The sun hung low, a pale, sickly disc barely pushing through a sky of smeared gray clouds.
Her feet ached.
She trudged on anyway.
Her thin soles slapped uneven ground — dirt hardened into cracked ridges, sharp stones jabbing up without warning, dry twigs snapping under every dragging step. She was barefoot, the skin bleeding and lacerated. Every stone stabbed into her, each step leaving behind a smear of red. She hissed through clenched teeth, feeling the sting, but she didn't stop. Couldn't stop. The pain was just another part of the road now, another weight she carried forward.
She hadn't planned this far. She hadn't planned at all.
The road wound rough and uneven, veering away from the outer slums and the crumbling brothel, threading between wiry trees that hunched like old bones against the sky. The last farm fences sagged in the distance, half-eaten by rot. After that — nothing. Just thorny brush, cold wind, and an empty stretch of earth.
Her stomach cramped tight, twisting on itself like a clenched fist. She pressed a hand low over her belly. It didn't help. When the hunger started to bit too deep, she'd been feeding on scraps of bark, bitter grass, wild berries she couldn't name. It was barely enough to keep her upright, barely enough to keep her moving. But hunger didn't scare her as much as stopping.
Now there was only the ache, constant and hollow, gnawing deep in her gut.
A flicker of movement at the edge of the trees caught her eye. She slowed slightly, breath hitching.
A rabbit.
Small, gray-furred, darting between the roots, its soft little paws making no sound.
For one wild second, she imagined herself lunging after it — grabbing it with her bare hands, snapping its neck, biting into raw meat just to fill the burning hollow in her belly.
Her mouth watered.
But her legs wobbled, her vision blurred, and the animal was gone, slipping deeper into the underbrush.
She let out a frustrated sigh, her jaw twitching weakly — too drained to clench, no strength left in her body.
She was so hungry at this moment that even those hard, moldy scraps she used to steal when no one was looking now seemed like luxury meals in her mind, and she ached for the memory of their taste.
The wind cut through her robe again, making the torn fabric whip around her legs. She yanked it tighter, teeth bared.
No direction. No map. No plan. Only forward.
Her mind flickered, unbidden, back to the brothel — the cruel bark of the mistress's voice, the painted sneer on Mei's face, the hissing giggles of the other girls behind cupped hands, the hard fists of the drunken thugs.
The images brought her a sense of satisfaction.
Let the mistress rage. Let Mei choke on her own smugness. Let them all talk.
They were probably fuming right now — stomping around, yelling at the guards, spitting curses into the smoky air. She hoped they were tearing the rooms apart looking for her, wasting their time, their breath, their precious energy.
She hoped the thugs would beat each other bloody over their negligence, get fired, and that the mistress would slap Mei across the face and shove some other poor girl forward to take her place.
The road narrowed as the land rose, trees crowding tighter on both sides, their branches like black claws scraping at the low sky. The air shifted, sharp with pine, damp earth, old leaves — nothing like the choking stink of wine and sweat and incense back home.
She stumbled over a hidden root, caught herself hard on her hands, palms scraping against rough bark and grit.
She stayed there a moment, head lowered, arms shaking.
An exhausted, uncontrollable laugh slipped out of her parched throat.
If you stop, you won't get up again.
She forced herself upright, legs trembling under her, and kept moving.
Later — she didn't know how much later — the trees thinned slightly, the sky opening above in a washed-out smear of gray.
And across the distant hills, tall and faint but unmistakable, she saw them.
The banners of Longwei Academy.
They caught the last edge of the sun, golden tips gleaming, red silk rippling faintly in the breeze. From here, they seemed impossibly high, impossibly proud — noble dragon crests, stitched with care, hanging over walls she'd never touch.
Her chest tightened.
That's where they are.
The noble sons. The soldiers-in-training. The sons of empire.
Her chapped lips pulled into a painful grimace.
And you? she thought cynically. A mutt. A nothing. A girl from the slums, hungry, barefoot, bleeding on the dust in the middle of nowhere.
For a second, the sight almost pulled her forward — but then the wind shifted, the light dimmed, and the banners faded back into shadow.
She dropped her gaze and kept walking.
By dusk, her legs felt wooden, stiff, more dragging than stepping.
She stumbled through another patch of thorns, the sharp edges clawing at her calves. She gritted her teeth, kicked free, pressed forward.
One more hill. One more breath. One more miserable step.
When she reached the crest, the stars had begun to push through the blackening sky, pale and flickering, like frost scattered across a dark sheet. The moon, thin and sharp, glimmered cold above.
She dropped suddenly, knees slamming to the dirt.
A hard, dry grunt punched out of her chest.
But she didn't cry.
She didn't even curse.
She was too exhausted for it.
So she just sat there, shoulders heaving, head bowed, teeth clenched so hard her skull ached.
You can't break here. You ran too far to break now.
Slowly, shaking, she pushed herself back up again.
The ground sloped down again, twisting into a narrow animal path, littered with roots and slick moss. She wove between low branches, feeling them snap across her raw arms.
She didn't know where she was going. She didn't care.
Just forward.
Just away.
She didn't know how many hours passed before the faint glimmer of light appeared.
Her breath hitched, sharp and painful in her chest.
Her feet stumbled forward, faster, faster, lungs burning, every part of her screaming in protest.
The trees whipped past in dark blurs. Thorns tore at her sleeves, caught in her tangled hair. She barely noticed.
Closer. Closer. To what? She didn't had the strength to think about it.
She shoved through the last thicket — and nearly collapsed onto a dirt road, narrow but solid.
A lantern hung crookedly on a wooden post, its little flame flickering in the night wind.
She swayed, barely upright, staring at it.
Her breath hitched —
A road.
She didn't know where it led. She didn't care.
Somewhere far behind her, the mistress was shrieking, the girls whispering, the thugs snarling.
She shoved her aching body forward, not because she believed in anything, not because there was hope — but because spite was a fire that wouldn't let her drop. Each step scraped through the dirt, fueled by the simple, primal need to outlast them. They wanted her? She'd keep moving just to spite their wishes. That was all she had left.
She dragged her body forward, step by step, muscles locking and releasing with stubborn jerks.
She was still moving.
And for tonight — that was enough.