingers to give them their much-needed lesson, but it had to wait. “So, Antas, you were saying it’ll be up to me to know what we have to do here?”
Upon his curt nod, I sighed. I wasn’t sure if I should believe him or not. “Then we better stop walking around sense- and aimlessly. We need a map of this shithole, and we’ll have to search the streets methodically. I also want to have a look at the program of the upcoming festival so we can attend the most important events.”
“That sounds all very reasonable. I can help you, and I am sure the others will do as well once you let them know.”
Having something to plan had already calmed me down—at least slightly. “Of course. I’ll run those things by Fig later.”
Turning my head, I glared in the direction the four guards had disappeared in. “But first, let’s follow those idiots and find out what had them all riled up.”
Guards arrived at the stable soon after Jelric had passed away. After a moment of relief, when I believed everything would turn out well and I’d be saved, my world turned upside down once more. The men treated me as if I was the worst scum they’d ever met. Nobody asked me what had led to my predicament, and when I tried to explain the situation, not a single person listened to me.
I was yanked out from under Jelric, and before I knew it, someone snatched the dagger from my hand and tied my wrists behind my back. So many times, I attempted to clarify that I hadn’t meant to kill my late betrothed, that it’d been self-defense because he’d tried to rape me, but the guards didn’t care or just didn’t listen. Maybe they all shared Jelric’s sentiment about what you could or couldn’t do to a woman you felt entitled to. The law didn’t forbid it, but usually social conventions had most people frown upon such acts.
The only saving grace was the guard who showed some compassion and covered me with a bedsheet on my way to jail. I vaguely remembered having seen him in town once or twice, but I couldn’t recall his name.
Never in my whole life would I’ve thought to end up incarcerated—or a murderer.
But the nightmare didn’t end there. I was taken to a tiny dungeon cell where I cowered on an uncomfortable, small bench. The air was damp and smelled of rotten earth, which, mixed with the remnants of the stable stench imprinted in my nostrils, made me dizzy. Slowly, I rocked back and forth, wrapped in my flimsy, dirty bedsheet, trembling like a leaf. Jelric’s blood that had drenched me had dried, but I lacked anything to clean myself with.
Another sob racked through my body as the magnitude of what I’d accidentally done sank further in. Jelric might have been the worst person I’d ever met in my life, but had he deserved to die? Also, what would my parents say?