The fourth day of our journey dawns gray and cool. Clouds gather on the horizon like an omen of trouble ahead. The landscape has changed from open plains to more broken terrain. Rolling hills, scattered rock formations, and patches of scrub forest that provide cover for anyone with ill intentions.
During our midday rest, Jorik calls the guards together with the grim efficiency of someone who's seen too many travelers disappear on dangerous roads. His weathered face is serious as he spreads a worn map across a wagon tailgate.
"We're entering the Thornwood Hills," he announces, his finger tracing our route through the sketched terrain. "Perfect country for bandits. Lots of cover, narrow passes, multiple escape routes. The next stretch of road is where we're most vulnerable."
Frazier checks his sword and magical focuses with methodical attention. His military experience shows in every movement. Efficient, practiced, deadly serious.
"What's our formation?" he asks, already thinking tactically.
"Guards spread along the column, but ready to form defensive positions if we're hit," Jorik replies. "Protect the civilians first, the goods second. Dead merchants don't pay, but live ones will hire us again."
I feel my heart rate increase, not from fear but from anticipation. The months of training have prepared me for this moment—my first real battle since the demon attack that destroyed my village. The sword at my side feels different now, not just a weight but a tool waiting to be used.
"Stay close to the wagons," Frazier tells me quietly as we prepare to move out. "If fighting starts, protect the merchants and their families. Don't go looking for glory."
But my attention is already focused outward, scanning the terrain with eyes trained to spot danger. Something feels wrong about the landscape ahead—too quiet, with normal wildlife sounds conspicuously absent.
The attack comes as we're navigating a narrow passage between two rocky outcrops. The worst possible place to be caught. Bandits emerge from concealment on both sides of the road. Their war cries echo off the stone walls as they charge toward our column.
The assault is well-planned and coordinated. Not the desperate rush of starving thieves, but the calculated strike of experienced fighters. Archers on the high ground rain arrows down on the caravan while foot soldiers rush in to engage the guards and loot the wagons.
The merchants and their families scream in terror. Some try to flee, others cower behind their goods. Children cry out for their parents while horses rear and plunge in their traces, adding to the chaos.
Frazier reacts instantly, his military training taking over like muscle memory. "Defensive circle!" he shouts to the other guards, his voice cutting through the pandemonium. "Protect the civilians!"
His sword appears in his hand as if by magic. His other hand begins weaving spells to support our defense. Lightning crackles between his fingers as he targets the archers on the ridge.
I draw my steel sword for the first time in actual combat. The weight feels different now. Not a practice tool but a weapon meant to preserve life by taking it. My training takes over. My body moves with practiced efficiency as I position myself between the attackers and a wagon full of terrified children.
A bandit rushes toward me. Desperation in his eyes and a rusty sword in his hand. His attack is clumsy, driven more by hunger than skill. I parry his thrust and counter with a cut that opens his arm to the bone. He stumbles back with a cry of pain.
Blood—his and mine where a lucky blow grazed my shoulder. Instead of horror, I feel cold satisfaction.
In the chaos of battle, as I parry another bandit's desperate thrust and drive my pommel into his face, breaking his nose in a spray of blood, I glimpse something that stops me cold.
Renn. One of my original captors. He's crouched beside a fallen merchant, rifling through the man's purse while he lies bleeding and unconscious in the dirt. The sight triggers a flood of traumatic memories. The cage. The branding. The casual cruelty of men who saw me as nothing more than merchandise.
But what makes my blood freeze is what I see glinting at his belt. Kai's crescent moon pendant. The last gift from my beloved friend who died protecting me.
All rational thought flees. The strategic defensive position Frazier taught me, the careful tactics of protecting civilians. Everything disappears in a red haze of fury and desperate need for justice.
"You," I snarl, abandoning my position to stalk toward Renn. My voice carries a coldness that makes him look up from his looting. "You have something that doesn't belong to you."
For a moment, he doesn't recognize me. The terrified, broken captive he helped transport months ago has been transformed into something deadly and determined. When understanding finally dawns in his eyes, fear replaces greed.
"The forest girl," he gasps, scrambling backward over the fallen merchant. "But you're supposed to be—"
"Dead?" I finish for him, advancing steadily with my sword point never wavering from his throat. "Broken? Safely enslaved?" A cold smile touches my lips. "I got better."
The pendant catches the light as he stumbles. My rage intensifies beyond anything I've ever felt. "That pendant. You took it from me when you stripped away everything I had. It belonged to someone you killed."
"I don't know what you're talking about," he lies. But his hand instinctively moves to protect the pendant, confirming my suspicions and his guilt.
