We clearly got off the boat a long time ago. Maybe six or eight hours passed by the time we got to land.
I was blindfolded, but I vaguely saw light and heard strange conversational voices. One female, gruffer than the norm, and the other was thick and utterly masculine.
When they finally removed the blindfold and the ties to my hands and feet, I finally had a full view of her.
Her face was hard as stone, constantly scowling. She was probably taller than me by an inch or two; the physique of her body was packed with muscles.
She was accompanied by another man. He didn't have her bronze skin that seemed to have rusty red on her cheeks.
Like her, he was wearing dark attire, but despite it, I could see the armor under the material. Her was thicker. From the sound of the rusty rushing chains that I could hear every time she moved, I could bet that she was wearing chain mail, which he did not.
Clearly she was the one to watch out for.
I kept my features blank. She looking daggers at me, As if I ate her cat. What was wrong with her?
Then she got out a thick bit of chains stronger than the flimsy ties they tie them with. Currently I was tied up to to a tree by a rope. I considered untying them, but I could not risk it—not without an escape route. Considering the size of the two mercenaries I clearly made the right choice.
"So are you selling, kidnapping, or killing me?"
The woman looked like she was going to burst a blood vessel. The man bit down a laugh. "We are taking you back to Malp. There is a bounty on your head that will pay handsomely."
So they don't know about Helena. Or at least the man doesn't. There is no telling what she saw when she was on the boat.
She revealed nothing on her face. She inches closer and bound my feet and palms together in one long chain. I noticed it had an interlocking circle on it.to
My entire body stilunderstoodng what it was. When I saw the long silver chain around her sides sohand. To yank on mweres if I was a dog. I knew othesters has hchain to change their slaves into their sides, so they wouldn't escape regularly.
But after the first few months being in court, I proved my worth, so I was spared from that particular tradition. But then again, why would I need chains when I had nowhere to run?
I glanced up into her face. The mercenary gave me a warning glare that made it clear she was more than willing to hold up to that threat.
I stood up on steady feet, following the two of them. We walked out of the bank of shuffling woods.
There was such chaos in my head fumbling for a plan for me to get out of this shit situation.
I needed to get to Helena. She probably realized by now what has happened. I know if she wanted to, she would be finding a safe place for the three of them to settle, but you wouldn't have done that knowing that I was still missing.
So she would probably be out there looking for me. I knew she wasn't exactly defenseless. The woman was smart as hell, she might not have had skills in combat, but she worked the court around her finger if she wanted to.
I should wait until night is falling to make my escape. They won't come after me, considering the dangerous beasts in these woods, if the hunting knives were any indication that they thought that they would need to hunt for food.
We stopped at the halt at the bank of Lakeshore by a nest of palm trees. The female mercenary made the very first sound she had made ever since we left that wood. She grunted, straining her hands, "We will stop here for the night."
The male nodded, trying to hold back a moan of exhaustion.
They chained me up to some tree while the female mercenary unchained herself from her armor to only have the thin material around her waist and breasts. She laid her head slack over a pillar of a rocks and closed her eyes as she nodded off to sleep. The male did not.
It was more interested in the knife at his hand that needed way more sharpening. He kept playing with it as if he were a child playing with a toy. He eyeing the female was sort of predatory greed.
It was not sexual, but as I saw what he clasped in his other hand, it was a note. I wondered if it had to do with whoever they delivered me to.
After a lot of concentration, I finally unlocked the hatch of the chains, and slowly, while still pretending to be chained, I unfurled my hand from the constriction that had been there for hours.
I didn't know if it was the best idea for me to go now, and on the one hand, I needed to go, and on the other, I also needed sleep. I've been exhausted for days now.
Now my eyelids started to be heavy, drawing me into the desperate sleep that I needed, but I clenched my fist. My nails, biting into my skin, exuding pain that I should feel.
I jolted, stiffening into the tree behind me as the male stepped to me, narrowing his eyes; he bent on his knees, looking me in the eye. I froze, making sure he did not see my hands.
"Where is she?"
I did not need to know who he meant, but I played dumb. "Who do you mean?"
"The princess," he hissed, the dagger he has been toying with now out towards my torso. "You kidnapped her after you were tried as a criminal for kidnapping her the first time. They say you raped her and then intended to marry her—that you are insane and dangerous."
He made sure his grin was wild when he said, "You don't seem that dangerous, but then again—" He shrugged as if the matter of his life was of no consequence. "I'll make you a deal. You will kill the female, and I will not deliver you to the new king."