“Just over ten hours or so.” He coughs to clear his throat before he continues, “I’m sorry about your family,” he says and drops his eyes.
“Were you at Parting Day?” I ask softly, even though I know the answer is yes. Everyone was at Parting Day. “Was it quick?” my small voice whispers.
Alexander nods his head and I see his eyes fill with sadness. “She never looked afraid.”
“She was always so strong,” I say. “How’d they do it?” I ask, knowing that each Parting Day brings different ways for them to kill off the prisoners.
Alexander is quiet for a moment and I can tell the words he’s about to say aren’t easy. “They had hangings yesterday.” Knowing my mother died by suffocation makes my shortness of breath heavy in my chest.
“I’m sorry about Titus too,” Alexander offers and my eyes meet his.
“How’d you know about that?” I ask, and the pain I felt when I held my little brother’s dying hand washes over me.
“You were calling out to him when you were unconscious,” Alexander explains and my eyes threaten to fill with tears.
“We were just so close,” I say softly. “I’m fine though, really.” I wipe my flooded eyes dry and try to close the feelings out again.
Alexander understands it’s something I don’t want to talk about so he changes the subject back to our issue at hand. “We need to get moving again, soon. They’ll be coming to look for us.”
“Who will be? What exactly are we doing?” I ask.
“Paylon and a search team. King Renon won’t let an escaped prisoner go, and now a fleeing guard. We don’t really have much choice but to keep running,” he admits. I know he’s right and just as I’m about to agree I hear horses not too far in the distance. Alexander’s head snaps in the direction of the sounds and knows we need to hide. He helps me move behind a cluster of trees and we sit and watch.
The sound of hooves pounding into the earth’s surface grows louder and I catch a glimpse of three elegant white horses coming our way. The horses stop a couple of paces ahead of us. I recognize the leather saddles outlined in gold fabric. Their reins are a golden color as well. They are horses from our city out to find us. The three guards dismount and step into view. I’m not surprised to see the faces of Paylon, and his 2 best marksmen, Codian and Chadian.
They are two sixteen-year-old trouble making twin brothers that have such great excellence in shooting they could hit a gold coin with a bow and arrow from a hundred feet away. The guards who worked in the prison always talked about how they were jealous of them.
Codian and Chadian both have on their regular navy blue jackets and pants with red and gold ties. Since they are identical twins most of their features are the same; transparent blue eyes, blonde hair, and the fact that both their bodies have a strong muscular build to them. Paylon, however, is not in a regular navy blue uniform. Since he is the captain of the entire nation’s guards he is dressed in a tight long-sleeved purple shirt that has a gold-colored stripe running down both sides of the shirt and gold cuffs on the end of the sleeves. He has beige pants with solid gold metal protectors for his legs. He wears a long white cape that has a tall stiff collar that is also purple with hints of gold. He has odd golden eyes and short brown hair.
“Any sign of them?” Paylon asks, his voice echoing throughout the forest.
“Not any that I can see,” Chadian and Codian respond, almost in unison. They both take their hands and run it through their blonde hair in confusion.
“Codian, I want you to report a message to King Renon to send the Lost Souls. They should be able to help scent the path they took,” Paylon commands.
“I’m on it. I’ll be back before nightfall tomorrow,” Codian says, obeying everything his leader instructs.
All three get on their horses. Codian starts heading back toward the castle, and Chadian and Paylon continue forward. Once the pounding hooves of the horses have silenced I speak first, “Lost Souls? Who are the Lost Souls?” I turn to Alexander and see the shock and scared look on his face.
“They’re enslaved people with gifts,” Alexander says softly. I knew that anyone with the gift was required to go in and work for the King, but no one really talks about what happens after that. The way Alexander says that they are enslaved makes me think they don’t get much choice in the matter.
“The ones Paylon is calling for will be the Hounds,” he continues, still staring forward at where Paylon was just at, and I can see he’s trying to make a new plan for us. “The Lost Souls are tortured humans that have the gift with any enhanced sense. Hounds are people that have an enhanced sense of smell that the King has enslaved for tracking. They do exactly what they are told to do and accomplish it in their best ability. They’ve never lost a search, although their sense of smell can travel a good five miles, their eyesight is average. If we move now we could get out of their reach.”
“But I thought you said they’ve never lost a search?” I respond, trying to bring some common sense into play. “Why would we run if they’d just find us anyway? It’d be better to save our energy for fighting them, right?”
Alexander looks at me and lets a sly smirk fall across his face, “They haven’t lost a search, but that doesn’t mean they can’t.”
“So if we are going to move we need to do it now. What’s the full plan?” I ask,
