“Are you alive in there? I brought food!” An excited voice reached his ears.

  Alhen sighed for the hundredth time that cycle and waited patiently for the door to open. When it was opened, Catherine came in humming a happy tune with a wooden bowl in hand.

  He looked at the contents and wasn’t surprised; it had been the sixth time that she brought him the same thing.

  ‘It seems like I won’t be able to escape eating soup for the rest of my life,’ he thought.

  Unfortunately, his body had been immobilized by her.

  After she left him trapped in the room, the next cycle she came in with food, and after he ate, he attempted to escape, but was easily caught by the girl.

  It didn’t end there, however; to make sure that he would never be able to escape and not take her to the city, she made sure to tie him up with steel handcuffs! Where did she even find that?

  ‘Appearances sure are deceiving,' he thought.

  'She is as strong as an ox, and now that I think about it, of course, the daughter of a Sol is going to be strong, especially since she lives in a supposedly dangerous forest.’

  He also remembered the time when she had saved him from blood loss after being betrayed by the siblings, and the ease with which she had lifted him and saved his life was worthy of note.

  Catherine approached him, and the soup’s smell made him gag.

  It didn’t smell bad per se, smelling of carrots and meat, but his experience in the church had definitely messed with him on a deeper level.

  “Another bowl of soup? Just let me die already,” Alhen sarcastically commented.

  “If you want to eat something else, why have you not asked? I can prepare other things as well,” she said.

  Alhen had the urge to facepalm; of course, she could cook something else. He had accepted his situation quite easily and had not even bothered to ask something as crucial as that.

  “I accept it's my fault. The next time you come here, please don’t bring me soup, I’m tired of eating it, and it also tastes weird.”

  “Very well,” Catherine responded. “I will prepare some meat for you the next time I come. Eat quickly, we have much to discuss.”

  Alhen rolled his eyes but didn’t offer any comment.

  He took the bowl of soup and ate it with renowned vigor, knowing that he wouldn’t be eating it any longer from now on.

  In a flash, he had downed the soup and felt full of energy.

  ‘Now that I think about it, am I not living like a king? It’s not necessarily bad to just lie in bed and be fed every day in exchange for a conversation.'

  'Sounds better than all the troubles back where I live,’ Alhen thought.

  The next second, however, he shook his head.

  ‘No! I can’t let these thoughts distract me. I have to fulfill my promise to Henry; I have to kill the father. I made a decision back then. I can't be getting off track now.’

  Catherine looked at him with a raised eyebrow from the side. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  That’s when Alhen realized that he had been moving weirdly and making strange faces while lost in thought. He cleared his throat and told her to ignore him.

  She obliged and started talking like usual.

  “How do you feel, Alhen? It has already been two cycles, you should be feeling way better now due to my great medical application,” she said, puffing out her chest at the end.

  Alhen scoffed, but internally thought she was right.

  ‘I have to give it to her, if it wasn’t for her medical knowledge, I would already be dead. However, I can’t let that feeling of superiority get to her head.’

  “I’m feeling better, thanks. I would feel even better, though, if you release my bindings. It has been quite some time, don’t you think?"

  "What if your mother comes and finds me? You couldn’t talk to me anymore,” he tried reasoning.

  Her reaction was exactly what he had in mind would happen.

  “You want to escape again? How many times do I have to tell you that it is not going to happen? You have to show me around the kingdom.”

  Alhen shook his head in disappointment.

  “So you are not going to let me go, huh? I kind of expected that, but I really have many things I have to do back there. Can’t you let me out now before your mother comes?”

  “I will let you go after she leaves again. She should only stay here for about two cycles and then go back to do whatever she does. That’s the time when we are going to the kingdom.”

  Alhen didn’t have the strength to argue anymore, that was until he remembered one crucial detail.

  “Catherine, I get that you want me to guide you to the kingdom and all, but I genuinely have no idea where it is. I lost my way after being carried by the current.”

  “Oh, worry not, I know the way to the Kingdom of Yhia. My mother told me as a kid that going in that direction would end up with me dead, but now I know that she was lying to protect me.”

  “Very well, I give up, there is no changing your mind, is it?” Alhen asked.

  “Nope. So tell me, have you heard about the continent of Xuden? It is very interesting!” she said, trembling with excitement.

  Alhen shook his head. “How is it? What makes it so interesting that it makes you sound like that?”

  “Apparently, it is a continent with no wihts! Is it not crazy? We have spent most of our lives in the presence of wihts, but in this continent, there are none. I want to travel there so bad, but my mother will not let me.”

  “If she doesn’t let you go, it’s for a reason. Maybe reaching it is not easy; if it were, there would be no reason to stay here in this cabin."