Before I can close with Renn, another voice cuts through the battle noise—one that makes my spine go rigid with recognition and hatred.
"Well, well," Darius says, emerging from behind an overturned wagon. The other slaver, now turned bandit, wields a notched sword and wears leather armor that's seen better days. He's older, more experienced in combat than his partner, and he recognizes the danger I represent.
"Our little forest cat has grown claws," he continues, circling to flank me while Renn cowers behind him. "But you're still just a slave, girl. Still property."
The words are calculated to wound, to remind me of my powerlessness during those dark days in the cage. But they have the opposite effect. My training with Frazier has taught me that words are just another weapon, and this one has no power over me anymore.
"I was never your property," I reply, shifting my stance to keep both men in view. "I was a person you stole. There's a difference."
Darius attacks first, his sword cutting toward me with the brutal efficiency of someone who's killed before. But I'm no longer the untrained village girl he remembers. I parry his strike and counter with a thrust that forces him to give ground.
"You've learned to fight," he admits, reassessing me with new respect. "But you're still outnumbered, and you're still marked as a slave. Even if you kill us, you'll never be free."
He's trying to get inside my head, to make me doubt my purpose. But his words only fuel my determination. "Maybe not," I reply, pressing my attack. "But you won't live to see it either way."
From across the battlefield, Frazier sees me engaged with two opponents and recognizes the tactical danger. His protective instincts war with his respect for my capabilities—I'm holding my own, but I'm outnumbered and driven by emotion rather than strategy.
He dispatches his current opponent with ruthless efficiency, using both blade and magic to clear a path toward me. A bolt of lightning from his fingers drops one bandit, while his sword opens another from shoulder to hip, the magical energy crackling along the blade as it cuts.
"Leiko!" he calls, but I'm too focused on my personal battle to hear him.
Darius, seeing reinforcements coming, makes a desperate gambit. He feints toward me, then spins to attack Frazier instead, hoping to eliminate the greater threat before dealing with me. But he's miscalculated—Frazier's military experience and magical abilities make him a far more dangerous opponent than anticipated.
The fight is brief and brutal. Frazier's swordwork is economical and deadly, each strike designed to incapacitate or kill with minimum effort. His blade moves in tight, controlled arcs that waste no motion while his free hand weaves defensive spells.
When Darius tries to press his attack, Frazier catches his sword on his crossguard and drives his pommel into the bandit's temple with bone-crushing force. Darius drops like a stone, his weapon clattering away across the rocky ground.
"Still breathing," Frazier notes clinically, checking the fallen slaver. "But he won't be fighting again anytime soon."
With Darius down, Renn faces me alone. He's never been the braver of the two slavers, and without his partner's support, his courage fails entirely. The man who once held absolute power over me now trembles before someone he helped destroy.
"Look," he gasps, raising his hands in surrender. "Let's be reasonable here. I never hurt you personally. That was all Darius. I was just doing my job."
"Your job was trafficking people," I reply, my voice deadly quiet. "Your job was destroying lives for profit."
He tries to run then, abandoning any pretense of courage. But I'm faster than he remembers, my months of training having honed my speed and endurance. I corner him against a rock formation, my sword at his throat while he whimpers like the coward he's always been.
"The pendant," I demand. "Give it back."
"Take it," he gasps, fumbling with the leather cord. "Take it and let me go. I'll disappear, I swear. You'll never see me again."
I watch him struggling with the cord, and for a moment I consider letting him live. He's pathetic now, broken by the hard life of banditry, no longer the confident predator who helped destroy my life.
But then I remember the cage. The branding. The casual way he discussed my sale price while I lay in chains. The pendant he stole from my neck after they murdered the man who gave it to me.
"You put me in a cage," I say softly. "You watched them brand me. You sold me like an animal. You took the last thing I had of someone I loved."
He throws the pendant at my feet, hoping the distraction will give him a chance to escape. But I don't even glance down—my eyes remain fixed on his face, reading his intentions like words on a page.
When he tries to bolt, I'm ready. My sword takes him in the back, between the shoulder blades, piercing his heart with surgical precision. He falls forward and lies still, his blood mixing with Darius's on the rocky ground.
Only then do I kneel to retrieve Kai's pendant. The smooth wood is exactly as I remember—warm to the touch, carved with loving care, a symbol of friendship and sacrifice that survived longer than the man who made it.
Holding it brings back a flood of memories: Kai's laughter during our sparring matches, his protective instincts when danger threatened, his final moments defending me from the demons. The weight of what I've just done—killing two men in what was essentially cold blood—settles on my shoulders.
They deserved to die, I tell myself. They were slavers, murderers, destroyers of lives and dreams. But taking life, even justified life, leaves its mark on the soul.
