Three Broken Kingdoms-Book 1 of the Lost Continent (Completed)

Chapter Nine: The Desert

Jasper's Point of View

His aunt was alive.

His aunt was alive, and he had no idea how, or why she hadn't found them in the two years before everything had gone wrong. And why hadn't she killed him, knowing he was a liar and a traitor and a kin-killer.

At some point, through his shock, Jasper Merson realised that his men knew he had told his aunt to run. He realised that they were trying to trick him into a false sense of security, and if he slept, he would wake up in chains. Or not at all.

It was around this time when Jasper understood that he was out of options and out of time, and the only thing he could do was take his chances, his very low, very scary chances, and run.

He could not run to the rebels because he had betrayed them a thousand times over. The valkyries and elves would never take him. All of Kallias would be searching for him. He had seen the ruthless hunts-and brutal executions-for deserters before. The only place he could run to was the endless desert around him, and even then, they would eventually find him.

No one in the army had ever managed to desert before.

The only place he wouldn't be hunted was the Isthmus between North and South, but that was a wasteland, broken and ravaged. He could not stay in the northern Kallias or the Midlands. That left only the southern state, filled with criminals and insurgents. But to get there...it would be fastest to go north, where he could get a ship, and then head back in the other direction.

It was stupid, and suicidal. To enter that lawless place and try to scratch out a living. To try to wend his way through the highly guarded Northern State to get there. And yet... it was Jasper's only choice.He just had to find the right moment.

As the dusk came and kissed the hot desert sand, they were close to the fortress but not yet close enough, thanks to his own efforts to slow them down.

Jasper could feel the soldiers around him tense. If they had been in the army camp, he would already be dead, but his men knew that he would take out a couple of them before they captured him, so they were waiting for him to sleep. Yes, they would attack tonight, when he let his guard down. Which was why Jasper was taking first watch, mentally running through his plan. His pack was close by and he noticed that one soldier stayed awake as the others, scattered across the ground, drifted off to uneasy sleep.

This was expected; they were afraid that he would kill them when they slept and make a run for it. They were smart, but not smart enough.

He sifted his way through the packs of the other soldiers, taking as much food as he could carry with him, which amounted to a sword, a compass and a lighter. All he could take; anything else would be too heavy.

The solider tasked with keeping watch was pretending to sleep, with his eyes closed and him lying on the ground. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

It would have been easier if the soldier had been some mindless brute, or a cruel noble's son. But Edvard had been a normal man, conscripted into the army and struggling to make it out alive and in one piece.

It was so simple to kill him, to snuff out the flame burning in his soul, without making a sound, and it was reflex to ignore the flicker of regret that came at his death.

He hurried to get out of sight of the camp, knowing that if they could still see him by the time dawn came, he would be dead. The packs he took with him only seemed to grow heavier as he climbed each passing sand dune, always going north, north.

By the third day, they still hadn't found him. Jasper knew that he should count that as a miracle and a blessing from whatever ancient gods Kallias had forgotten, but with his mouth parched and dry, and a constant hunger in his belly, he didn't think anything about this was lucky. He had no way of measuring how far he had come, he only knew that he had finally found his way from the true desert to a savannah.