The father raises the axe above his shoulder and swings it across at Morziwayn’s neck.

  She ducks.

  Wood splinters as the axe lodges itself in the beam behind her chair.

  Rolling out of the chair and under the table, she crawls out next to the father and stumbles out the open door. She could kill him, drain him of all that made him living, all that made him man and watch him wither like a fresh autumn oak leaf—but she’s torn this family apart enough already.

  “Morziwayn! You ruin my harvest and jail my only child! And you run from a peasant, you cowardly god.” The father screams. Pressing his foot against the beam, he struggles to pull the axe free.

  Losing her footing on the veranda, she tumbles down the stairs.

  She pushes herself up immediately and looks around her. Her dry autumn air leaves the sky a clear blue, only being broken by the black burial spires of the Crown. She starts towards them. The heavy-booted footsteps of the father echo against the planks behind her.

  Her feet sink into the mud of the dirt road as she runs towards the forest in the distance—she can lose him there. The body of a malnourished teenage peasant girl fueled only by bland porridge was far from her desired vessel to be running from an axe-wielding man in—unfortunately she had no choice in the matter, unless she wished to be murdered again.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  The dirt road turns right, leaving Morziwayn no choice but to scramble over the wooden fence and run through the family’s wheat field. The colors of the forest’s autumn leaves flicker in and out of vision as she presses her way through dead and diseased wheat, pushing stalks covered in brown streaks and blotches away as she goes.

  “This is your doing! You forsake me and dare take my daughter!” He makes his way over the fence no more than fifty paces behind the imposter. Watching as the once brittle crops she pushed away snap back up, brown spots now gone, obscuring her from his vision. “You rub salt in the wound and taunt me with what I lost!”

  She continues to ignore him as she clambers over the other side of the fence and enters the forest. Sticks and leaf litter dig into her feet through the wool socks, ripping one as she runs. She navigates her way over and around trees and branches—this body is nimble, even if she is still getting used to its stature. Yet, the father still closes distance, his boots providing an advantage on the forest floor.

  The heavy crunching only grows louder, and she pushes deeper into the woods. She focuses on the beacon of the Crown through the half-shed trees, not looking at the ground before her, not wanting to see the death that only grows closer.

  He takes the axe as far down the handle as he can; he can kill her after—she just needs to stop moving first. Extending his arm fully, he brings the axe down and hears a quick scream but feels no impact from the axe.

  Morziwayn loses her footing and plummets down the ravine she had failed to notice. Tumbling through the foliage, she screams as her arm hits a rock, sending a sharp, shooting pain up her arm, only to be quickly silenced as she hits face-first against the jagged stump of a felled tree. Landing in the river below, she is pulled downstream with it.