  "She is a Sol rank hunter, so why couldn’t she move there with you?” Alhen reasoned.

  “Now that I think about it, you are making a lot of sense. Either way, I am visiting it no matter what, I swear!” she exclaimed.

  While Catherine was lost in thought, Alhen began to think.

  ‘Does a place like that truly exist? It sounds too good to be true. Sounds to me more like a fairy tale. I will have to ask Alaran when I go back.’

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  It was then that he remembered that his mentor was considered the best tracker in the Kingdom of Yhia.

  ‘Father Vincent will surely be worried that I am gone. At this moment, Alaran should have already started looking for me.’

  ‘If he finds me before Catherine’s mother arrives, then I might have a chance at surviving. The thing is, Catherine can’t be harmed, not even a little, and our meeting has to remain a secret.’

  ‘We can’t risk her mother being overly protective and wary. If that’s the case, then she will kill me without a doubt.’

  It was then that they heard a door opening in the cabin, and they both got alert.

  Catherine looked like she had seen a ghost, with her eyes wide open, looking at the steel door in front of her.

  Without missing a beat, she gave him a harsh look that promised death if he wasn’t quiet and ran as quietly as she could out of the room, closing the door behind her.

  With a soft click, the door was closed, and Alhen was left alone with the worry of the person being who he thought.

  ‘Don’t tell me that her mother is back, please. She is a Sol-ranked hunter, there’s no way she won’t be able to pick up eventually that I’m here.’

  His mind started overthinking about every possible situation and how to get out of it. If she came, there was nothing in his brain about what he could say to her.

  What was he supposed to say? ‘Hello, your daughter saved me, but now she has me trapped in here and doesn’t want me to leave until I take her with me to the Kingdom of Yhia.’

  How would she react then? Yeah, he could imagine how that would go, and it wouldn’t end nicely for him.

  He could hear footsteps inside and some low voices, talking about something.

  Thankfully, the steel door blocked most of the sound, making it almost impossible for her mother to hear him inside since he wasn’t planning on making noise anytime soon.

  His heart raced, and he could only think about the time when her mother, for some reason, would enter the room and discover him tied almost naked, and he would have to explain the situation.

  After some minutes of nothing happening and the conversation stopping, he didn’t hear anything else.

  ‘It seems that they have stopped talking. I wonder what is happening?’ he thought.

  Alhen took a slow, quiet, deep breath. ‘This was going to happen anyway; better for it to be now than later.’

  He was left alone with his thoughts, but not for long. It was faint at first, but Alhen started hearing voices again.

  They increased in intensity the more time passed, until he heard full-on screaming.

  ‘What is happening? Don’t tell me that Catherine is arguing with her mother. Did she already figure out that there’s something wrong or her daughter is acting unusually?’

  He hoped that wasn’t the case, but life had other plans for him.

  He heard stomping approaching his room, and that’s when he knew that there was no way for him to escape his current reality.

  Tensing all of his muscles, he tried breaking his bindings to have a better chance of protecting himself, but it was all useless.

  ‘There’s a reason why I have yet to escape, and it’s that these things are hard to break.’

  Alhen gritted his teeth and tried activating his sign, but it was the same result.

  His body didn’t have enough Benedictio Lunae to fill his sign, which meant that he was stuck having the strength of a normal nine-year-old boy at the moment.

  Accepting his fate, he stopped struggling, waiting for the critical moment when he would have to save his skin.

  The voices reached just outside the steel door, and the argument intensified.

  He could hear Catherine denying something to her mother, and she was furious, saying that she knew she was lying.

  “BANG!” Alhen flinched.

  The steel door had a noticeable dent, and the whole cabin shook from the impact.

  In a few seconds, he heard the locks being released, and in a flash, the door was kicked open.

  Catherine’s mother entered, and the first thing that entered her sight was the bed, and then the boy, whose limbs were bound to the bed, looking at her with a weird expression.

  She turned her head to look at her daughter, who was one step behind her, cowering and looking nervous.

  “Do you mind explaining what I am looking at? Why is there a wiht on the bed?” she asked.

  She looked just like Catherine, but only older, and a nasty scar covered her neck. She had her arms crossed, looking at her daughter with a scowl.

  ‘Wait a second, did she say wiht?’ Alhen thought.

  Even Catherine noticed it, as in the next second she started to explain.

  “Mother, it is not what it looks like. I found this boy being carried by a current; he was going to die if I did nothing, so I nursed him back to health.”

  Her mother scoffed, looking at Alhen with disgust.

  “That thing has fooled you, Catherine. It looks like a human, but it is not. How it manages to look like one is unsettling to say the least, but thankfully, it seems to be weak, or else you would be in trouble,” she explained.

