It's a rarity that I'm ever grateful for the Hunt, but today is one of those days. Without it, we wouldn’t have ever made it outside undetected.
We exit the castle on the west side of the building, just as I'd planned.
Fox barrels past me, examining the distance. "W-what's this?"
"Your...freedom?"
I'm taken aback by the sharp cut of her tone. It almost makes me forget to ease the door shut behind me, so as not to alert any guards who might be wandering the area. Almost.
Instead of barking at the ungrateful display, I remind myself what’s at stake here, what she’s survived already, and the fears that have to be weighing heavily upon her shoulders.
"We're on the west side of the castle. The Capital is that way. I just assumed that's where you'd—"
A horrifying scream cleaves the air.
It shouldn’t be any different than the others. The Shadowthorn is an eruption of agony and fear today. But this cry stands out. This one I recognize.
This one belongs to Ursulette.
Every impulse in my body tells me to run to her, to race into the Shadowthorn, find my friends, and figure out what could cause her so much anguish and ire. But I’m on a new life path now. I made my choice and I have to stick to it.
"The Capital?" Fox wails, drawing my attention back to her and our nearly-complete escape. She whips around like a flame bursting from a bonfire. "What are we going to do at the Capital? The gods-forsaken place fell nearly two decades ago." Shaking her head, she marches past me, adjusting Bastion on her hip. "I'm taking them east."
"East?” I grab her arm, but quickly let go when she tenses. “Into the Shadowthorn? Have you lost your mind? You know what's happening out there right now, right?"
"Of course I know. I'm no fool."
"I might beg to differ." My fingers scrape against my scalp as I drag my hand through the length of my white hair. "The Hunt has started. The Shadowthorn will be teeming with noctis by now."
She tips her head back. "I said I'm well aware."
I'm too frustrated to think. For a moment, I can't even seem to make the words tumbling around in my head form coherent sentences. I just risked everything for her, for the two children clutching onto her like trembling leaves. And her plan, all along, has been to walk them into another bloody fiasco.
"You only just narrowly escaped the worst experiences of your lives, and now you want to drag your family through another gauntlet of terror? I—I can't let you."
Amother bear protecting her cubs would be put to shame by the ferocity that sparks behind Fox’s blue eyes. "You don't get toletus do anything. You're not our keeper. Isn't that what all of this was about? Giving us our freedom? Or do you no longer care if you're just as controlling as your tyrannical father?"
"Stop trying to rile me up," I say just in time to prevent my anger from rising. "Why would anyone in their right mind—anyhuman, to be more specific—willingly enter the Shadowthorn on today of all days, knowing full-well the carnage awaiting them once they’re inside?"
"Wedon't have a choice, Malachi!" Just as quick as her fury bubbles and rises to the surface, it fizzles out again. A lifelong battle of survival has left her wearier than ever. "Or haven't you noticed? There is nowhere left for us to go. Your father controls the realm. He's bled the continent dry, quite literally. Village after village have fallen. Entire cities—the Capital! My own home was infiltrated and obliterated, all before you were even a toddler ambling about with that crown askew on your big toddler head."
If she were anyone else, I'd be compelled by my pride to inform her that as a boy I barely had any possessions, let alone a crown among them. My mother and I lived a simple life, one that I was quite fond of and wouldn't have changed for the world. Most of the people in my life forget that. They forget that I, too, was robbed of a peaceful adolescence, that my home was decimated, and my friends and family murdered.
At least she doesn't have to blame herself for the fall of her home. But my mother's blood will forever stain my hands. If I hadn't been born, if I hadn't been a noctis, if I hadn't fallen for the neighbor girl, my mother and our entire village might still be standing.
"I'm not saying you'll live a prosperous life out in the wasteland of a country you've been left with," I tell her, trying to sound reasonable. "I'm saying that you should at least go hide somewhere and wait for the Hunt to end before you even think about entering those woods. The noctis will eat you alive if you go in there now. We could..."
I trail off, hearing my words before I even registered that I was saying them.
We.
I haven't talked to her about where I'll go after all of this. Part of me had been assuming I would be on my own after we left the castle, even though it’s far from what I want.
I don’t think she realized that I was leaving—the castle, my crown, all of it—until just now. But she’s a quick woman. She understands that now that I’ve aided in her escape, after today, I'll not be welcomed in the company of any noctis.
Tor Devonshire will finally give me what I've always wanted from him: disownment. My only regret is that it comes at the cost of losing my friends.
"I could keep us protected," I begin, sensing her understanding, and hoping I’ll find her compassion as well. "But only if we leave the castle, and we leave all notions of traveling through the Shadowthorn until the Hunt ends."