Frazier approaches carefully, recognizing the emotional turmoil in my posture. His own clothes are spattered with blood, and there's a cut on his arm that he hasn't bothered to tend yet.
"Are you hurt?" he asks, his voice gentle despite the violence we've just shared.
"No," I reply, but we both know I'm lying. Not physically hurt, perhaps, but the confrontation with my past has reopened wounds I thought were healing.
"Those two," he says, glancing at the bodies. "You knew them."
"They knew me," I correct him, fastening the pendant around my neck with trembling fingers. "They were the ones who captured me. Who sold me. Who took this from me when they stripped away everything else."
He nods, understanding. "And now they're dead."
"And now they're dead," I agree. But the words taste hollow. I thought I'd feel vindicated, satisfied. Instead, I just feel empty.
The bandit attack is over, the survivors fled or dead. The caravan takes stock of the damage—several wounded, one merchant dead, goods scattered and some stolen. It could have been much worse, but the cost is still significant.
Jorik surveys the battlefield with the grim satisfaction of someone who's survived many such encounters. Blood soaks into the rocky ground while the wounded moan softly, waiting for what healing we can provide.
"Good work," he tells the guards, his weathered face showing approval despite the losses. "Could have been a massacre if we hadn't been ready."
The other guards eye me with new respect and some wariness. My skill in combat is now proven, but so is my capacity for lethal violence. The way I hunted down my specific targets, the cold efficiency of my kills—it marks me as someone with personal stakes that go beyond mere employment.
"Those two you took down," one guard asks, nodding toward the bodies of Darius and Renn. "Personal business?"
"Very personal," I reply, offering no further explanation.
Elena, the merchant's wife who showed me kindness, approaches with a torn cloth to bind my shoulder wound. Her face is pale from the violence she's witnessed, but her hands are steady.
"Thank you," she says simply. "You saved my children. I saw you fighting between them and the bandits."
The gratitude in her voice reminds me that this wasn't just about revenge. We protected innocent people, saved lives that matter. The knowledge helps balance the weight of the lives I've taken.
That evening, as the caravan makes camp in a more defensible position, I sit apart from the others. The adrenaline of combat has faded. Now I confront the complex emotions of finally facing my captors.
The pendant rests against my throat, a tangible connection to my lost friend and my former life. But the slave brand remains as well. A reminder that my quest for freedom is far from over.
Frazier joins me, bringing food I haven't touched and water I need to drink. His own wounds have been tended.
"How do you feel?" he asks, settling beside me on the rocky ground.
"Empty," I admit. "I thought I'd feel... vindicated. Satisfied. They got what they deserved."
"But?"
"But they're just dead. Kai is still gone. My village is still destroyed. Killing them didn't bring anything back. It just... ended them."
Frazier nods. "The first time you kill someone, you expect it to change everything. To solve something, or prove something, or make something right. But death is just... final. It doesn't fix what came before."
"Were they monsters?" I ask.
Frazier considers the question seriously. "They chose to traffic in human misery. They chose to treat people as property, to profit from suffering. If that's not monstrous, it's close enough."
I fasten Kai's pendant around my neck with reverent care. The smooth wood settles against my throat, carrying memories of better times.
"He would have wanted you to have it back," Frazier says.
"He would have wanted me to be free," I reply, touching both the pendant and the slave brand that marks me. "This is just... a piece of wood. A memory. It doesn't change anything about what I am now."
"It changes what you remember. Who you remember. That matters."
I nod, understanding his point. The pendant doesn't alter my legal status or break my magical bonds. But it reconnects me to the person I was before my captivity.
"Tomorrow we should reach Maristell," Frazier says, checking our position on his map. "From there, it's the ocean crossing to Seroven."
"And then the real journey begins," I add. The confrontation with my past feels like a milestone. But I know it's only one step on a much longer path.
The pendant catches the firelight as I adjust its position. A small warmth against my skin. Kai died protecting me, believing I was worth saving. The least I can do is prove him right by fighting for the freedom he wanted me to have.
As the caravan settles into sleep, I find myself changed by the day's events. I've faced my past captors and emerged victorious. Reclaimed something precious that was stolen from me. But I've also crossed a line that can never be uncrossed.
The pendant rests against my throat. A connection to love and loss and the person I used to be. The slave brand remains as well. A reminder of what I've endured and what I'm still fighting to overcome.
Tomorrow we'll reach the port city that will take us across the sea to a foreign continent. Tomorrow our quest enters a new phase, with new dangers and new possibilities.
The ghosts of my past have been laid to rest. Now I can focus on the future I'm fighting to claim.