Jade took a hurried glimpse at her surroundings as she gripped onto Nina while sailing through the air. She had wanted to orient herself, but it was difficult to make anything out in the darkness and the ground was already upon them. The floor of the carriage hadn’t been very high at all in the first place, so before she knew it her feet had awkwardly hit the grass which sent her tumbling. Flailing out of control, she clenched her eyes shut while gripping Nina as tightly as she could, and soon the air was knocked out of her lungs as her back cannoned into the earth.

Tumbling over and over, Jade’s battered body and Nina’s lifeless figure rolled together through a series of shrubs while Jade resisted the urge to scream. Skittling through an unidentifiable plant of some form had torn a shallow gash across her thigh, but she simply had no choice but grit her teeth and pray that the ride would eventually end. Her bearings had been thrown completely out the window as soon as her feet had touched the ground, but fortunately their jump ended almost as quickly as it had started. Sliding to a stop with her back pressed against grass, she lay back in a daze before her senses were assaulted by pain.

“Get up,” Saela hissed as she slapped her in the face before tugging at her arm. “Now.”

Wincing as it felt like Saela was trying to tear her arm out of her socket, she frowned when the crispness of Saela’s slap begin to sting before realizing that it was pushing the grogginess from her mind. Ignoring the pain which was shooting out from just about everywhere on her body, she pushed herself up before crouching down while Saela helped to haul Nina over her shoulder. Standing upright and taking a deep breath, she oriented herself in the direction that Saela was pointing in before gazing out into the dark garden before them.

“Go.”

Saela, who had already ditched her shoes, immediately tore off into the darkness which sent her dress fluttering behind her. Gripping tightly onto Nina with one arm, Jade was left with no choice but to follow her as she kicked into motion. Throwing away any concerns that she previously had about conserving her stamina, she carefully balanced Nina’s weight as she skipped around a tree and then dashed across a short clearing which ran around a fountain. The bells from earlier still rang out across the district as they ran in the direction of the wall, but for once she was glad. Their trailblazing through the darkness wasn’t exactly quiet, so the alarm which rang out across the district would help disguise their movements.

Even though it was dark, it wasn’t as difficult as she had thought it would be to navigate through the maze of trees, shrubs, and flowers. Initially she had been concerned about tripping over stray roots, but as the gardens were well maintained she hadn’t come across any that could have been an issue. Saela wasn’t following one of the few pathways that led through the gardens, and as a result Jade found that she would occasionally need to crash through a neat row of small hedges or tread across a flower bed, all of which was made more difficult by Nina hanging off her shoulder. She was thankful that Saela knocked most of the problems out of the way before she got there, but she almost scowled when she saw a loose piece of fabric that had been torn from her dress hanging from a branch. Soon enough, however, she saw that they were approaching the small service road that ran along the inside of the wall and her optimism began to build.

She could hear shouting off to their right which was coming from the gate. Realizing what they were yelling about, a small smile cracked her expression as she flew past a stone statue before locking her eyes onto Saela’s back. While she hadn’t initially realised why they were jumping from the carriage at such speed, it was obvious now that their leftover carriage had been sent careening into the group of Royal Guards at the gate. What damage it would actually do, she didn’t know. She did know, however, that Saela’s stunt would be attracting quite a lot of attention right now and that was exactly what they needed.

Saela was the first to burst out from the tree line as she raced across the service road. Skidding to a halt in the darkness next to the same stone stairwell which they had initially climbed down from, she turned and watched on as Jade followed her across. While the pair both knew that the carriage would have attracted the attention of most of the guards, they were still surprised that nobody up on the wall had seen them cross the service road until a familiar sound reached their ears.

“Gunfire?” Jade asked quietly as her chest heaved up and down. She wanted to put Nina aside to catch her breath, but putting her down now would just make it that much harder to pick her back up again. Ignoring the pain and fatigue, she focused. Not only did they have to get over the wall, they would also have to avoid the Royal Guard and make it all the way back to Reina in one piece too.

