They had been apart for half a day but it felt like years. There was so much she wanted to say, so much she wanted to do. Kissing was first on the list, right above punching.

Jonathan gave a low grunt of pain and held his side where she hit him, “what was that for?”

“For not lying back then.” Dene knew his reasons for telling the truth and was happy for knowing how he felt. But it didn’t annul her anger over what he did. “I know how highly you regard honor, but sometimes you must be willing to lie. What if instead of the dungeons, your father had ordered my execution. Worse, what if it was your brother coming here? You don’t know how anxious I’ve been.”

Jonathan said nothing and Dene took the time to calm herself down. It wasn’t fair to blame him, especially when this whole situation started because of her.

“I’m sorry, it’s been hard waiting here,” she said after some time. It was hard, waiting in the dark with no one to talk to, while Jonathan was confined to his quarters. She got up from the ground and took another look at him.

He was wrapped in a nondescript black cloak that extended down to his ankles, revealing only the leather boots he was wearing.

She offered him a hand, but he didn’t take it.

“You’re not going to hit me again, are you?”

“Not unless you want me to.” He didn’t seem totally convinced but took her hand anyway. “Again, I’m sorry for hitting you.”

“It’s okay, I understand. But why would I want you to hit me?”

Dene chuckled. “I’ll explain it to you when you’re older. Now tell me how did you get here, and how can we get out.”

“Well, do you know how this castle wasn’t built by the Olsens? The ones who built it, I can’t remember their names, but they died out long ago. Anyways they put a lot of secret passages here, some that not even my father knows about.”

“And I take one of those passages is in your bedroom.”

“Almost. It’s actually in yours. Behind the wardrobe, there’s a movable wall. I discovered it when I was a kid. That’s part of the reason why I never had any servants using it, as I was afraid that someone would find out.”

Dene took a deep breath. “So you’re telling me that this whole time I’ve been sleeping there and someone could’ve just come in, slit my throat, got out and no one would know who did it.”

“No, I’m the only one who knows about it.”

“As far as you know.” She took another breath. The idea of punching him again was gaining form. At least she could be sure that his father didn’t know, else he wouldn't have confined Jonathan to his quarters. “Forget it, how do we get out?”

Right, you’re gonna need this, Jonathan reached inside his cloak and she caught sight of a red glint. She quickly identified it as the ruby carved with the inscription of a dragon he had as the pommel of his sword. At least he came prepared. From inside his cloak, he grabbed another similar one along with a pair of knee-high leather boots.

“I understand the cloak, but why do I need these boots to get out?”

“We're not going through where I came, none of the passages up there lead outside. That’s why instead, we're going down to the third level.”

“So there is a passage down there that will take us outside?”

“Kinda. It will take us to the sewers which then will take us outside.”

“At least we’re getting out,” she tried to look on the bright as she put on the boots, donned the cloak and followed Jonathan down into the third level.

The sewers smelled as well as one would imagine. With only the single lightstone as a source of light, they walked through the dark galleries, following the water flow while ankles deep in freezing filth. After half an hour they changed directions and started walking upstream. Continuing downstream, according to Jonathan, would take them to the Grey River that ran adjacent to the city’s north and eastern walls.

The river was too wide and the current moved too fast for one to swim in it. And that was not taking into account the freezing cold. No, they would have to leave the city through the gates.

They walked even longer upstream. Dene knew nothing about where they were, so she only followed Jonathan. At times he would stop, look around and ultimately backtrack, but he assured her that he knew where he was going.

Jonathan finally stopped in front of a wooden ladder that extended upwards into the darkness, to beyond where the lightstone could illuminate. “If I’m right, this is the closest exit to the western gates.”

“Are you sure?” Dene asked with some doubt.

“As sure as I can be.”

That would have to do. The ladder trembled with each step they took, the rungs bending under their weight and all the time Dene worried that one of these rungs would break under her. Which fortunately didn’t happen, and after five excruciating minutes they came out of the sewers in the city’s slums.

Its fetid air was still a big improvement when compared to where they came out from. The first thing she saw outside were the inner city walls in the distance. Interspersed atop the battlements were lightstones that released a soft white light, the same for the streets inside the walls. That was where the nobility and the wealthy lived, so of course it was better maintained.

To her back, rising from behind a ramshackle building were the outer city walls. ‘Guess he was right after all.’ Not that she would say it after seeing the smug look on his face.

Their first course of action was to leave the city. The two walked through a series of narrow streets until they were finally facing the gates. Dene wrapped herself tighter with her cloak as to not allow even an inch of her dark skin to peek through.

Fortunately, none of the guards at the gates tried to stop them, or even approach them for that matter. One upside of the sewer stench that clung to them.

The two walked with the Grey River to their right for most of the night and dawn until reaching a small village where they bought a pair of horses. Jonathan didn’t bring much in sense of coins, but he did manage to snatch a small ruby which he used to pay for the horses, some supplies and still have some change.

Now they had to decide where to go. Heading east and leaving the kingdom was out of the question. The two smaller, neighboring kingdoms were not in a peaceful state at the moment.

They couldn’t stay in the Great Plains either, the longer they remained, the greater the chance of capture. So that meant they had to go either northwest to the Highlands or southwest to Somerford. Either to the Wynnes’ lands or the Olsandres’.

It would be harder for Jonathan’s family to search for them in Somerford. On the other hand, Duchess Wynne was Jonathan’s great-grandmother, and he believed she would help them.

Dene had no preference for either, as both options had their risks. Therefore, Jonathan was the one to decide, and he chose to go to the Highlands. “Despite everything, I’m still an Olsen,” he argued. “Maybe after father calms down, my grandmother would speak for us.”

They both knew it would be a tough argument to make, but it was still better than remaining in the Great Plains.

Having decided on their destination, the next step was how to get there. They had to assume that Jonathan’s parents would be sending people after them, besides also ordering the soldiers stationed around the duchy to keep an eye out for the two. They would need help.

Jonathan first considered asking for Father Anderson’s help, as he had no doubt the old man would help. The old man had been promoted to Priest and was put in charge of a temple in a village east of Rivertown. It was just an excuse to get him out of Lastan, as the other priests couldn’t expel him, but that’s another story.

The problem was that the village was to the southwest, meaning they would need to make quite a detour to get there.

“We could head to Grenfell,” Jonathan suggested. “Earl Warrin is a friend of the family, and in his youth, he too got into problems because of love. Maybe he will sympathize with us.”

Dene didn’t point out how many “maybes” this plan had. She knew he was aware of it.

But for lack of a better option, the two mounted their horses and began their travel. They crossed the Riverwood forest, passed over the Quintum bridge and made their way through the countryside towards Grenfell.

In between avoiding the major towns, taking the longer and less populated roads and seeking shelter from snowstorms, the travel that could be done in a week took them two months to complete. Spring was almost upon them when the Grenfell walls came into view. It made Dene wish for a Gale, the giant eagle-like magical beasts used to carry people in litters. It could have taken them to Jonathan’s grandmother in just a few hours.

But the important was that they had arrived, and not a moment too soon. Dene couldn’t handle the nausea for much longer.