As we fled from the soldiers, I did my best to keep them on the ground. Some of them were easily knocked out by one or two water blasts, especially if they hit a wall or the ground hard, but half of them proved quite resilient. Especially the captain, who kept getting closer.

Berla was very mobile for the condition she was in, but sprinting faster than the soldiers was beyond her, and Riala was still tired from the long day of walking. After several repeated water blasts I was reaching our pain threshold and decided that I didn’t have another choice. They wouldn’t stop, and we couldn’t escape them. That left one option. Make them stop.

I took out another blue stone, aimed at the closest soldier, and activated a different script than the ones I had used so far. A stream of water shot out and hit his right leg, leaving a hole one could comfortably see through. He tried to get up again, but failed and ungracefully fell back to the ground. One down, four to go.

Aside from stopping one of them, this attack had also once more flustered the others, who presumably hadn’t expected attacks that would do actual harm. It would be easier if I could just kill them... but Tomar would hate me for it, I thought in frustration.

Not knowing where to go was our biggest problem right now. Riala and I didn’t know Cerus and Berla hadn’t been here a lot. If we went down side-paths they might catch us off-guard, coming from another direction, so instead we ran down the straight road leading south towards the main square. I glanced behind us and saw the captain getting close again, so I fired another stream, but he managed to jump to the side, rolled on the ground, and was immediately up and moving again. Tsk...

I didn’t have enough time to grab another blue stone and was tackled to the ground by the captain, who turned me around onto my stomach and pinned my arms to the ground. No matter how much I tried to struggle, he wouldn’t budge.

“It’s over, stop struggling!” Captain Lera said.

Looking up, I could see Berla and Riala disappear between the stalls at the main square. Instead of going after them, however, the soldiers surrounded me, pointing their spears at me and securing their surroundings.

“Captain, do we go after them?” one soldier asked.

“The boy is more important, we’ll secure him first and then we’ll—”

“Miles!!” I heard Riala yell from afar. I glanced up and saw her use a script, shooting a thin water stream in our direction. I couldn’t see who she had hit exactly, but I was suddenly free and the spear that had been pointed at my face had disappeared.

I jumped to my feet and sprinted in her direction as fast as I could. Briefly glancing back, I could see that both the captain and another soldier were lying on the ground. She must’ve hit them both at once. I couldn’t see their injuries, but they were at least still moving. While the one remaining soldier checked on them in a panic, I joined back up with the others and we kept going. First south and then east, leaving the main square behind us, as we ran through small paths between houses. After a few minutes we stopped in the shadow of a building to catch our breath.

“God damn it...” I said. “Are you two okay?”

“We’re fine! What about you?” Berla said.

“Me too... But they won’t let us go...” I said with frustration in my voice. I certainly knew that we were valuable to them, but sending an army after us into the Wildlands seemed extreme. They were risking the lives of dozens, maybe hundreds of people... Just for this ability?

“Is there any other way out of town?” I asked Berla, but she shook her head.

“Not that I know of.”

I didn’t know what to do. We didn’t have a lot of blue stones left between us, our bag was at the inn, and we didn’t have anywhere to hide. Even if we had our stones, however, we wouldn’t get out of here in one piece. At least assuming the captain wasn’t lying.

“Do you think there’s really an army out there?”

“Most likely...” Berla said with her gaze cast downwards. “Captain Lera is not one to make empty threats like that. I don’t see a way out, Miles...”

I leaned against a wall and let myself slide down to sit on the ground. It wouldn’t even matter whether we could avoid or defeat the soldiers that were searching for us in town. If we can’t leave, they can just keep sending in new groups. It seemed like they hadn’t cooperated with the Cerus authorities, however, otherwise I would’ve expected a larger force and maybe guards. Wait...

“The authorities... They didn’t tell the authorities about us! Maybe they couldn’t, because Cerus wouldn’t let them do a manhunt in their town, or maybe they would have acted on their own and tried to catch us for themselves... How tight are Cerus and Alarna?”

Berla looked at me with confusion. “Uh, not at all I would say. I know the king hates the mayor of Cerus. And a little while ago there were talks about seizing the town, to make it part of Alarna once again. Wait, do you... want to go to the Cerus authorities!?”

“Think about it. Nobody knows about us here, right? If we can sell the story we originally tried in Alarna, and offer them our knowledge in exchange for protection from the king...”

It would be a risk, just like it had been a risk in Alarna, but here we had a clean slate. Nobody was suspecting Tomar of being a Mad One, we didn’t have our beast aura anymore, we hadn’t broken any laws, and nobody knew the exact extent of our abilities. We were just a boy with a previously unknown Calling and his two friends he had fled with, when the evil authorities tried to torture my knowledge out of me. Friends... Maybe siblings? That would make more sense.

“That’s assuming the mayor can actually stand up against the king...” I said.

“Cerus does have a Fighter force, but it’s not even close to Alarna’s,” Berla said. “And that’s not the only problem. The king hates the mayor for a reason. Apparently he’s a ruthless businessman. He might try to capture and then sell you back to the king.”

