4

shaking his head violently from side to side, and his father quickly put a hand on his shoulder. The knight sighed and shook his head gently before pulling back to let him pass.

"Then don't run into the forest," he ordered. "And stay out of sight."

With a quick nod Devilkghth took one last step away from the knight before turning around to walk away and disappear into the surrounding trees. Just as he disappeared behind the tree's cover he could hear a voice calling after him.

"And stay safe!"

Chapter 11

After a couple hours had passed since the knight had left, a heavy silence settled over the hall again. At first, the silence had caused her anxiety to rise again, and she had sat there, frozen to the spot, trembling slightly in fear, but after a few minutes, it had started to ease and the pain in her chest had also eased away a little bit. But after having spent so much time sitting there listening to the noises coming from the room, she realised that she was still terrified, but this time the panic that gripped at her mind was worse than before, making it impossible for her to think straight. She kept staring at the closed door as she struggled to calm herself down. Eventually, she forced herself to sit upright against the wall, closing her eyes for a moment before opening them and forcing herself to stand up, trying to find the best option for escape.

She knew that the knight would most likely follow her, so maybe if she ran she would be able to outrun him, or even escape. But she needed more time to prepare herself for that, which she figured that was impossible since he was bound to catch up and drag her back home. So she just stayed where she was, standing stiffly against the wall as she tried desperately to regain control over her body. The knight's cold and angry tone rang loudly in her ears as she remembered the look on his face as he stared at her earlier, the anger and disappointment evident in his expression even as he tried to mask it. Her shoulders slumped down as the thoughts of what she had done filled her mind. Why had she said those things? Why did she have to be so stupid? She never should have gotten involved, she should have just stayed silent instead and tried to forget about all of it like she promised herself. And now, her father would be punished… and it was all because of her fault! How could she ever forgive herself?

How could she ever deserve forgiveness? All this time it hadn't even occurred to her that something like this would happen. She had been careless, and she had completely failed the mission. What kind of child was she? She didn't deserve to live… no matter how much she wanted to, she deserved to die a horrible death. In fact.