As they moved along Lady Akatsine watched as Thomas calmly trudged along with the wagon. Every so often he would say hello to people as he passed by them. Some thought he was far too friendly and just ignored him while many of the older folks would reply and ask about the weather or tell him some news about the path ahead. It wasn’t until he had passed beyond the boundary of the city where people still commuted to and from. With no one in sight, Thomas turned back to the wagon with a stern look.

“Alright, I know you’re hiding in there so come out.” Thomas said with a kind but still threatening tone.

“How long have you known I was back here?” Lady Akatsine asked as she climbed out from under some of his bags.

“Since you snuck into the wagon when I was talking to the stablehand. I was curious as to why you what you were planning so I let it happen. Then you didn’t do anything and it made me feel like you were trying to disappear.” Thomas replied casually.

“Well, you found me out. Truth is that I saw this as my opportunity to escape.” Lady Akatsine said as she climbed over a few things and onto the bench along with Thomas.

“I see. Is that also why you were listening to the conversation between me and the King?” Thomas asked as he raised an eyebrow with a curious smile.

“Uh, well… I thought it was interesting.” She obviously lied in a way that sounded like she didn’t actually have a good reason to do so.

“Well then.” Thomas said as he brought the wagon to a halt. Setting the reigns beside him he reached under Lady Akatsines arms. Picking her up as if she were no more heavy than a feather.

“Hey, what are you doing?” She asked frantically before Thomas set her down beside the wagon.

“I don’t want to cause trouble for Notvallia so go back to the castle.” Thomas said before the wagon started moving again.

Lady Akatsine stood dumbfounded. She didn’t know what to say or do. Was it the blatant rejection or the fact that he was more concerned with the political situation than her? Either way, she didn’t know what to do. Without a plan she just let her emotions control her next action of running after him.

“Don’t just leave me here! Please take me with you. I’ll be killed if I go back there now. I’m begging you here!” Lady Akatsine yelled as she chased after his wagon. She got so into it that she even started to cry a bit. Though Thomas just ignored her tears and kept going.

“Why would they kill you? You’re a representative so you have a place of political power.” Thomas asked without stopping the cart or even looking at her.

“I’m from the house of Sheva. Those of that house are orphans. All I am is a stand-in for the real representative to avoid assassination. The old man will have me killed for this and I’ll just be replaced!” She yelled as her nose started running along with her tears.

“Fine. Get in.” Thomas said with a sigh before stopping the wagon.

Climbing back into the wagon, Lady Akatsine couldn’t help but keep sniffling from when she was just crying. Instead of sitting up front on the bench with Thomas she stayed in the back and sat with her knees pulled up to her chest. Thomas shook his head and let out a sigh knowing that he had just given in to something that would surely bite him in the ass later. However, despite the fact that he wanted to leave her, he couldn’t bring himself to do so.

“You’re a jerk.” Lady Akatsine said as she sulked in the back.

“Yeah, yeah. If this is part of the Creator’s plan then there’s no helping it.” Thomas said under his breath as the two continued down the road towards the mountain highway.

* * *

At that moment Sasha and I were both setting out with our cart as well. The road to the next village wasn’t very long but it was barely used because of how far it was from the mountain highway. Thus, it was rough and disfigured. It also didn’t help that there were plenty of wild dogs roaming around. After all that happened in the Labyrinth, I had grown a disdain for dogs and creatures resembling them.

“How far is it from here to the next village?” Sasha asked as she started to get comfortable among the items in the back of the cart.

“I think it was around a two-day trip by cart. Sadly, we’ll have to spend the night along the road tonight.” I replied with a downcast look. I couldn’t tell her that I was worried that something would trigger her. If I did then I might trigger her memories myself. Sasha noticed my look and wondered why I looked as I did. However, she didn’t want to ask me due to not wanting to make me worry I guess.

“Could you maybe teach me how to read?” Sasha finally asked with the hope that I might forget about what was bothering me.

“You really want to?” I asked with a somewhat surprised tone.

“I mean, I might as well. If I’m going to live here then I might as well learn this world’s language.” Sasha replied.

“Well, there are over sixty languages on this continent alone. Although, the runic language is fairly universal so it would probably be best to teach you that. It’s what’s in those books in my bag.” I explained. Sasha reached into my bag and pulled out one of the books before opening it to a random page.

“I see. Though if there are over sixty languages then why has everyone we’ve spoken to recently spoken the same language?” Sasha asked.

“I’m not well versed in the historical reasoning but I believe it had something to do with the Empire. If I’m not mistaken they spread so much that they ended up spreading their language to most of the continent as well. That said, I spoke with the Elder of the Empire, and she said that the Empire’s original language was lost except for some key terms.” I replied.

“That makes sense. It would be reasonable to assume that it made it easier to establish trade.” Sasha said with a curious tone. She kept flipping through the book she had picked up until she decided to start to look as if she was having an aneurysm.

“Can’t figure it out?” I asked.

“Not at all. What does this mean?” Sasha asked as she held the book out for me to see and pointed to one of the glyphs. Fuck! She had grabbed the one book I didn’t want to use.

“Uh… That means… hard.” I lied knowing that it was the word for manhood.

“You don’t sound so sure about that.” Sasha said with an inquisitive look.

“Why don’t you grab one of the other books. That one isn’t exactly the best.” I said with an uncertain chuckle.

“Fine. don’t tell me. Though I plan on learning.” Sasha said with a huff.

“Just grab the other book and I’ll go over it with you.” I replied.

She threw the book back into the bag and pulled out one of the others. We went over the basics for the runic symbols as well as what they can be derived from. Much of this information eventually started to give Sasha a headache so we stopped going over it. She decided that it was time for a nap so she got comfortable and went to sleep. Once the sun had almost set I pulled to the side of the road and started working on a fire.

As soon as the fire was ready we cooked up a small portion of our rations and I went to bed. Sasha decided to take first watch since she had slept a good portion of the day. As far as I could tell nothing happened while I was asleep. When I was woken up, Sasha looked like she was about to pass out so I took over and kept a lookout while she slept. Then it happened.

After Sasha had been asleep a while she started making pained grunts. Along with those grunts, she began rolling around in her sleep. Had it not been for what happened before I wouldn’t have been worried. Though if she was dreaming about her past memories then it wasn’t good. I began trying to wake her to stop whatever bad dream she was having. That was a bad idea though as she shot up screaming. Instinctually she pulled out her knife and stabbed me in the stub that was my arm.

“Damnit! That fucking hurts!” I yelled out as I fell on my back clutching my stub of an arm. The knife was still lodged in there and all I could do was make pained hisses as I tried not to freak out.

“Nero! I’m sorry! I-I didn’t mean to.” Sasha said with more worry on her flushed face than I had seen thus far. She got down next to me and tried to help me but the shock of what just happened started to send memories flashing through her mind. Although most of them were incomprehensible she managed to make out some of them. It didn’t help that the strain of all that information flooding into her head caused her to suddenly freak out and clutch her head in pain.

“Sasha, what’s going on?” I asked as I watched her fall to the ground clutching her head in pain. After a second or two of her writhing in pain, she began screaming out. My question was kind of redundant as I knew exactly what was going on. Then she stopped, sat upright, and gave me a look with emotionless, dead eyes.

“I didn’t mean to.” She said before looking at the knife in my stub. Even with her eyes looking dead, tears began streaming down her face. She looked as if she didn’t even notice the tears.