  “I’m not a wiht,” Alhen interjected. “I’m truly a human, and your daughter did save me from almost dying of blood loss.”

  “Gasp!” She couldn’t believe it.

  “How come you can talk and think this reasonably at your level? This should not be possible!” she exclaimed.

  “I don’t know why you think I’m a wiht, but I promise I'm a human. I don’t want to harm anyone, nor will I cause trouble for either of you. Please let me go,” Alhen pleaded.

  Catherine’s mother scoffed, ignoring his words.

  “Stop lying, creature; the only other explanation is that you are not a wiht either, so what are you? Be honest with me, because there will be consequences if you throw any lies my way.”

  Alhen’s body tensed; he was not expecting this situation.

  It was good that she didn’t immediately jump to kill him, but she seemed dead set on him not being a human, and he didn’t know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

  “I am a human,” Alhen insisted, but she didn’t like that answer.

  “Very well, I will have a productive talk with my daughter, and then I will come back. Make sure to be prepared, because you might not like what I have prepared for you,” she said.

  He shivered, and a cold sweat ran down his back.

  Catherine avoided locking gazes with him and averted her head to the exit, walking with her mother somewhere far and away from him.

  Alhen gritted his teeth; this whole situation could have been avoided if Catherine had used a little common sense, but it seems that it was lacking in her.

  ‘Growing up all of your life in a wooden cabin sure has its downsides,’ he thought.

  After what seemed like hours of waiting, Catherine and her mother returned, with the mother appearing calmer.

  “Very well, I have heard about what happened from my daughter. You owe your life to her, so you will become her servant," she said.

  Alhen didn’t like where the conversation was headed, and he made sure to show it with his facial expression, which showed clear disapproval.

  “Be thankful to my daughter that she does not want you dead. I approved of her request since you are not strong enough; anything you plan against us will never come to fruition.”

  He wanted to scoff, but it was true. He was not strong enough to take on any of them.

  Catherine could handle him like a wet rag, and he didn’t even want to get started with her mother; she was clearly on another level.

  “At the end of each cycle, you will sleep here, locked, and without being able to communicate with anyone. Is that clear?” she asked.

  Alhen didn’t respond, looking at her with a serious gaze.

  “Have you gone mute?” she taunted, but Alhen didn’t take the bait.

  ‘I don’t care if I die, I’m not going to lower myself like this again. If she were Father Vincent, I would never bow down to him.’

  “Very well, if this is what you choose, then so be it, but you are still going to be serving my daughter."

  "I also want to know what you are. Call me Ms. Edith from now on. We will be seeing each other more often.”

  She turned her head to look at Catherine and gave her a nod before leaving the room.

  He heard a door opening and closing where she had gone, making him think that she had left the cabin.

  Alhen looked at Catherine, who didn’t want to tear her gaze off the floor. Her cheeks were bright red, and he sighed, looking at this.

  “Your mother was surprisingly calmer than I expected," he began.

  “She also didn’t make any unreasonable demands, but I have to get out of here and return to the kingdom; there are people waiting for me,” Alhen said.

  Catherine slowly lifted her gaze off the floor and stared at him.

  “You are not mad? Everything that happened was my fault,” she said.

  “Of course it was your fault,” Alhen said, and she flinched.

  “It was your fault, but you saved me, so thanks again. Now, please let me go, I am sure that someone is looking for me right now, and if he finds me in this condition, he won’t like it one bit.”

  “I am sorry, but I cannot just let you go. My mother will instantly know if you leave, and she has her own tracking methods. It would not be long before she finds you,” she said.

  Alhen clicked his tongue.

  “At least can you take these things off of me? I am starting to get tired, and now that your mother knows I am here, it makes no sense for me to stay in bed all cycle,” Alhen reasoned.

  “I can do that, just please cause no trouble. Hurting you is not in my plans,” she replied.

  He sighed in relief; he would have some freedom of movement. He had not cleaned his body since he fell in that current, and his body was starting to stink.

  It also helped that now he could actually clothe himself. Catherine approached him and took off his bindings.

  Alhen felt the pressure on his wrists and ankles dissipate, but the pain remained.

  His skin was almost purple, and he winced, realizing that his condition was worse than he thought.

  “I am sorry! I was unaware that I placed them too tightly! Forgive me!” Catherine explained, almost on the verge of tears.

  Alhen scratched the back of his head, replying, “It’s fine, you don’t have to apologize. I promise to take you to the kingdom, so you can rest assured,” he said.

  “Really?” she asked, surprised by his change in opinion.

  “Yes, thinking it further, I believe that it would be a nice experience for you. You have spent all your life here; it would do you good to have some change of scenery,” Alhen explained.

  “Yes!” Catherine celebrated, without knowing the plans Alhen had in store for her.