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I slip out of the exit. After a few painstaking minutes, I’m outside the palace, faced now with the hill descending to the main village of Yadat.
I pull the blanket over my head, tying its ends to form it into a makeshift hood. In the dark of night, I’ll blend into the air like a ghost.
Before proceeding any further, I look back over my shoulder at the palace, thinking of Selliss. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” I mutter.
I return my attention to the journey ahead. I’m now faced with the hardest part, a long and treacherous road to Lodra that’ll take days, and that’s if I even get there.
There’s a possibility I will not make it through to see the light of tomorrow, but at least I will have died on my own terms.
“I better get going.”
I stick to the shadows and alleys as I move down the hill and through the city of Yadat. At this time of the night, any naga out on the street are too inebriated to try anything stupid with me.
The wind picks up as I traverse the backroads. I pull my blanket closer, but it doesn’t do much to fend off the cold. I think of Selliss and his muscular arms, the way he used to pull me close when I woke up from being cold.
I am on the outskirts of the city when I hear someone call out to me. Slowly, I turn around.
“You there!” a drunken naga calls out. “How much for the night?”
He must think I’m a whore.
“I’m not what you think I am. Now leave me alone.”
“Hey! No one dares to… To…”
The naga falls to the ground, his bottle of ale smashing beside him. At least it’s one less problem for me to deal with.
The cold becomes almost unbearable as I journey through the desert plains just outside the residences. There’s no cover from the cold, and I fear losing my hands after they go numb.
The longest hours of my life pass me by. A day, and then two, but I have done the impossible. I stumble upon the outskirts of Lodra with aching legs, an empty water canister, and no food in my belly. With everything depleted, I need to find a warm bed and some sustenance fast.
The sun slowly begins to peak its head over the horizon for the third time, illuminating the land with almost blinding light, yet its emergence brings with it a new flash of hope.
In the distance, I spot a small village.
“There has to be an inn of some sort.”
The time has come for me to see just how I’ll be treated. Even after all the talk Selliss gave me about the liberties of humans in Lodra, it is still, after all, a region of Nagaland.
My legs are just about to give out before I spot a local inn. Stumbling my way inside, I almost fall flat on my face, catching myself on a wooden beam at the last second.
I peer up with heavy eyes stinging with exhaustion. Some naga and humans sit at tables, already a few beers deep this early in the morning.
Decorative furs and glowing lamps light up the place, easy on the eyes unlike the morning sun. At the head of the tavern is a long counter, where a free seat calls me by my name.
“Please,” I groan with a dry throat. “I need water.”
The nearest patron, a human man, lays my arm around his shoulder as I limp over to the counter.
“Here,” the bartender says, placing a pint of water down in front of me. “I’ll see what we have in the kitchen.”
I’ve never drunk something so quickly in my life. As my wits slowly return to me, I spot some concerned patrons nearing closer.
The bartender returns with a large plate full of food. I waste no time digging in, not bothering to use the utensils. Only then do I notice just how dirty I look, my bare feet and arms stained with dried mud.
“You look like you’ve been through war,” the man remarks, the one who helped me over.
“Yeah, where did you come from?” the bartender asks, refilling my pint. “You look like shit.”