“A businessman,” I mused. “Even better. If we demonstrate to him that we’re worth more than what he could get from the king, he will want to keep us here. And at the very least it would buy us time, right?”

“I suppose...” Berla said, unsure about my plan.

Granted, trying to make a deal with another leader, after two already tortured and tried to kill us, didn’t seem like the best idea, but it was a chance. It would be impossible for us to take on the army outside and there were still soldiers after us here in town. Additionally, if they wanted to keep Cerus’ authorities out of it, it would run directly counter to their plans.

The biggest risk was the mayor trusting the soldiers and handing us over, one way or the other. If he was such a shrewd businessman, however, he would surely not give up someone who understood the “scripture sigils” and was able to produce water on his own. He would be able to see the long-term value in this.

And if he were to imprison us and try to get our knowledge that way, like the others had done, we would at least still be in Cerus. A much smaller town, with guards that weren’t prepared for our abilities.

I conveyed my thoughts to Berla and she fell into thought. “I’m not sure this is a good idea... but we need to do something. And I don’t have a better one.”

When we had no other choice but to flee from the powers that be, we had done so and it had worked out somehow. Fleeing would not be an option this time, but going to the authorities would be. A curious turn of events.

***

“Captain Lera! Are you okay?” a soldier asked when he caught up to the others who had chased the fugitives. He had been one of the first to get knocked out and the four other soldiers were with him. The captain meanwhile was sitting on the ground, with a hole in his shoulder. Another soldier lay at his side, unconscious, with a hole in his upper torso.

The girl’s attack had penetrated both of their bodies and distracted them long enough for Tomar to flee, with the remaining guard prioritizing first aid on his comrades over following their targets. While the captain wasn’t happy about that decision, he also knew that the guard would’ve had a high chance to die, had he gone after them alone, and that wouldn’t have been a help to anyone either.

Instead of responding to his subordinate, the captain stood up with a contemplative look on his face. The fugitives wouldn’t be able to leave town without getting caught right outside the gate. That left them precious few options. They could look for another way out or hide. In both cases he would need more people inside. He had originally only taken one squad to not alert the authorities, but by this point they were already chasing their targets openly through town, so it was just a matter of time until someone noticed anyway. All that mattered now was to find them as soon as possible.

“Jara, you’re going outside. Get two more squads in here and start systematically searching the southern part of town. The rest comes with me, we’ll try to follow their trail.”

“Sir, should you not rather rest—”

“Move out!” the captain said and started jogging in the direction of the main square, one of his arms hanging limbly from his side, the other tightly gripping his sword.

***

Mayor Cerus III was a direct descendant of the founder of Cerus and was very proud of his lineage. Once upon a time, Cerus Balart I had declared independence from Alarna and turned the former mining camp into a bustling merchant hub. He had worked in the camp for close to three decades when the workers discovered a ritual platform, buried under a large pile of rocks, which were only removed because the people had needed more storage space.

This find, however, changed everything. Not only were they no longer reliant on Alarna and the temple for receiving Callings, they were also right at the source for blue and white stones, and this gave them power. Alarna needed the mining camp, but they didn’t technically need Alarna anymore. Though there were ways they could help each other.

Cerus Balart was well liked among his colleagues, and over the course of months, he convinced more and more of the workers and guards stationed at the camp that splitting off from Alarna would be to the advantage of all of them. Freed from the rules and regulations, they would be able to make deals with other towns, they could expand their operations, and strongarm the king of Alarna at the time into a deal.

In these early years, a war wouldn’t have been a viable endeavor and an agreement was formed that essentially formalized what the camp-turned-town had already done for decades. They supplied Alarna with stones and other products, while Alarna delivered daily necessities, clothes, and other things that were more difficult to source in Cerus. This agreement had survived until the present day.

While Mayor Cerus III was proud of what his family had accomplished, he was also ambitious. He had done a remarkable job at leading the town and optimizing their business dealings. However, he had yet to make a big splash that would put him in the history books. Something that people would still talk about in hundreds of years.

He dreamed of that fateful day, when he would truly make his own mark on the world, when loud knocking woke him from his slumber. He pulled his blanket over his head, trying to ignore the noise, but when the knocks kept coming, his wife not-so-gently pushed him out of bed.

“Would you please make it stop, Cerus!?”

“Ugh...”

Groggily, he stumbled out of their bedroom, down the stairs, and to the door, lighting a candle on the way. When he opened the door, he saw a child and two young adults, almost children themselves, who were looking at him in shock. While the little girl’s eyes were quickly covered by a hand, the two older ones  looked away.

“Uhm... Mayor Cerus?” the young man asked.

“Hmhm,” the mayor confirmed and let out a yawn. “What do you want?”

“I’m sorry for disturbing you at this hour, but it’s an emergency.”

“Hmhm?”

“Or should I say... a business opportunity?”

With a bit of curiosity about what this was about, the mayor properly opened his eyes.

“Before we continue, however, could you maybe put something on?” the young man suggested.

“Ugh...” the naked mayor grunted.