Footsteps clunk down the stairs and something slams against the barricaded door. Hadone and Darok hold it against the onslaught, but if the guards have a ram, it will be breached within minutes.
I turn back to Diana. If I’m to believe this woman, then I have to act – and act quickly.
I motion to Forn and he uses his Orb-Dagger to effortlessly destroy the lock, shearing straight through the heavy steel.
There’s no time for gratitude. Diana opens the door and together we rush through the rear exit of the dungeon.
Behind us, Hadone and Darok leave the door, and it bursts open as we sprint away. As we run, we have to ignore the pleading cries from the other prisoners, and my heart breaks as I wonder how many are as innocent as we were.
Gunshots ring out behind us, and my heart pounds as we rush out of the dungeon.
From the bullets whizzing past us, I gather that the guards aren’t trying to take us alive. They’ve been ordered to stop us by any means necessary.
We round the corner, and for a moment I think we’re dead. More guards await us ahead.
Then, suddenly, Diana shrieks – and my heart stops.
Is she hit? Wounded? Dying?
I look to see where she might have taken a bullet – but instead Diana jumps into the middle of the hallway, putting herself between us and the guards.
“Stop shooting, you fools,” the captain of the guard raises his hands. “You’ll kill Lady Pooler!”
Instantly the gunshots stop. Hadone leaps in the air and with a thunderous kick knocks out a doorway to the right of us.. A row of stairs welcomes us on the other side, with the unspoken promise of freedom at the top of them.
Together, we rush up them and burst through the doorway at the top.
The Aurelians and I emerge into the sunlight.
There’s no time to catch my breath. I cover my eyes from the now-blinding sunlight, and realize that we’re in the courtyard visible from Lord Aeron’s bedchamber.
The orphans are playing together in the grass. Stacy yells out as soon as she spots us – pointing frantically in our direction.
“We have to run!” I yell out, and Stacy rushes towards us with Tod and Tyler following along behind. Runner takes one look at us and runs in the opposite direction.
I swallow hard, but I know that chasing after him will be a death sentence. Poor Runner has made his choice; and he won’t be coming with us.
Maybe it’s for the best. Perhaps, under the tutelage of the Viceroy, he’ll grow up in a comfortable environment as I’d hoped the other children would…
Only I fear Runner will be raised to become a pawn in the anti-Aurelian movement. Out of all the orphans, he’s the only one who’s proven his loyalty to the Capital; and his misguided beliefs will serve him well.
I force thoughts of Runner from my mind, and start thinking of ourselves.
We might have escaped the dungeon, but we’re still in Lord Aeron’s estate. The huge walls tower over us, sealing us in.
Gardeners shriek as we run past them, sprint away from us like a herd of startled gazelle after being surprised by a lion’s pounce.
Up above us, the mansion’s many parapets are suddenly filled with guards with rifles pointed down at us from all directions.
My heart stops. We have children with us, but somehow I know that the only reason the soldiers aren’t firing at us is Lady Pooler – the royal dignitary we broke out from the dungeon below.
Diana Pooler gives me a tight smile, then opens her mouth as if she’s already the Queen fate one day might make her:
“We need to escape before Lord Aeron brings reinforcements. I know a lightly-guarded gate to the city, although we’ll be drawing attention with these three.”
Diana raises her eyebrows at the three Aurelians – but when the Aurelians turn to look back at her, she can’t keep up the haughty visage. She averts her eyes.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” I snap, perhaps a little too harshly. It annoys me that this noblewoman has joined our group and is already trying to take charge.
I understand that she’s been trained from a young age to be a leader, especially in these kinds of situations, but she still came out of nowhere and is now trying to tell us what to do. She isn’t the one who made it out of Barl against all odds. She isn’t the one who broke the Aurelians out of jail, or knows how to keep us all safe.
“Let’s go!” Stacy cries out as footsteps pound up the stairs behind us. We take off at a run, but the three Aurelians are clearly not satisfied by our pace.
Forn suddenly scoops up both Diana and I. She screams out, and I look over at her while we bounce up and down in forn’s massive arms.
I’m already used to the way these massive aliens manhandle us, but I suppose it’s a fresh humiliation for a woman of noble blood.
“How undignified,” Diana mutters under her breath, but she surrenders to it reluctantly.
While our pace is now significantly faster, it unfortunately gives us a great view of the guards behind us, aiming their rifles in our direction.
Then I watch in horror as the Viceroy appears at the parapets overhead.
“Fire, you idiots!” He cries out. “Kill them all!”
I can’t believe that the Viceroy is so callous that he’d endanger not just the life of Lady Pooler, but also the three innocent orphans.
Gunshots ring out and bullets whizz past us as we rush away to safety.
Thundering across the garden, Diana points sharply towards salvation, and the Aurelians run in the direction she indicates.
Hadone is in front, and rushes forward with his shoulder lowered like a piledriver. The thin door Diana promised us shatters into matchsticks as Hadone bulldozes straight through.
Suddenly, we’re out of the estate and out into the beauty of the richest district of the Capital. If this were in any other
