One

“Come on, Dyce, we have to hurry. They are gaining on us!” I whispered between shallow breaths. How could this have happened to us? I have to get him to safety. 

We don’t have the time to devise a plan or figure out a strategy. Our parents' guards were closing in behind us; pushing us to keep running in the direction of the balcony. I knew we couldn't get stuck out there but every time I tried to move my brother and I around a corner we were met with full grown demons in royal armor charging us. I’ve not ever looked into eyes that were such deep yellow they reminded me of a curious cat playing with its food. 

I snapped back into reality, realizing that we were just mere steps from the balcony. I couldn’t stop us. I started screaming. Begging to let my brother be set free. I stretched my arms out and had Dyce stand behind me. I wouldn’t let them hurt him. He was all I had left. Not him, please, not him. Take me. 

One of the demons stretched out a fraile gaseous arm. It was strange, I thought to myself, how I felt as though the wind this high up should just blow the guards away. I attempted to block the arm however, it moved around my feeble flailing with great ease to grab my brother, raise him high, and throw him over the cliff. Tossed like a child’s doll over the railing. I don’t think I screamed anymore. I simply watched my brother plummet through the air to the sharpened spears below. 

I sat straight up. Quickly catching my breath I checked my surroundings. Jace asleep by the fire, check. Roghd leaned, shoulder pressed upon a thick tree, keeping a lookout while we slept also, check. 

“Good morning sweets’” Roghd smiled gently at me. 

“Hey, did you get any rest?” I asked groggily. 

“You betcha, I took the second watch, Jace did good.” He stated proudly

I wouldn’t be alive without them. Fifteen years had passed since I watched my family be annihilated within a single night.  That night I turned from my brother’s fall to stare into the evil that was before me. To my astonishment, Dekk, my father’s regent, stood there face to face with me. 

“I am sorry Bryt, it isn’t anything personal. It just happened that your father was a very secretive man. Oh my oh my oh my, when I discovered the secret!” he spat each word. 

Dekk turned to his formless guard and commanded they take me outside the castle gates and leave me there to die. 

Shaking my head I return to the present situation I am in. Saved by Roghd and his son Jace. Jace grabbed my arm just moments after the castle’s gates were shut on me. The father and son had been living in the oak savannah that surrounded the castle all their lives. As children Dyce and I were told not to engage with the “wild ones' ' who supported themselves without the need for “royal civility'. Those people were aimless wanderers who did nothing but take. 

When they saved me, I didn’t see my rescue quite so clearly. I was angry and took it out on them. I had lost my family and my home. All that I had known in my twelve years of life was ripped from me before I had time to even blink. They were patient with me and gave me time to learn to love and trust them. I consider them an extension of my family now. For years after I was taught the life of the wild ones, a name the people of the land found very endearing, how they lived in unison with the land. Taking, yes, but always returning a part of themselves. No berry was picked without a seed being planted. That was the way of balance and peace. However, in order to maintain that balance, the wild ones realized that they could not live in large groups. They remained in small nomadic groups of two to five people. Never more or less. After many trials the people had learned that a person alone will eventually lose their mind but a group larger than five leads to unrest. Two to five people, most of the time, seemed to be the best range for survival and happiness. 

Roghd would explain to me that their people were thrown from the kingdom more than 500 years ago. The quick eradication of these people from the palace walls all came from their unwillingness to cooperate with the kingdom’s demands. They simply believed in protecting our land above all else, above any monarchy, any rule. If I pressed as to what demands he spoke of I was told that the past should stay there. The brief history was concluded with: but we wouldn't want it any other way, we like keeping to ourselves.  

I stand up and stretch my arms. Jace stirs and rolls to face Roghd and I. 

“Morning” he says groggily 

“Hey buddy, how did you sleep?” I ask 

“Oh man I had the most insane dream…” I sit while he regales his nightmarish tale. I love this kid. When he grabbed my arm all those years prior I couldn’t help but leave with him. He was around the same age as the brother that I had just witnessed die. Jace looked at me with pleading eyes and I ran with him. Since that very moment I knew that I needed to protect him at all costs.