Chapter Text
There was not gonna be a trial.
It took Saul forever to understand this, the better part of the week at least. The remoteness of his jail, which should have only been a holding cell in the first place, coupled with the fact that he wasn’t allowed to ring anyone, not even a defender, should have clued him in. In those four days, what he knew was that he was being isolated, so it made sense that they wouldn’t want to give him even one phone call. His arrest had been significantly questionable in the first place. There was that the queen herself made the arrest, one with a dubious charge given that she knew everything that occurred that fateful day, then the shock of finding out that his friend, Sky’s father, was alive after all these years. He knew the trial was gonna be a sham and that he was essentially convicted already; he just didn’t think they wouldn’t go through the motions of it, that he would actually be deprived of any semblance of fairness. It took him four days to realize this and it came after being given his latest meal, with him asking when he would get his defender and being told “soon” once again, the guard smirking as he left. The falseness of that one word echoed in his brain. Suddenly, it was clear: there would be no trial. And this, this cell, this was it. He wasn’t going to be transferred out to some normal prison like a common criminal. He was being tucked away where no one will find him nor hear whatever he had to say.
He studied his cell. It was square, walled solid on three sides, barred on one. There was a sink opposite the bed, next to it a toilet. Lovely. Then there was his bed. Had this been a normal prison cell, there would have been a table and a chair, and maybe some books. He’d also maybe have a cellmate, or other prisoners in other cells. But there was no one and there was nothing, as though they intended to kill him with boredom. To be fair, if he was to spend an eternity inside this, no one to talk to, no book to read, nothing to occupy him other than his thoughts day in, day out, no scenery, just the dank walls and the slit above that could barely be called a window, maybe boredom wasn’t such a benign way to die. But he was getting ahead of himself. He needed to think, organize his thoughts. What did he want to do? How will he do it? And why the fuck wouldn’t they just give him even a goddamn magazine to read!
He took a deep breath.
His dinner remained on the floor, near the bars of his cell, set there by that smirking guard who wouldn’t just tell him that he’d never get a defender, or a trial, or feel sunlight again. He glanced at the cooling plate of some godawful sandwich that probably had sand rubbed in it especially for him, and wished they could have provided a fork or, better yet, a knife. But of course, no one was that stupid.
He realized then that he was thinking of escaping because what he wanted—answer to question #1—was to get out of this fucking cell. So, to answer question #2, he’d need something sharp to defend himself with. But he had to temper the thought. He didn’t know where he was; he was knocked unconscious on his way here and, when he came to, they covered his head with sack so he wouldn’t see anything—he really should have had an idea that he was being locked away from everyone then.
He combed his fingers through his hair. “What have you got yourself into now, Saul?” he asked himself. Then he looked down again at his dinner. Was that a ceramic plate they put it on? Maybe some people were that stupid after all.
///
That was a terrible idea. Well, if he had to be honest, it was a good idea up until the point that he got himself stabbed pretty brutally in the very center of his abdomen. He underestimated the number of guards he had to face as well as the number of hallways out of this fucking castle. That’s right, castle! He should have known that it was an actual dungeon he was being held in. But, for one, there was a toilet in his cell. And a bed! Dungeons only had wheat for bed and a bucket in the corner, plus a chain screwed to the floor, because dungeons belonged in the middle ages. Also, his cell did not smell like shit. It smelled old and moldy, but not shitty.
Or he could just blame his rashness. He should have studied the guards more, see how many there possibly were, maybe get some information from Bob (or so he called him), the one who delivered his meals. He should have listened to any unintended conversations around him, wait until he had a glimmer of what was upstairs, maybe then he’d had some idea of how much foot traffic he’d need to cover and guards he was to face. Maybe he could have befriended Bob and then convince him to let him out to breathe some fresh air from time to time. But no, good old Saul thought that spending at least a month in his cell was too much. He wanted out the very second he formed the vaguest outline of an escape plan. This vague plan was formulated around the assumption that he was in a remote prison with the inhabitants either too far apart or too few, or both—a structure that was at most four storeys high, with some thirty cells and what he really needed to worry about was the outside perimeter. He assumed that guards were minimal because had only ever seen Bob. There was one other guard (whom he didn’t bother naming), the one who threw him into his cell that first day, but no one else. So, not only was he unprepared when, upon reaching the top of the stairs from his cell, he found pristine marble floors, vast hallways, intricate ceilings and ornate furniture; there were also roving guards everywhere who were better armed and had not had a diet of bad sandwiches and paranoid thoughts for the last four days. Given that, it was a wonder that he managed to get out with only one stab wound.
But he was out, that’s what mattered. He was running through a forest that he didn’t recognize, which itself presented a new set of hazards, but at least he was out. Now, the first thing he needed to do was not bleed to death.
