They were also the only ones who knew where the tree was. They had brought the fruit back to the camps, willingly sharing it with everyone, but they had never revealed its location, and now that she thought about it, she didn’t think anyone had ever asked. It was as if they had all understood that they’d needed a place of their own, and allowed them to keep it.
Aria’s hand tightened around Max’s. She understood that William was mostly concerned with her safety, but she could not lose Max. He had risked his life for hers; he had sacrificed himself for her. She would not take the chance that they were separated now. She thought that she should feel more guilt about possibly losing the others but she didn’t, not when it came to her brother, and her friend. Their world was cruel, brutal, and for most people it was every man for themselves, except for the few people that ran in slightly larger circles. As she did.
It was nice to have friends, and family that she could rely on, that she could trust with her life. But the downfall of it all was the hurt that would come with the loss of one of them. And she had been lucky so far. Before her time within the palace, she had naively believed she would be lucky forever. She was not so naïve now.
William rushed forward, leading the way as they raced through the dark, up the slope, toward freedom.
They plunged into the night. Aria inhaled large, greedy gulps of the fresh air, relieved to be free of the confining space of the caves. They were almost a hundred feet from the cave exit when the screaming pierced through the rapid beat of her heart in her ears. She froze, horror coiling through her as she turned slowly back around. They were higher up on the mountainside, staring down across the way. The lake was beneath them, gleaming in the moonlight that reflected off of it. Across the lake was the exit from the escape tunnel, hidden within a copse of trees.
The exit had been selected because it was the farthest point from the main entrance, and well concealed. It was also where the screams were coming from. Aria’s mouth went dry; she took a step forward as horror and terror coursed through her. Across the lake, through the moonlight, she could see people scattering in every direction, fleeing as they tried to escape the monsters pursuing them.
Aria gaped for a moment longer, unable to believe the carnage before her. They had to do something. Now! She darted forward, determined to get down there, determined to help, determined to try and stop this somehow. Max seized hold of her arm, pulling her back. She struggled against him as he started to pull her toward the woods.
“We have to help!” she gasped.
He grabbed hold of her other arm, holding her tight before him as he shook her slightly. “There is nothing we can do Arianna, we have to go! We have to go now!”
She tried to fight him, but he retained his fierce hold. “We can’t just leave them!”
His eyes were dark, sad, broken in the moonlight. “There is nothing we can do Aria, it’s too late for them.” Her gaze turned back to the sight below her, she couldn’t abandon them. “It’s how we were captured before Aria; you cannot run heedlessly in again.”
His words froze her, she couldn’t move as her heart lumbered to pump the blood through her suddenly frigid body. It was how they had been captured before, it had been her fault that they had been taken, and she couldn’t allow that to happen again. Her gaze wandered hopelessly over to William. He stood at the edge of the forest, waiting impatiently for them. The others had already fled into the darkness. If she went down there again, if she tried to interfere again, they would follow her, and they would be caught. And there was nothing that any of them could do to help the people being hunted now.
There was no way to stop the massacre that was raging below them, no way to silence the screams. There was no one to save them if they were captured again, no one to rescue them as Jack had blown his cover amongst his family. They knew he was a traitor now, and would not welcome him back. They might not even be captured this time; they could just be slaughtered outright.
Max moved her back, pulling her stiff body away from the sight before them. “Hurry!” William hissed.
“It will be ok, Aria. It will be ok.” Max wrapped his hand around the back of her head, pulling her close for a brief moment before tugging her toward the woods. They plunged into the darkness, moving swiftly through the dense forest. William led the way, taking a zigzagging route that wound rapidly toward the banquet tree.
Aria felt numb, hollow. The screams of the tortured followed her, long after they were out of ear shot of them. Aria was panting, breathless by the time they reached the banquet tree. She fell against the large tree, clinging to one of its branches as she gasped for air that she couldn’t quite get. Her legs buckled, she fell to her knees before their childhood tree. There had been so many dreams and plans and hopes that grew from this spot.
There were none now. Now there was only bleak hopelessness. Now there was only death, and the echoing screams of the innocent. Now there was only hurt and loss and suffering. Yet, beneath all of that there was something else, something new rising up to course through her. For a moment she couldn’t identify the novel emotion through all of the agony and confusion rolling through her. For a moment, she didn’t know what it was that was consuming her. And then, she did.
It was hatred.
It was pure and simple hate. She hated this world of cruelty, hated the monsters that had created it. She hated with everything that she had, and was. And she hated the monster that had done this to her, the creature that had stomped all over her heart, making her weaker, making her a broken shell of the person she had once been. And now, well now that shell was filling up again. That shell was angry and twisted and so hate filled that she could barely breathe through its fiery consumption.
The prince, she hated the prince, she realized.
There would be no more grieving for him, there would be no more wondering and hurting. What had passed between them was the past. It was over. She would forget it, she would move on, and if their paths ever happened to cross again. She would kill him.
Chapter 3
“There was a raid.”
Braith stood silently, thinking over his brother Caleb’s words as the tailor moved slowly around him. The tailor had stopped mumbling to himself, and although he continued to work, Braith knew he was listening intently to the conversation. “And?” Braith asked quietly.
“She was not amongst the captured.”
“The dead?”
“No. The soldiers know that she is to be brought back here if caught. That they all are.”