A bloody unicorn horn in my hand, I raced back the way I came. Following my trail in the snow, I was even faster than before, but I was probably a tad too late to stop the things I set in motion myself.

“Wake up!” I shouted as I slid into the cave over a bit of ice. Paddling with my arms, I somehow managed to keep my balance though.

“Lucy, it is in the middle of the night.” Hannah stated, rubbing her eyes slowly.

“We need to get going. Call it godly intervention.” I said and presented the unicorn horn with a sad expression on my face.

“What happened?” The whore asked, surprisingly clothed … which was probably attributed to the temperatures more than anything else. I waved her over to me and yawning, she took her sweet time before she stood in front of me.

“Have you sent them our position?” I hissed into her ear.

“Yes? I mean, that was the plan all along, wasn’t it?” She asked. I gritted my teeth and strolled over to Hannah. Crouching down, I whispered quietly so the others wouldn’t listen in.

“Hannah, with our current proviant, can we go anywhere else except the town we came from?”

“… I fear not.” She admitted, not really understanding why I was asking this. Sitting down on the cold stone right next to her, I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. Could I do anything to stop the worst from happening? Could I stop the army that was out for my head?

No. I was fucked.

I could leave them behind, but if I was bound to fall into a coma, then Hannah was a valuable person I couldn’t risk losing. She would live far longer than the two hundred years after all. Could I take Hannah with me and ignore the rest? At least when I was back in the capital, they would put one and one together. My reputation would be ruined. Not a great way to set everything up for two centuries.

What was left? Mitigate the damage I caused myself? But how? It needed to be faster than my original plan …

“Hannah, listen to me carefully. The moment you step foot in the capital city, go to Tom and ask him where I am. Tell him he should use any information source there is to localize me if I am not where that whore says I am. Then, you go to Pope Dustin and tell him where I am held captive. Explain everything as it happened but keep quiet from where you got that information. If he still pushes for more, tell him someone kind told you. Understood?” I whispered into her ear once more.

“What is going on?” She asked quietly.

“I´m falling for a trap I laid myself. Nothing was planned like this, okay? But you can do this. I trust you.” I trained her for this after all. She should have done enough acting for that little stunt.

“Lucinda?” She said, frowning as I didn´t make much sense.

“Do what I say. And now get up. The sun is rising. We need to get going.” I claimed and stood up from myself. Walking over to the whore who still stood there, looking at me with interest, I stood on my toes once more and whispered into her ears.

“Don’t tell Hannah a thing even when she asks what is about to happen. And then, once you meet her again, do as she says.”

“Okay?” She said after a little while, but I was already busy packing my things and giving the guard his sword back. I made everyone hurry up a little, but I didn´t want to appear different than usual.

Together, we made our way back to the village in a straight line. I wouldn’t be able to explain anything different to the guards, and we couldn’t shake off the bird flying above us anyway.

 Thus, it was better to act as unsuspicious as possible and get rid of all the baggage before taking action. It would take us a lot longer to reach the village we visited last, but we didn´t even come to that point. Even during the day, I could make out a few sloppily hidden scouts and if I spotted them, the others could do so as well. Hannah informed me of their presence first, and then came the whore.

Luckily, I selected all the guards I wanted to take with us, and as I took the worst and disposable ones, none of them actually noticed. Still, they did as soon as we went over a large hill, and the hundreds of men behind the other side revealed themselves.

“Saint Lucy?” One of them asked with shaking legs. I frowned and put up a show by stopping in my tracks. At once, I looked behind us, only to find us completely encircled which wasn’t that hard of a feat. They were around a thousand mercenaries, soldiers of a few nobles, and priests in dark robes … all my enemies in one place. Usually, I would have drooled at the sight, but I really didn´t want to see them at that point.

Tom and I worked out a plan for how we could gather them all in one place. Every church that hated how I worked more and more with the church of life and their friends, the few nobles who despised me of my blood … everyone. We used our underground network to get in contact with these ones, first and foremost the church of death though. They wanted to see my head rolling since I met their pope for the first time.

We basically sold them where we would be going and pretended to have a mole in my group which would be the whore. If I trusted anyone with that role, then it would be her. Her acting was truly good enough for that.

I would be captured and this way, I would find out everything I needed to know. Their numbers, who they were and so on. We could easily crush them afterwards and even if that plan meant a little bit of pain for me and probably even one death, it was safe to say I couldn’t lose.

It would take time though. Time I didn´t have.