Chapter Five ▏The Departure

The inside of the carriage is wide, but I find myself getting suffocated by its velvet-lined walls. Not to mention Uncle Osman’s huge frame is taking up more than half of the seat, pushing me against the window with my bag of supplies on my lap. 

I face the window the entire time the carriage moves. For a long while, there’s nothing but the extension of the walls that surround the palace. I’ve never seen them before in person, but they’re even more majestic than the pictures. All brown bricks, stacked tall and thick to form a path that leads out of the premises. Uniformed guards are patrolling every corner, carrying swords.

Seeing them gives me a flashback of Hendrik and his words, but I quickly shake it off.

“Stop,” I mumble to myself, lightly slapping my cheek. 

Uncle Osman turns to me. “Is everything alright?” 

“Yes,” I answer, keeping my eyes glued to the window until the view changes.

The carriage finally leaves the long path from the palace. I hold my breath, bracing myself for the beautiful sceneries that are so often described in the books. But instead of paradise, there are hundreds of little dilapidated huts at the side of the mountains, which are brown and barren. There are hardly any trees. There are no visible bodies of water. And the people in the distance are wearing what look like rags roughly sewn together.

In short, everything about the place screams poverty and savagery.

Wait. This is not what I imagined the rest of the Capital to be. This is not what was taught to me at all.

"What is this?" I ask Uncle Osman, unable to keep the incredulity from my voice. "Why does everything look so beaten down? The Capital is supposed to be the richest of all city-states!"

As soon as I said that, I realized just how ignorant I sound. But it doesn't matter. I genuinely want to know why my homeland looks like this. This is a far cry from the picture of prosperity and grandeur that I knew.

"Well, times change, young Elora." Uncle Osman sighs, and his words make me feel even more stupid. "These people here — we tried to help them. But they don't want to help themselves. They are content in burying themselves in the dirt."

I peer at the people he’s referring to, trying to get a feel of what they are, what they give off. I don’t see them as smug. I just don’t get that. Even from here, I can feel their misery. 

“I don’t understand,” I whisper. “How can they live in these conditions? I feel bad for them.”

“Never feel bad for lazy people, Elora.” Uncle Osman’s voice now has a resentful edge. “They don’t care about themselves, and that’s why they ended up like that. They’re scum, the very thing that weighs the kingdom down. And that’s precisely the reason why they prefer to complain and rebel against us—”

“They’re rebels?”

He shrugs. “Yes.”

I jolt in my seat. That’s such big news to me. I can hardly believe it. “That was never taught to me. How come that’s never a part of the books or at least my lessons? How long have they been rebelling?”

Uncle Osman shrugs again, like he can’t be bothered to tell. “You need some sleep, Elora. We still have a long way to go until we reach Bellari.” 

He reaches over to me and touches my forehead, pushing me against the backrest of the carriage seat. I open my mouth to protest, but my body is fully agreeing with him. I am tired. I didn't sleep well last night, and if I want to survive, I have to be as strong and alert as possible when I’m finally released into the forest. 

I close my eyes, and a wave of drowsiness hits me, taking over my body until I sink into the realms of a dreamless sleep. 

When I wake up, the carriage is running fast. Too fast. 

I snap awake, my system still struggling to reboot. “What’s happening?”

Uncle Osman, who’s bracing himself against the wall of the carriage, shakily answers, “Rebels. They found us, and they’ve been following us for miles.”

“What?” I splutter. 

He doesn’t answer. The carriage continues to buck, almost sending me out of my seat. I can’t believe he didn’t even wake me up. I want to scream at him in frustration, but we have more immediate problems. Through the window, the scenery flicking past is mixed into a messy blur. I keep bouncing in my seat as the wheels of the carriage fly past bumps on the road. The horses are whinnying. Behind us, there are male voices screaming. Not in pain or in anguish, but pure anger. 

And they’re closing in. 

“What are we going to do?” My pulse is racing in panic. “What are they going to do?”

Uncle Osman only stares at me in horror. The carriage jumps before landing with a groan, and he holds onto dear life. “They’re going to. . . .”

Kill us, I supply mentally. Aren’t they off to throw the government? What better way to start than to kill the King’s daughter and brother?

Hoping to see how close the rebels are, I turn around and look through the back window. I only see silhouettes of people dressed in all black, their faces covered. All of them are stacked with weapons, from bows to spears to arrows. 

And as though to demonstrate their prowess, the nearest rebel throws his spear with deadly accuracy and pierces the window, shattering the glass completely..

A scream erupts in the air, and I don't realize it comes from me until my throat gets sore. I raise my arm to shield my face from the glass shards and the shaft of the spear zipping inside the carriage. It punctures the floor with a thud, narrowly missing Uncle Osman's foot. My ears are ringing, but it's more from the fear than the actual sound of the crash.

"Faster!" he yells at the driver of the carriage, who quickly whips the horses, propelling us forward. The rebels are right behind us, though. And one of them is aiming yet another spear at us. He turns to me frantically. "Elora, if they catch up with us, I want you to run as far away as you can. I want you to save yourself."

My chest constricts. He shouldn't say things like that. "Uncle, we won't get caught."

That was a lie. I honestly don't know if we can escape this situation at all, but I would rather die than be the lone survivor of this trip.

"Surrender!" the rebel who shot the spear shouts at us. "Surrender or we will kill you!"

"Uncle," I begin, hoping he would have something reassuring to say, like he always did. But his face is just creased with fear and worry. "What should we do?"

Before he can answer, one rebel riding a horse keeps up with our carriage and hits Uncle's side of the window.

Once again we're peppered in glass shards. Uncle ducks and tries to fend off the rebel, but it's no use. He can only push so much while staying within the confines of the carriage. The driver steers the thing to the side, which causes the carriage to tilt. Uncle Osman and I fall to the floor. My head collides against the door handle, and I try to use the edge of the seat to lift myself up.

But then the door flies open and I get thrown onto the road from the speeding carriage.

“Elora!” I hear Uncle Osman scream, but I’m already rolling down a hill. 

Stones, soil, and leaves cover me as I continue to roll. There’s a sharp pain in my shoulder. The bulk of the weapons strapped to me are digging into my skin. I want to extend my hands and try to find something to grab onto, but I don’t want to risk it. I’m battling gravity, and I know I won’t win. All I can do right now is try to shield my head, close my eyes, and wait for it to be over.

And to my surprise, my descent downwards ends much quicker than I anticipated. 

I feel my body rolling down along a slope, then stopping on a slope. My entire body hurts. I don’t dare open my eyes yet in fear of what I will see. I just lie there on my back, the quiver of arrows pressing against my spin and the back of my neck. My heart is beating in my ears. Tears are running down my cheeks. 

Too fast. All of that happened too fast. 

I clench my fists and force myself to open my eyes. The first thing I see are bushes with red berries, behind which gigantic oak trees are looming, shedding drying leaves all over me.

The scene would have been peaceful. I would have laid here for a while to recollect myself and calm down just enough to process the catastrophe that just happened, but the loud thud of heavy footsteps is urging me to move. Soon enough, I hear muffled male voices and the distinct crunch of dried leaves being crushed underfoot. 

The rebels. They managed to follow me.

“Find her,” one of the voices says. “She fell here, I know it. Remember, dead or alive, we must get her.”