And that wasn’t even mentioning the wildcard in play that was Ormain and his team.

“That… would be our backup,” Saela replied as she looked up the stairs into the darkness. “It looks like we didn’t just catch the attention of the Royal Guard.”

A steady chorus of pulse rifle fire drifted down to their ears as the Royal Guard at the top of the wall returned the incoming shots. Jade was immediately worried as if she was assuming correctly, Svanda and Trim would be their targets. Looking over to Saela, she saw that she currently wore a bemused expression as she continued to look upwards to the top of the stairs.

“What now?” she asked as she heard a man from the top of the wall cry out in pain. Trim and Svanda would have to stop soon if not already, as now that their position was revealed they would need to escape before they were surrounded. If Saela wanted to capitalize on the distraction, they were going to have to do it now.

“What do you think?” Saela smirked as she examined the hole torn out from hip of her dress before placing her bare foot onto the first step of the stone staircase. “We’re The Cloud Orchestra, so we’re good at jumping from high places, right?”

“No,” Jade frowned in response as her eyes went wide. “No, no, no. That drop is over ten meters, and I’m also carrying Nina if you didn’t remember.”

Saela looked at her for a second before returning her attention to the stairs before them. “If you want to hang around, it was nice knowing you. Our distraction, however, is about to come to an end and I don’t want to be here when it happens. Seeya.”

Jade swore under her breath as Saela took off up the stairs before forcing her legs into motion. With little choice but to plant her foot on the first step and begin to climb, she pushed herself upwards as she focused on the stone that was now disappearing underneath her feet. Carrying Nina this far had already left her legs aching, and it wasn’t long until the flight of stairs had turned into a torturous ascent as she pressed herself to keep moving.

Her foot wobbled which almost caused her knee to buckle as she pressed herself past the halfway point. Ahead of her, she could see that Saela had started to pull some distance out between them as she raced along without anything to weigh her down. Cursing for once that she was the bigger of the two, she forced out a grunt as her arm gripped onto Nina even more tightly than before. It seemed as though the guards at the top of the wall were still shooting, but then again it had probably been less than a minute before the gunfire started.

Passing the three quarter mark, she looked up once more to see that Saela had reached the top of the stairs. What surprised her, however, was that instead of dashing across the wall and jumping into the moat beyond, she actually seemed to be waiting for her to catch up. Steeling her nerves, Jade dragged one final burst of pace out of herself as she flew up the stairs towards Saela’s position.

Seeing that she was closing in on the top, Saela drew her pistol out of her pocket before poking her head over the lip of the floor. Raising the weapon, two quick shots hissed out although they were largely drowned out by the fire around them, and Jade realised that Saela was clearing the immediate area so that she could jump without being shot as she appeared at the top of the wall.

“Go!”

Jade pushed herself up the final few steps without slowing down as she burst out onto the top of the wall. Now exposed to her surroundings, the sound of gunfire immediately became louder and it was joined by screaming and shouting from the guards in the direction of the gate. She could have sworn that a round even sizzled over her head somewhere, but there was no time to process what was happening as her eyes were fixated on the empty space beyond them. Saela had appeared beside her, but there was little that Jade could do but surrender herself to the momentum that she had crashed onto the wall with and she charged across the top and flew off the other side.

In the end, she didn’t know if she had actually jumped or her legs had simply given out. Either was fine, however, as Jade found that she was now dropping through the air like a stone. Grabbing onto Nina as tightly as she could in what she hoped would be the last insane thing that she had to do tonight, she took a deep breath before closing her eyes. She hadn’t thought about it before, but now she realised that she would have to hope the moat was deep enough to arrest their fall.

Whistling through the air, Jade, Nina, and Saela all shot past the lip of the moat under the shocked gazes of the few onlookers that were present before crashing into the moat below.