FFM 2023 14: The Road to Freedom – Take III

No prompts used. This is a continuation to FFM 2023 12: The Road to Freedom – Take II.

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Bereth woke up to the feeling of being on his side, his head in someone’s lap and a hand settled between his shoulder blades. When he made a noise, the thumb of the hand started trailing small arcs on his skin. It was only some time later that Nedyom — it was Nedyom who had been holding him yet again — allowed him to sit up. His limbs were far too weak to let him stand, but so far there was apparently no need for it. They had not been spotted yet.

While he had been unconscious, Merlina and Odlanya, the two least injured of them, had been able to scout and secure food for them. How they all had gotten out of the village, Bereth had little to no actual idea. Merlina had told him that it had been a combination of using magic to keep them going and being lucky enough to reach an old — it-was-new-when-Nedyom-was-young old — Waystone that had gotten them outside of the perimeters and near an abandoned house. They would have to get further away, however, soon or else the Cult of the Red Sky would find them. They were in no condition to fight.

Bereth lamented his own state even though he knew that without his desperate — and reckless — move, his companions might have never gotten out. All this, of course, assumed that all of these people were his friends; he had no way of ensuring that he had been told the truth. Did he have his doubts? Yes. Could he do anything about it? Not at all.

He would have to gather his strength, heal up as fast as he could and get back on his feet. He could not die now, not when he had his mentor’s ring to protect.

If only he could shake off the warm feeling he got from seeing strangely empathetic, almost affectionate look in Nedyom’s eyes when the archmage looked at him…