Auriel had never known his mother’s love, and never once had he desired it, for if her embrace were even a tenth as strong as his father’s had been, she’d have crushed all his bones before he took his first steps. In fact, his earliest memory had him seated on Seyfrus’s knee, his whole head cradled in one hand while both arms held him firm against his father’s chest. He could barely breathe but could not yet speak, so he whined and cried and hoped for relief—but the cries only strengthened Seyfrus’s grip, and loudening them only brought a stream of sweet nothings murmured into his ear.

  All his life, Auriel had yearned for freedom from those arms, yearned for the chance to live as he pleased without prying eyes or pernicious whispers—but in all that yearning, never once did he think of what he’d do with freedom once he’d gotten it, nor did he have the faintest notion of how to keep it from slipping away.

  His head may have been swimming in blissful, steamy waters when he’d first laid it in the box, but mere moments after opening his eyes, he had to close them again, fearing they’d pop out of his skull from how hard his brain pounded against it. His mouth was full of sand, his throat of gravel, but the mere suggestion of water sent his stomach into a sickly boil. He was buried in fabrics—thick ones, at that—but his skin was like ice, and no matter how tightly he curled in on himself, he couldn’t seem to get warm.

  For hours or days, he sat shivering in the dark, unable to hear beyond his throbbing brain and unable to think beyond his abysmal condition. Then slowly, gradually, the rattling of wagon wheels was prominent in his ears, and the dust and rock crumbled from his throat to still his sickly stomach—but his head was offered no such respite. As soon as the cranial drumming seemed to quiet, a maelstrom of thoughts and memories and regrets came flooding in like a swarm of wasps, and their potent stings unleashed a torrent of tears strong enough to scald his frigid skin.

  For all his looking down upon them as vain and flawed and feeble, Auriel never stood any higher than anyone else in his peerage. He wasn’t special; he wasn’t unique; he wasn’t the hapless prisoner he purported himself to be; he was just a brat. A stupid, selfish, spoiled brat, too busy crying and whining about all the things he didn’t have to see just how good things truly were—nor how pitifully incompetent he truly was. His whole life, he’d been showered in praise for his beauty and grace, but never once did anyone acknowledge his achievements, for he’d never actually achieved anything. He’d never even worked for anything. Everything had always been handed to him, whenever and wherever and however he’d wanted it, and even worse than spoiled, it had left him ignorant. He’d never traveled on his own; he’d never lived on his own; he’d never even bathed on his own! He’d only gotten dressed on his own for the second or third time last night—or however many nights ago it was—and yet here he sat, shut up in a box on the way to Divines-knew-where with a pouch full of trinkets and no idea what to do with them.

  What was his father thinking right now, he wondered? What had he been thinking when he’d read the letter? Had he believed in its veracity, or had he denied it as a forgery, believed that someone had abducted Auriel for ransom? Was his father even still alive right now, or had the shock and despair of losing his only son, his only family, his only link to his beloved Elyria, swallowed him whole?

  Oh, but what did it matter to Auriel if Seyfrus was dead? He had his freedom, didn’t he? Why should he care about his father’s fate? He’d already led Denovin to near-certain execution—what was one more body on the pile? Better yet, make it a pyre, something he could dance around naked while he hooted and howled in the firelight. He could even make it a party, invite all his friends—oh, but he didn’t have any friends! He never did! In fact, he didn’t have anyone anymore! It was just him, his pouch, and the big, wide world he knew absolutely nothing about.

