Vow Of Silence

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

1st PERSON: Pelomina Lorenzo-Capiz

Everything froze, even the wind, I could tell because I was sweating through every pore of my body but not a single breeze chipped in to cool me down as I stood on what should've been, the hot seat. Still, I kept my ground, I made my bed, all I need to do is lie in and boy—I hope Lykus also learned the art of clemency, I hope he’s grown far from his past reputation that people don't automatically assume death for those who were unfortunate enough to the recipient of his anger.

Klaus chuckled nervously, placing his hand on my shoulders, or at least he tried to even with the cuffs and gave it a firm squeeze, “Mister, good knight, sir, please ignore her, she has a fantasy of meeting Lykus and they fall in love or whatever—” he trailed off, and at the corner of my eyes I could see him nudge Seth to pitch in,

“Y-Yeah, she’s a rather wild woman… if you know what I mean,” Seth commented, throwing a wink at the baffled and concerned knight whose smile had long melted away from his face.

‘He did not just say that—’

“Are you serious, Seth?!” I seethed, whipping my head to him and shaking Klaus’s grasp on my shoulder, glaring at Seth. Is he kidding me?! All of the possible lies he could come up with? Klaus too! He’s the one who prompted that answer, “How could you even say that?!” I yelled and this time they both backed up. Seth was up for the argument though,

“No—because, yes we are here because of you,” he paused, his eyes building as they were shifting to the direction of the knight, “But you can’t just tell people about your decisions and fantasies—” he said through clenched teeth, his expression basically telling me to not go further along with my plan.

Klaus pitched in, nodding vigorously while also giving me a quite intense stare down with dead fish eyes and an empty grin, “Yeah! Besides, you can’t just order a knight around about lord Lykus,” he waved off,

“Especially about lord Lykus,” Seth affirmed, putting emphasis on certain words,

I grimaced at them, raising my hands up with a shrug, “Then… what am I supposed to do then, if we get lucky, I can beg enough for him to let the two of you go,” I reasoned.

They panicked, waving their hands right in front of my face while loudly shushing me as if the knight wouldn’t be able to hear us even if he whispered as he watched us in absolute entertainment, “Again, there will be no begging,” Seth pressed now it sounded more like a threat and not a precaution,

Klaus gulped, his eyes shifting between all three of us, “yes, we’re all equal under the law, since you’re a thief, we’re all thieves in here, and as such we are all—”

“Klaus for the love of all things shiny, shut up or I will break your jaw enough for you to not utter a word for the rest of your life,” Seth warned and Klaus took that hard, looking at Seth as if the latter betrayed him, despite Klaus being on the same side as Seth.

The knight sighed and dragged his gloved hand down his face, “Alright, enough… break it up you three,” he breathed out, “I’ve had ten people crammed up in that thing and they weren’t half as loud as you are,” he hissed, taking a few steps away from us and pulled out a flask. And that’s rather concerning and frightening to see, actually.

‘Drinking on the job too, these knights really…’

However, despite feeling betrayed and upset with Seth’s outburst, Klaus still did his part in trying to reel me back for doing what I was planning, tugging at my clothes to try and pull me back down, “You don’t have to do this…” he whispered, this time faint enough so the knight wouldn’t hear. It also had to do with the knight deliberately walking away from us just because we were too rowdy to be considered proper prisoners.

How shameful of us.

I looked at Klaus and the knight, I could feel my brows knit together, “alright… but we need to escape from here,” I pressed, they weren’t the most responded earlier, which is why I resorted to this method in the first place, but now they looked a bit more cooperative. I know full well how entitled they are to their emotions, and their grudge against me, but they can be mad at me later when we’re not in a mobile jail cell.

Seth nodded, “Alright… but you didn’t have to do all that just to have us talk to you again,” he said and my jaw dropped,

“Excuse me? To get you to talk to me? Is that the most pressing matter I should attend to currently?” I intoned.

“Oh no,” Klaus mumbled, his shoulders rising as he shrunk away.

I was just getting started and Seth knew this, “Look! I’m very—no, extremely, sorry Seth!” I hissed, “Oh, please would you ever find it in your heart to forgive me? This was a bad idea. I wish we never did this—”

“N-No, I didn’t—-”

“—Now we’re all stuck here, in this stupid cage, because we went to this stupid city because of my stupid emotions!” I yelled. I didn’t want to curse because even under the emotional turmoil that I am in right now, I couldn’t bring myself to fully get angry. Again, this is all my fault. And damn, it feels horrible. I wanted to rip my skin off of me with how revolted I felt at how things turned out.

“Hey, quiet over there, lady!” the knight yelled, screwing the cover of his flask shut as he shoved it back to the saddle of his horse. Soon after that, the other knight returned.

“Your turn,” one said to the other and for the nth time, they shifted turns in patrolling the border and this new one stayed with us, he gave us a nod before getting off his horse by now the previous knight already left and the new knight sighed as he sat down with his back against a tree.

I gulped and also sat down, calming myself down. Rather than starting a pity party and playing a mini blame game, we need a game plan, “Alright… alright… forget about everything, and let’s just think of a way to get out of here,” I hissed, sharply, and although with a deep sigh and groan, Seth obliged and sat down on the wood pellet of this cage again, as we all did.

“We can’t just pick the lock and run devil-may-care style, they'll shoot us,” I began, Klaus looked at me with a skeptical stare,

“What… are we certain they’re good shots?” he asked.

I hummed, “The last time I’ve been here, I saw Lykus training with the whole army. They treat hunting game like a chore and not a challenge, and the other knight was drinking on the job, under Lykus’s regime?” I paused, gulping down a lump in my throat, “If you don’t have skills to make up for it, they'll probably suffer some dire consequence,” I finished.

Klaus sucked in a sharp breath, leaning his back against the grills, “whew… man, it looks as if we’re rather hopeless in this situation,” he commented and my shoulder slumped down as I gave him a defeated look, he shrugged,

“No worries though, I’m sure we’ll think of something,” he whispered, patting my head, but it’s not as reassuring as it used to be.

Soon as nightfall came, the two knights were kind enough to light torches around us. Our escape plan was not yet formulated, however just during that time, two knights talked to each other in hushed voices and nodded before strapping our cage to their horses.

“We’re going back to the city,” one of them informed,

I cursed. Mentally, of course. All three of us exchanged bloodshot eyes.

The other knight chuckled as he looked back to us once the horses started running, “Don’t worry though, lord Lykus seemed to be in a chipper mood, maybe if you could defend yourself against his allegations and prove even a shred of your innocence, he’ll let you go and be on your merry way,” he said and I were just about to lose it.

“L-Lykus… He’ll see us?” I began, “Personally?” I immediately added in, and the knights nodded.

“That’s how it goes,” he affirmed, and I didn’t even know what happened after that because I disassociated with myself for the next few minutes.