I did it. I finally did it. I had escaped! I was… free. For the first time in my life, nobody would be able to force me to do… anything. No more pain. No more humiliation. No more punishment.

Tears of joy welled up in my eyes and ran down my cheeks unobstructed, falling to the leaf-covered ground. A laugh escaped me and I dropped down on all fours. Finally, I could allow everything that had happened to overwhelm me. To rest. To heal.

Behind me, territory of the accursed Empire of Khir'ul. Before me, unlimited possibility. I had made it over the border, over the gruesome lupi mortem mountains, past so… so many of the inhabitants these mountains were named after. Out of breath, but free for now.

I still couldn’t believe it really. I should be thankful to the perverted, love-struck merchant who had bought me because I reminded him of his first wife. The idiot had removed the horrible collar around my neck suppressing my facets and forcing obedience on me. He thought I had fallen for him as well- thought himself powerful and high. Unfortunately for him, my former occupation made me an excellent actress and I had played the part of a faithful wife for him quite a few years before he became careless and ultimately met his end by my own hands after one of his… sick sessions with me. Luck had finally been with me for once.

A smile crept up on my face as the memory of his expression when he realised what I had done. It felt so… satisfying, watching the poison drain him of life, slow and painful. Paying back everything he did to me tenfold. He’d probably still remain alive for a month or so, but every day the pain and hallucinations would grow worse and worse. Served him right.

~*~*~

I got up again after a short rest and began my descent down the mountain, moving into territory of the Phaxian Empire- another quite unruly country, but slightly better than where I came from. They were constantly at war though so border regions were generally very… uncomfortable places to be. Which played in my favour, really. The lack of villages and cities meant I could move north and to my actual target easily; Surisia, the Beastmen Country. 

From what I had heard, slavery was prohibited over there and was persecuted rather harshly. Probably because the two empires south of it loved to raid the beastmen regularly and take people as slaves. Men for the mines and women for… other activities. Especially those unfortunate enough to be young and beautiful. Really, being ugly was more of a blessing in the border regions. At least they’d kill you immediately and spare you a much worse fate. The same fate I had to live through for the past fourteen winters.

A shiver ran through my body and with a shake of my head, banning those thoughts to the deepest recess of my mind, I turned north and began to walk through the forest I found myself in with ease. Being half a dryad had its advantages sometimes, nature was our domain, our true home. With a chuckle I ran my right through my hair, the strands mimicking Fall's shades and enjoyed the sound of everything around me. The whistling of the wind, the chitter of birds and the stomp of tiny feet… wait. Shit. Why in the Goddesses' names was my luck always so bad? That last one was everything but natural.

My right almost immediately went to the short sword on my side and the left quickly applied a venomous aspect of one of my facets over its blade. This should hopefully help me deal with the little bastards I’d be meeting way sooner than I’d planned. In fact, I actually didn’t want to meet them ever. Too late now.

It didn’t take much longer before two of the ugliest creatures in existence stepped out from behind a shrub and faced me, salivating and looking over my body greedily with their way too big eyes. Their tiny green bodies were covered in disgusting warts and for some reason they had decided to forgo any type of clothing, freely showing off their disgusting appendages for everyone to see. Raising their wooden clubs, the little monsters started running towards me.

I didn’t wait for them to reach me and formed a small sphere of debilitating poison in my left and quickly threw it at one of the creatures, hitting it square in the face. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel wonderful to hear its screams right afterwards but there was no time for this right now unfortunately, because the second one was now close to me and swung down with his weapon, aiming for my legs. With a quick step to the side, I barely managed to dodge and stab at the beast and gave it a scratch over one of its unguarded arms, poison immediately entering its bloodstream and paralyzing the arm.

Confusion was written all over the monster’s face and before it could regain its bearings, my sword came down and quickly separated head from torso, body growing limp and falling over. There was still something else to do though and I made my way over to the second abomination, the thing rolling on the floor in pain. A quick stab through its abdomen released it from the pain and finally its screams ended.

With a sigh I looked down at the two monsters. Goblins. Quite literally the worst monsters females of any race could run into. They were quite worse than the empire I came from and where there was one goblin, there’d be more. They tended to multiply at an immense rate and I’d rather forget how exactly they accomplished that. So instead I decided to quickly make my way out of this forest, no matter how much I enjoyed the time here. Two goblins were manageable, but anything more would spell my doom. Fighting wasn’t exactly required of someone like me and I had received virtually no training. Luckily, these monsters were easy to deal with, provided you were an adult and had at least a bit of a brain.

~*~*~

Several days had passed since my run in with the goblins and I had to kill two more since then. They’d been solitary though, much easier to deal with. There was probably a nest somewhere nearby, enough for me to decide to speed up my travel even more, barely resting for lunch every day and quickly moving on after eating some of the local plants and berries. I had even met some courteous trees along the way who had directed me towards a much safer route out of the forest. No more goblins crossed my path after that and soon I had found my way out of the woods, quite literally.

My eyes wandered over the grassland that stretched before me, far and wide no village in sight, nothing but pure wilderness and several animals I could see grazing peacefully on the nutrient-rich pastures. Now all that was left was passing through this area, crossing a river, avoiding military patrols and reaching the other side of the Border to Surisia. Easy, right? Not.

I’d have to swim through the river. A river guarded by Phaxian soldiers most likely, to stop slaves from escaping over the border, meaning I’d have to take my chances at night and hopefully make my way through all of this undetected. I didn’t exactly want to end up in the same position as before, only changing the country I was enslaved in. The worst part was the fact that Phaxians used Facets as well and knew how to properly enslave people with it. In that way I was glad the Khir’s were more of a scientific people, none of them with facets as far as I knew. Employing monstrous contraptions of metal and even stranger weapons.

A deep sigh escaped me and I returned to the relative safety of the forest for now, making my way up a tree and contemplating on what to do next. Aside from waiting for nightfall. Closing my eyes, I leaned back against the tree and shuffled my legs closer, hugging them close to my body. My mind began to wander, realising that there was no plan actually. Just vague hopes and dreams. I didn’t even know if everything I had heard about Surisia was even true. To me, a land without slaves sounded unbelievable. How did they do all the work without them? Construction, mines and brothels? How did they even survive? Pay their workers? Who’d work in such places voluntarily?

Snickering, I shook my head. Yeah right, as if. But still… there was a chance it might be true. My heart kept hold of the dream ever since one of my former abusers talked about Surisia- mostly calling them barbarians and wildlings for their tribal hierarchy and lack of slaves. Despite this, he occasionally visited some of the other girls, especially those of beastmen descent. Hypocrite much, hm?

Slowly but surely my mind drifted off, the exhaustion of the past few days finally catching up with my body and forcing me to rest, instinctively snuggling closer to the tree’s rough bark and seeking protection in its expansive crown. For once I felt safe. I knew, the tree would protect me, at least for a bit. It told me so. Soon however, I’d have to run again and get past another border. But for now I’d rest.