  It was good that he was buried in fabrics, for they could muffle the excruciating sobs wracking his body that Auriel certainly could not. It didn’t take long for him to run out of tears—he still hadn’t sipped from his water flask—but he still went on crying for what had to have been hours, though in his current position, he couldn’t know for sure. What little gaps in the wood there were only showed him more boxes, and the rattling wheels drowned out all other sounds. Gradually, though, that rattling was accompanied by rainfall, and occasionally overpowered by short bouts of thunder. It was calming, in a way—or, at the very least, quelling, for it made his cries feel quiet in comparison, which in turn made them quieter in reality. Eventually, the cries turned to whimpers, and the violent wracking turned to gentle rocking, as much as the confines would allow. The tempestuous maelstrom of mental anguish did not cease, but after all that sobbing, he lacked the energy to stir it further, or even feel its sting. So instead he sat there, rocking, sighing, thirsting—he finally had some water; it was heavenly—and listening to the rattle and rain.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  For a bit, time was still; not simply imperceptible, but totally still, with Auriel suspended in a void between consciousness and slumber. Eventually, he would have drifted into the latter, but suddenly there came a great number of thuds, and not long after, the wheels stopped their rattling. The cart jerked only a little with this cessation of movement, but it was enough to make Auriel as alert as his aching eyes would allow.

  “This is a private road,” came another voice. He spoke in Common Eallan, the language of humans, and had a gruff, unrefined accent, the origins of which Auriel could not place.

  “Private to whom?” The accent was Elvish, even if the tongue was not, and the voice was clear enough that its speaker had to be near the back of the wagon. A member of the trading party—had he been back there the whole time?

  With the rattling gone, he could hear the thudding was actually clopping, though presently from only one horse, presumably saddled by the human speaker. Undoubtedly, there were more, just temporarily immobile.

  “Private to us,” the human said, almost definitely with a smirk. “We own these stones—and everything on them.”

  The elf gave a gurgled groan in reply, followed promptly by a thud of unmistakable cause. Auriel drew in sharp gasp as more thuds followed suit, and every muscle he had tensed all at once as he heard the bandits dismount from their steeds.

  “Get it out quick,” barked the first speaker, probably their leader, based on his tone. “This Elvish shit don’t do well in the rain.”

  Before he’d even opened his mouth, his men had begun to heave the boxes from the carts and break them open once they hit the ground. Auriel had to swallow a scream as they grabbed onto his, but he couldn’t contain his voice when they tore off the side he’d been leaning against, sending him spilling out onto cold, wet cobblestone.

  Overhead, it was dusk, made darker than average by the rain clouds, which in tandem with his straining eyes cast a shadowy blur over the two bandits that crouched before him. A few feet away was their captain, still seated atop a menacing black steed, but upon seeing Auriel, he dismounted.

  “Well, well, what do we have here?” He spoke with a jeer and sauntered over like a beast circling its prey. “Looks like we have a little stowaway.” He crouched down to Auriel’s level, but all he could see was a mouthful of crooked yellow teeth. “And it’s a pretty one, too. Very pretty…you’re bound to fetch a nice price at the—”

  He ran.

  Like a cornered cat, Auriel flailed all his limbs and bolted off into the forest. The rain fell harder now, and thicker, too. Every drop was like a cold needle skewering right into his joints, and they fell in such great numbers that he could barely keep his eyes open—but he didn’t care. He couldn’t care. He didn’t know where he was, nor where he was going, but he had to go, and go, he did, as far and fast as his legs could carry him.

  Unfortunately, that wasn’t very far, even in a healthy condition, let alone his current one. The fact that none of the bandits had grabbed him when he first came out of the box was a miracle, but within minutes, a thick pair of arms had clamped their way around his middle. His legs hadn’t stopped moving, but now the rest of him began to thrash, and hard, hard enough that the bandit struggled to keep him still. Auriel grabbed at whatever he could, whether it was face or hair or dampened leather straps, and while the bandit’s arms did not falter, his footing certainly did. He stomped hard in an attempt to root himself like the great trees surrounding them, but the ground had gone soft in the rain, and his right heel slipped out from under him. The bandit fell back, and Auriel sprung forward, but instead of just crumpling on the ground, he tumbled across it, and then the earth tumbled with him, sending him sliding down the hillside in a ball of mud and leaves. He prayed the bandit did not follow, but all was black before he finished the thought.