CHAPTER 3: Escape

Shia saw an opening, and immediately, she tried to attack him on his left side. The boy was swift, and he swung away from Shia, leaving a gash in his dark cape. Shia tried again, this time aiming for the boy’s face. This left him with no choice but to drop his hands from his eyes and hold Shia’s left arm to prevent the dagger from doing further damage.

As he grabbed her wrist, his glowing red eye was locked into hers, but Shia did not care, and she tried to push all the weight of her body on her hands. He was too strong for her though, and he was able to resist the dagger from going further to his face. She wrestled her with all her might, but he was really strong. After a while, he began to wear a stunned look in his face when he realized that Shia was not turning into stone.

“Why?...” he said in an exasperated tone. Shia was able to release herself from his grasp. This time, she tried to make an overhead attack, but he used his right gauntlet to fend off her effort.

All the while, the boy’s jaw was ajar, and he looked at her in amazement. Shia would have been as surprised as him too if she was not burning with an uncontrollable rage to hurt him at that very moment.

“H-How come?..” he breathed in between her attacks. Shia had no time to answer as she tried to make another attack on his left rib cage.

Again, he was able to hold her wrist and stop her dagger from piercing his side. As he did so, something surprising has started to happen. The boy’s left eye stopped glowing altogether. The red light emanating from it became dimmer and dimmer until only a pair of normal-looking blue eyes gazed back at Shia.

Now the boy felt even more bewildered than ever and so did Shia. What on earth was happening?!

As the two of them struggled in the bushes, they heard the swift swoosh of an arrow, and immediately, as his instinct kicked in, the boy twisted his body and shielded Shia from getting pierced by the arrow.

The arrow punctured him in the back, and he screamed in pain. As he did, he lost a little bit of his balance, and he let go of Shia’s wrist.

Shia quickly tried to withdrew his hands, but it was too late. The dagger already pierced his chest for a bit and blood gushed out as Shia pulled it away from his flesh.

He quickly fell to his knees as Shia heard more arrows being hurled to them. Shia tried to move him away, but he did not budge, and in a heartbeat, he scooped Shia’s waist and lifted her, and despite his limp, he began to run rather quickly away from the arrows.

“Argh!! Put me down!” Shia screamed and thrashed as hard as she could, but it was no good. The boy was a foot higher than her and more muscular than she had expected. It was like beating a wall with a piece of cloth. At that point, she would rather die than be captured by this boy, but he would not put her down despite her fruitless protests.

She kicked and thrashed around, but he said nothing. Shia could see the end part of the arrow sticking at the boy’s back, and she tried to thug it out. At that point, he yelped in pain so loudly it rung in Shia’s ears.

“Stay still!” he said. His tone was icy and frightening. It reminded Shia of his father’s voice whenever he commanded her with something of utmost importance. She felt too stupefied for words.

Suddenly, Shia heard the sounds of arrows thrown in their direction once again. She saw one arrow coming immediately at them, so without a thought, she raised her hands and tried to create a wall of vines to fend it off.

To her surprise, only a single stem appeared. It did successfully thwart the arrow though, so Shia was somewhat relieved. Abruptly however, Shia saw that at least three or five more arrows were coming fast towards them.

Shia tried with all her might to make a wall of vines once more, but again, only a small, thin stem appeared from the ground. Shia thought that they would be doomed as all five arrows were fast approaching. Then, Shia had an idea.

She focused her thought on the stem until it grew and grew tremendously. In a matter of second, the stem became a tree and its trunk grew big and chunky. The branches spread out so quickly that it was able to shield them from all the arrows just in the nick of time.

Shia felt a sigh of relief as she saw all five arrows hit the tree trunk and obscure them from view. However, she felt her body become heavier and heavier and her energy began to leave her.

Using her powers again for the first time after three months must had had a tremendous effect on her. She sensed the faint effect of a guiding stone somewhere too. One of the robbers must have picked up the leader’s guiding stone staff and was using it against them.

The boy looked back too, and as he saw the sight of the growing tree, his eyes widened a bit, but he did not say anything. Suddenly, he stopped his tracks, and he put Shia down to the ground.

Shia immediately stood up and kicked his shin. He yelped in pain.

As Shia was about to run away, she noticed a trail of blood from where they treaded moments before, and she saw that blood was coming out of the boy’s side where Shia’s dagger has pierced him. He was sweating profusely too, and his breathing felt hard and laboured.

Shia bent down to check his wound, but he flicked his hand away and arched his body in defence. She dismissed his hand gently though, and said in a small voice.

“Let me see it. I won’t hurt you...” she said.

He looked at her once again. His eyes were still a normal ocean blue color. They locked eyes for what felt like an eternity, and finally he lowered his hands away from his wound.

Shia took a quick look and saw that it was not a deep wound, but it was bleeding a lot because he had carried her. Shia felt a small pang of guilt knowing that he had saved his life back there when all she was thinking about was killing him.

Before she can say anything about the state of his wound, they heard shouts from nearby, and they knew that the remaining bandits were not too far away. Without a word, the boy got up one more time, and tried to lift Shia’s waist as if to start carrying her once again, but she pulled away from him and whispered.

“Let me help you walk. You will lose a lot of blood if you carry me further...”

He blinked for a while, and he did not say a word, but then he nodded towards her, and they started to swiftly walk side by side with Shia assisting him in his left wound and cupping it with her hands as gently as she could.

He was not as heavy as she thought he would be, but they were walking in a considerably slower pace. He did have a nice nimble walk that matched Shia’s steps. It helped them to cover some miles with minimal sounds.

Soon, however, the footsteps of the bandits were behind them, and they tried to walk much faster than they did. However, the boy began to stagger a little bit more with every step, and more and more blood began to seep from his wounds than Shia would have wanted.

The trees that surround them grew more and more sparsely at this point, and to Shia and the boy’s surprise, they had reached the edge of a steep cliff.

Shia tried to peer down the cliff, and all she saw was the raging flow of water from the river hundreds of miles down below.

She left out a sigh. Shia could swim, but the height of their jump frightened her a bit, and she did not feel as confident as she would have been if an injured person was not with her.

“Let’s just jump,” he said.

Shia imagined the throb that the wounds in his side, his back, and his leg brought him, but he did not show it. He did not seem to be even the least faltered from all his wounds.

While still considering the thought of jumping down, three bandits appeared from all corners. Two of them were aiming arrows at them, and one of them was carrying the fallen leader’s guiding staff, impeding Shia’s attempt to use her powers.

‘There was no way to escape them now,’ Shia thought in desperation.

“Just give us the girl. We won’t hurt you or come after you,” the one with the guiding stone staff shouted.

Thinking perhaps that having one, low-maintenance cursed one was better than having a wild A-grade that can kill them anytime, the ruffian seemed to drive a hard bargain, at least in Shia’s eyes. She would have thought of the same thing, but Shia would die first before letting his family’s murderer escape. She unconsciously clung to his side, cupping his side wound a little deeper than he would have wanted.

“I don’t think the girl would like it very much,” the boy replied, “And so do I!”

And as he said this, he flung her across the edge of the cliff, and roared “Jump!”

With a sudden rush of excitement enveloping her body, Shia took the leap and jumped down the cliff into the roaring waves down below.