When he was sure that he was sufficiently away from the castle and that he had lost his pursuers, he sat down behind a tree and checked his wounds.
Yup, it was bad. No wonder he bled so much. It wasn’t just a stab; it was a slice going from above his navel to the right. It slowly leaked blood, which was better than gushing it out he supposed, some already crusting, but it needed a better stopper than his unsteady hand. He tore his sleeve off and wrapped it around his torso as tightly as he could while still being able to breathe. When that was done, he looked to the sky. It was almost light. He could already see the dark turning bluish to his right. Soon, the sun will be up there.
He grunted when he stood. Fuck, it hurt. Holding on to the tree, he decided that the best direction to take was north for no other reason that the castle was south. He paused to listen and only heard the wind rustling through the trees, some bird taking flight, insects buzzing, but no twigs breaking, no thudding of running footsteps.
He took a deep breath, then began heading north. If he could find water, that would be great. Even better, shelter and food and, since he was on a streak of wishing for impossible things, a human being with a heart of gold who would tend to his wounds and also hide him from the baddies chasing him without needing any kind of explanation in doing so.
If only.
///
He was dying. This wasn’t the first time he faced this possibility and the thought hardly made him blink, but still, that didn’t change the fact that his breath came in gulps, that his legs were growing weaker by the minute, that his throat was parched and, worse of all, the pain in his stomach had all but disappeared except for a small throbbing which wasn’t at all commensurate to how bad the wound was. He hadn’t found water. Or shelter. Or, for that matter, a human being with a heart of gold. What he found were trees, more trees, a clearing and then, yes, even more trees. He would die in this forest, lost and alone, and possibly never to be found. Sky, who right now might be wondering where he was aside from dealing with a suddenly-alive parent, would then have to process the information that his other father-figure might also be dead. But they would never be sure because they would never find his body. They’d never know that he was somewhere here in this stupid forest, his body eaten by wolves and bears before it rotted.
The sun had gone past its highest point and was now moving to the west. He’d have a few hours of light still, but maybe not that many before he croaked his last. He collapsed against a tree, sliding down it and carefully placing the sword he had stolen on his lap. What an idiot he was. Such a stupid idea to just escape without planning ahead. What would his students say? What would Sky say? Farah? Ben?
The Specialist’s Headmaster, downed by a half-assed plan of escape, lost in the forest never to be found.
At least Andreas would probably be happy about that.
Andreas. He had just a brief glimpse of him as he stepped out of that car. A ghost would not have made such a dramatic entrance or added the detail of aging him, coloring his golden head white in places. Yet, when he looked at Andreas, it was through a prism of surrealness, of unreality, his mind pushing him to accept that what stood there was a living, breathing human being, but which he couldn’t fully believe because he was back there again, on that hill when he plunged his sword into his torso. Andreas was clutching his stomach as blood seeped out his fingers, on his knees while Saul hurried away, praying that he would be able to stop the massacre in time. In the years that followed, he sometimes entertained the thought that his friend might have survived even though there was no reason to think so. Surely, if that were true, the first thing Andreas would have done was to creep back into Alfea and claim his son, Sky. Sixteen years was an inconceivable amount of time to be absent from your son’s life.
As Saul’s thoughts drifted to the past, the horror he felt upon, first, killing his greatest friend, then being part of the annihilation of an entire village of people, washed over him. He closed his eyes.
They were blood witches, he thought. Rosalind said they were blood witches.
Was that supposed to make it better?
///
The sound of something hooting woke him. He started and immediately grabbed his sword, pointing it in front of him. But there was nothing there, only a mourning dove calling on another then angrily clapping its wings. He checked his blood-soaked shirt, lifting it and seeing his blood-soaked wrap. He sighed then looked again above him. How long was he out? The sun had gone lower than he last saw it, giving him two hours of sunlight left, maybe fewer.
When a squirrel appeared next to him, he almost jumped out of his skin. Recovering, he looked at the squirrel who studied him to see if maybe he was something it could eat. In his state, the animal might have a fifty-fifty chance. All it would take was one tiny bite and who knew what kind of bacteria resided in this creature’s mouth that would kill his increasingly weak body.
He sighed. It was truly a sad day when he would look at a squirrel and estimate that he only had a one in two chance to defend himself against it, even with a sword. Thankfully, the squirrel wasn’t tempted, just there staring curiously at him.
“Do you know the way out of here?” he asked.
The squirrel tilted its head and then scuttled away.
“Oh, don’t be like that. Couldn’t you give a hint?”
The squirrel disappeared somewhere behind the tree he leaned on, which Saul wasn’t interested in looking.
“Suit yourself,” he said before preparing for another bout of walking aimlessly.
But then he realized, he was hearing something that he should have been listening for this whole time.
