Chapter 47  

They threw us into a cellar with our hands tied behind our back.

"Don't touch the Lady. The crown prince wants her untouched." Their commander told the men. His gaze shifted to Callum.

"You can do whatever you want with him." He said and left.

The two men that were left with us walked toward Callum with a smug look on their faces.

"Leave him alone if you care to live." I told them.

Turning their head they looked at me.

"You can't kill me because the crown prince wants me alive. Before you take me to him Lucian will already be here and if he finds that one of his men is dead or hurt he won't be happy." I said with conviction in my voice. "I don't think you have seen him unhappy, have you?"

They looked at each other, one of them clearly more scared than the other.

"Trust me you don't want to see him like that?" I added.

"That's only rumors. Don't try and scare us, Lady." One of them said.

"Rumors?" I laughed. " There is no smoke without fire and oh...you should be scared. No one wants to be burned alive."

Now they were clearly scared. It was visible in their eyes.

"By tonight Lucian will already be here. Think about it. If you want to live you will let us go and I will spare your lives, and maybe even tell my husband to make you join his army. And if you want to die, well then ask God for forgiveness because if you go to hell..." I shook my head "Lucian will enjoy torturing you for eternity."

Their gazes shifted between me and Callum in confusion then they decided to leave us alone.

"My Lady, You are very clever," Callum said once they left.

"Not clever enough though. They didn't let us go."

"They will." He said.

"How do you know?"

"They were very afraid and as time goes by their fear will grow."

"I hope so." I sighed.

After sitting in the cellar for so long I got cramp in my legs and my stomach growled. Callum looked at me wearing an apologetic look on his face.

"I am alright." I assured him.

Soon after, we heard the fumbling of keys and the door to the cellar opened. The two scared soldiers entered still looking afraid.

Without a word, they began to untie our hands.

"Let's go." One of them whispered. "The men are drinking outside. Most of them are intoxicated so we can leave if we are very quiet." He explained.

He was right. As we made our way out we could hear their loud voices and laughter as they sat around a fire. Without them noticing we snuck into the woods and began to run as fast as we could.

We kept running until I couldn't anymore.

"My Lady, are you alright?" Callum asked when I stopped.

"Yes, I just need to breathe a moment," I said breathless, but the truth was my legs were hurting so much after sitting for a long time and I didn't have energy since I hadn't eaten the whole day.

As soon as he finished the sentence Callum slit both their throats letting their bodies fall to the ground.

"Callum?" I breathed shocked.

"They betrayed their prince." He stated simply. "We should keep moving."

Taking their weapons we continued to run.

I don't know how long we have been running or walking but my legs were hurting so much, my throat was so dry and my head began to spin. But I continued walking in spite of all that. If I wanted to live, if I wanted to see Lucian again I had to keep moving.

Eventually, as I kept walking my legs gave in and everything went black.

I woke up from someone splashing water on my face. I opened my eyes with a groan.

"My Lady, drink this." Callum said holding a bottle of water next to my mouth.

I gulped the water down quickly.

"Where are we?"

We were surrounded by trees and there was a small lake to the left.

"Unfortunately not far away."

"Then we should go." I said standing up abruptly which led to me losing my balance.

Before I fell Callum caught me. "I don't think you can walk My Lady. Your leg is swollen."

"Of course I can w..." I shrieked in pain as I shifted my weight on my left leg.

"Sit down." Callum urged helping me.

"But we can't just be sitting here." I protested. It was already morning and he had said that we hadn't come far. "I will try to walk."

"There is no point in that." He said calmly. "We are surrounded. I tried to find a way out but they are everywhere right now."

"Then what should we do?" I asked.

"It's too late to do anything, My Lady. We were from the beginning fighting a war we would lose anyway. Even if we escape this time, how many more times will we be able to escape? Sooner or later they will find us." He looked at me narrowing his gaze. "We all will die My Lady."

The calmness in which he spoke told me that he had expected all this to happen and that he had accepted it.

"Callum, you should leave me here. At Least alone I am sure you can escape."

"No my lady I cannot do that."

"Think about your family, they need you. I will be fine, they won't kill me. Their prince wants me alive."

"No, I..." He stopped as we heard the sound of horses and men.

"Look for them everywhere!" A man yelled.

Callum looked around quickly trying to find a place for us to hide but unfortunately we were only surrounded by trees and hiding behind them wouldn't help.

"My Lady, I will distract them and lead them that way. You endure the pain and run that way." He whispered pointing in different directions.

I nodded and tried to do as he said but the pain in my leg was excruciating. I tried my best to ignore the pain and limped my way to the opposite direction of where Callum went.

"Someone is there!" I heard a man yell and then the clinking of swords. Would Callum be able to fight all those men?

I felt like a coward leaving him behind and contemplated for a while to go back. But how would I be able to help him? I could barely walk.

"There she is! Catch her!"

Oh no, they found me. Maybe it was for the better I thought since I couldn't decide whether to leave Callum behind or not.

"Don't move lady, there is no point." The soldier who was approaching me warned.

If he only knew how painful it was for me to move he wouldn't have said that.

He grabbed my arm harshly and was about to drag me when something caught his attention. I turned my head to see what was going on and then saw soldiers fighting someone wearing a helmet. The helmet man moved smoothly cutting and killing with his sword.

"Who is that? Kill him!" The soldier who held me yelled but unfortunately, the soldiers had a hard time killing the man with the helmet on and they all soon fell to the ground.

The man holding me pushed me away causing me to fall and then went to fight the helmet man. After a short while, he fell dead to the ground as well.

The helmet man put his sword back and looked my way. Whoever he was, he was skilled even though he didn't look strong.

Stalking toward me he took his helmet off.

I gasped.

"Klara!"

She smirked. "Who did you think it was?"

I just looked at her astonished for a while. "Will you just stare at me or stand up?" She asked.

I stood up grimacing in pain. "What are you doing here? How did you find me? Why did you save me?"

Ignoring my questions she whistled and a black horse came galloping toward us.

"We need to leave quickly." She said.

"But Callum..." I began

"It's his duty to protect you and not the other way round. Now hurry!"