The air beyond the capital walls feels different almost immediately.
Not cleaner, there is still smoke on the wind, still the distant smell of people and waste, but looser, as if it is no longer being held in place by stone and rule and expectation. Eric takes three steps past the gate, then a fourth, and something inside him loosens so suddenly it steals his breath.
He stops.
Laughs once, quietly, the sound rough and surprised.
The weight he has carried for weeks, no, longer than that, slips free. The constant watching. The measuring glances. The invisible hand nudging him toward a shape he never chose. His shoulders drop, and he rolls them experimentally, half expecting the pressure to return.
It doesn’t.
For a heartbeat, the world feels wide and kind.
Then the road reminds him he is alone.
The day is warmer than the march to the capital had been. The worst of winter has loosened its grip, snow retreating into dirty patches beneath hedges and trees. The sun even carries a hint of warmth when it finds his face. But the breeze is sharp, and the shadows are still cold.
Eric walks anyway.
He does not follow the main road for long. It feels watched. Traveled. Named. Instead, he turns off along a narrow path beaten flat by carts and animals, then leaves that too, striking out across scrub and low grass toward a line of trees.
No road. No markers. No name.
His canteen sloshes weakly at his hip. He takes a careful sip, just enough to wet his mouth, then corks it again. The ration brick in his pack feels heavier than it should, as if reminding him it is all he has.
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By midafternoon, hunger starts to gnaw.
Not the dull ache of missed meals at the capital, where food had been bland but regular. This is sharper, edged with uncertainty. He slows, forcing himself to breathe steadily.
Persistence over panic, he tells himself.
Panic wastes energy. Panic makes mistakes.
He keeps moving.
By the time the sun dips low, concern creeps back in. The land slopes gently downward, and the trees ahead grow denser. Shadows stretch long and thin across the ground, fingers reaching.
Eric stops and looks around.
No shelter. No firewood gathered. No blanket. No tent.
“I should’ve planned better,” he mutters to no one.
The words vanish into the quiet.
He chooses a spot near the edge of the trees, where a fallen log offers some shelter from the wind. He gathers what he can, dry grass, brittle twigs, bits of bark, and piles them around himself, more illusion than insulation.
As night settles, the temperature drops fast.
Cold seeps up from the ground, through his boots, into his bones. He wraps his arms around himself, tucking his chin down, teeth chattering despite his efforts to stay still.
The sounds begin.
At first, they are distant. A rustle. A snap of wood. Wind moving through branches.
Then closer.
Something scurries through the underbrush. Something else hoots, low and mournful. An answering call echoes farther off.
Eric’s heart races.
He grips the cracked dagger, thumb brushing the loose hilt. The blade feels laughably small.
No class. No skills. No protection, he thinks.
Just himself.
Sleep comes in thin, broken pieces. Every sound jerks him awake. Every shift of shadow sends his pulse spiking. At one point, something brushes past his foot, and he flinches so hard he nearly cries out.
Hours pass. Or minutes. He cannot tell.
He shivers uncontrollably, muscles aching, exhaustion pressing down on him like a second cold. His thoughts drift, unmoored.
He thinks of Cathryn’s worried eyes. Emil’s tight jaw. The lecture hall. The word, forsworn.
Then he thinks of the moment the gate closed behind him.
The rush. The freedom.
He clings to that feeling as the night wears on, thin and fragile as the first hint of dawn.
When morning finally comes, gray and quiet, Eric pushes himself upright with stiff limbs and a pounding headache.
He is cold. Hungry. Unnamed.
But he is still here.
And that, he decides as he takes his first step into the trees, is enough, for now.