A stream.
This seemed to invigorate his dehydrated body so that, with just a little grunt and using the sword as a cane, he managed to get himself up and give all efforts into finding that stream.
He managed to get a couple hundred feet, walking in a frenzy, sure that the stream was just beyond those copse of trees, or up that hill, or just at that slope, before he realized that he didn’t know where the sound was coming from anymore. Maybe at first he was able to tell—northwest from where he began—and he may have imagined that he was getting closer to it, the sound getting louder and louder. But now, as he stood in what looked like the same set of trees in the same flat, grassy, mossy ground, he had lost any sense of direction. The steady sound of the stream, making him even thirstier, seemed to come from all directions. Not only that, it somehow blocked all other noise. It was all he could hear, so loud yet he couldn’t spot a single drop of water, not a single moist patch of soil. The buzz of the insects was gone, the rustling trees, the tweeting birds, rush of wings, all gone, replaced by one infallible sound. Water.
Gods, he was thirsty. He fell on his knees. Looking back days later, he would think that this was the point he gave in to his delirium, but at this very moment, he had just a singular thought in his mind. To find that fucking stream.
He chose a direction at random and walked straight. He wasn’t aware how loud he was being, how carelessly he stepped on broken twigs, how many times his knee hit blocks of stones, how much bruises he was acquiring, the many falls he took or the sudden appearance of a bush or a tree that wasn’t there just a second ago, how branches slapped his face. He lost hold of his sword several times and contemplated leaving it behind, but he somehow refused to do so. He staggered in the direction he had chosen, believing he would stumble upon a brook or a river, ignoring the other options he had which were just dangling on the trees, fruits he could squeeze liquid out of. Instead of looking for water the traditional way, he lumbered toward the sound even though it had no direction anymore, while above, the sun moved across the sky, lowering further and further.
A tree hit him. His head met its trunk hard enough for him stagger a couple of steps back before crumpling to the ground, staring at the sky. He didn’t even have the energy to clutch his head or swear. His view was blocked by tall trees, by leaves and branches that went in circles clockwise in his vision, again, and again, and again. Arms spread wide, he closed his eyes because praying the vertigo would stop was making him dizzier as he studied the way his sight went in circles, reset, circled, and reset, without appearing to slow down no matter how hard he prayed.
The sound of the stream was gone and he sighed knowing that he had probably sent himself far away from it and there was no point trying to get up. Maybe there wasn’t even a stream and he just hallucinated hearing it. His throat bobbed up and down, extracting the remaining saliva from his mouth down his esophagus. His abdomen felt an unusual kind of numb, pulsating in a muted way that was also raw because his skin was torn when it shouldn’t be, and under that skin was muscle that were also disjointed, and further were his frayed organs and blood that must have pooled there. He felt the bruise that it formed along his right side and tried to think if his stomach was supposed to be on the left side or right. Left. So it must be his liver that had been sliced.
The world was dimming as he wondered where the tree that hit him came from. It wasn’t there, he swore, then suddenly he was banging his head against it. If he could laugh, he would have. Instead, he just smiled, blinking at the branches in the trees pointing upwards to the sky, the white clouds moving clockwise along with the leaves of the trees. A bird took flight from a branch, its wings flapping before it caught the wind and it glided through. As far as sights to have while dying, this beats a plain white ceiling and overhead lights in a hospital. Well, if the vertigo wasn’t there and his vision wasn’t dimming, it was definitely a good view to last clap his eyes on.
Even better, an apparition drifted into his view, that of a woman, so beautiful, he knew instantly that he was hallucinating. Her eyes were large browns, worried, as she knelt down next to him. Her hair was blonde and unusually long, reaching well past her waist. It was untied, cascading down from her middle-part on top that divine head. Her eyebrows were dark brown in contrast to her hair. She had a cleft on her chin and her lips barely had a cupid’s bow, the upper as heavy as the lower. He had the urge to reach up and touch them. But if this was a dream, surely she’d reach down and kiss him instead. But she was preoccupied, her eyes raking the length of him, too interested in the mess around his abdomen. He almost told her not to bother, but he had no energy to do so.
Her hands were gentle as she investigated his wound. He followed her movements as she lifted his shirt and then looked under his poorly made bandage fully saturated with blood. He noticed that her upper arm was covered in tattoos, and her forearm in precise white lines, maybe a dozen, beginning from elbow to a few inches above her wrist. He thought at first they were simply white tattoos, but decided that they were actually scars.
Then she pressed her hands down and all thoughts he had of her gentleness disappeared. The pain that erupted was acute, snapping him back to himself, making him consider that she might be real after all. He threw her a confused look as though asking why she hurt him. But her only response was a panicked whimper, her lips tightly shut, which was the last thing he saw before he lost consciousness.