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Leaving like this felt wrong, regardless of my station, and stepping into the trees with no idea where I was going had everything truly beginning to sink in. We may have been escaping, but it was not unscathed. My life as I knew it was over.
My home. My family…It was all gone.
~1~
Inhaling a deep breath, the chill that accompanied dawn seeped into my lungs. I crumpled the flier within my fist in an attempt to calm myself, letting it fall to the dew covered ground a second later.
Looking at the sky, one would think it was late afternoon or early evening, but that wasn’t the case. The sun had hidden the morning after my castle went up in flames. There was a constant hazy glow now, and it seemed to be growing darker with each passing day.
This was all so wrong.
The infernal regions were specifically broken up to correlate with each season. What had once been states were divided into sections. It was common knowledge, and the way things had been since before I was born. The mere fact that it had begun snowing in Zenith, the region known for spring, was alarming to say the least.
From behind me came a soft creak, the opening of the worn shack’s door.
“Anything yet?” Scarlett asked, eyeing the orange paper as she stepped up beside me.
“Aside from finding another flyer he forgot to burn, no. Has it been too long?”
“Not yet. Knowing Toby, he’s dragging his paws and giving you time to reconsider.”
“He keeps trying to shelter me from what’s happening, wasting time on a childish hope that I remain oblivious.”
Even to my ears, the words sounded bitter, but I was struggling to remain positive as of late.
Toby continuously claimed things would get better—day in and day out. I was wise enough not to believe such empty words. Over the past four months, everything had gotten far, far worse. Our world was in rapid decline to something it would never heal from. Everything around me was spiraling down, and I could do nothing to stop it. Nothing until now, that is.
“For the record, I’ve thought this was the way to go from the start. Realistically, how much longer could we have gone on like this, Duvessa?”
I gave a slight shake of my head, feeling the effects of the past few months down to my bare bones. “We couldn’t. Jacinda needs medical attention. We’re running out of food. Our people are starving, homeless, and unprotected.
“And then there’s the demis being snatched off the streets for… selection.”
The word rolled off my tongue like acid, turning my stomach.
The same thing that had once made our kind outcast was now the very reason for the bounties on our heads. Demis had become a rare commodity over the past few months.
Something about our genetic make-up made us an invaluable resource for the King of Purgatory and his followers. Even worse was the uneducated ignorance that had most believing the demis were lucky to be bestowed such fate. After all, they were given a roof over their heads, food, and a bed to sleep in at night.
Such simple things had become wistful dreams for everyone forced into a lower caste. They failed to realize that same roof held little significance when you were nothing but a slave beneath it, that the bed was the furthest thing from comfort when one was forced to spread their legs on it.
“I can’t believe how fast they turned on one another,” Scarlett voiced, mind on the same track as mine.
“I try not to think about that part of it.”
Honestly, I tried not to think too much about anything. One thought always merged with another. My wounds were still fresh; my father’s death was a constant source of pain, and my heart ached for the condition of our region, for the supes still holding out for better days.
It was a near crippling blow to see all the achievements that had been worked hard on were now nothing but piles of rubble and rotting corpses. Our people betraying one another for coin and notoriety…gods, he would be ashamed.
I ran my hands through my hair to detangle the onyx strands. Needing a swift subject change, I finally asked a question that had been plaguing me for weeks. “Do you think Cronus and Mirabelle got out?”
“You mean, if they weren’t the ones responsible for all of this?” Toby’s voice answered.
I turned slightly, glancing over my shoulder to where he stood at the side of the shack.
“How long have you been listening?”
“Long enough to know you’re still considering something ill-advised.”
With a shake of my head, I targeted my gaze on the dying pines towering above me. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“I took the scenic route in case I was being tailed.”
That was wise. “Does that mean you couldn’t find the transporter?”
