It had already been an hour since Aris began fleeing from the fennes around him, and of course—it just had to be a dry day on the desolate lands of the West.
How could he possibly rest when, every minute, a dozen hungry little beasts were lurking nearby, their eyes deep and ravenous, patiently waiting for him to fall asleep or stop moving?
Aris couldn't fight them all. The fennecs had become manageable enemies—even in groups—but the real problem was their numbers. They kept increasing by the minute.
The scent of blood attracted them, and the four or five corpses Aris carried only made things worse.
The blood had already dried on his battered armor, and the stench spread far too easily through the damp desert air. It was a kind of punishment for the once-great king—now dethroned and disgraced.
Aris lifted his head to check the sky. Still gray. Still unmoving.Even the wind had decided not to show up.
No raindrops. Not one. And none seemed willing to fall anytime soon. The sky remained unmoved by the king's suffering. But the fennecs? They were thriving.
"Shit."
It was the word Aris had repeated for the last four days—over and over again.And rightfully so. Every situation he encountered seemed to call for it.
He kept running, occasionally dousing himself with water to wash away the blood. But that precious liquid was getting harder and harder to find.Despite the Westlands' frequent rain, water never stayed in one place—it always vanished, flowing off in all directions. Aris had no idea where it went.
Sometimes he found dips in the ground that stored a little, or droplets suspended on rock formations jutting from the earth. But proper water ?Stable pools? Nowhere.
Just endless tiny streams, barely two centimeters deep, constantly flowing across the cracked terrain.
Far from the mighty river that separated Koran from Arkis—where the great beast made its home.
Aris kept running. With no rain to mask his scent, avoiding unnecessary fights was his only option. Fighting would only attract more attention.
This land was empty. Silent. But the fennecs made that silence terrifying.
What made it worse was their bright orange fur—it made them far too easy to spot. So the moment Aris saw a tail—or a few tufts of fur, if you could even call them that—moving across these gray, rocky lands, he knew they were close. And that only made things worse.
Aris could see the horizon.
A view with all the rocks rising from the ground into infinity. The western lands seemed endless. Like a never-ending landscape repeating itself again and again.
Grey, dark, hard, lifeless—except for the presence of the fennecs, who only made this place feel heavier.
Aris really wondered how they had been able to call this place a border. There was no way it actually was. It must have been a city once—or even more, a township or a province, maybe even a small principality. Or in the worst case, an entire nation.
It could only be his worst nightmare.
"Damn."
Or maybe there was worse? A true land without end, stuck in a loop of identical scenery like a frozen painting? A hell on earth where he was doomed to kill fennecs and flee from them until the end of his life?
If that really was the case, Aris wondered what he had done to the world to deserve such punishment. It was almost inhuman to inflict that on someone.
The king of Arkis had only tried to maintain peace in his nation. Even if he had a few issues with the Duke De Grey or a few problems with certain warriors from neighboring kingdoms, why did he deserve this?
Men had problems. All men had problems. Why did his—which were minor—deserve such a punishment?
Had his ancestors wronged the world? Broken a forbidden oath? Angered the gods? Were there even gods?
If so, what had Arkis itself done against the mages? Had they cursed it? Why did it have to fall on him? Who was really the founder of the nation? Was it really his fault?
Or maybe it was just the boredom of the great Emperor of Empire of the Light who had decided to eliminate a nation for pure pleasure? Who knew what was hiding in his heart and deepest desires?
There were a ton of questions, but no answers. Aris, however, had to keep running. Waiting for the rain to be able to breathe a little.
This wasn't a king's life. This wasn't the life he had not so long ago. And that, he knew.
Aris could still see the horizon.
The scenery hadn't changed at all—just the same jagged rocks rising from the ground like blades, stabbing into the earth at an angle.
Everything was gray and bleak. The fennec's presence hung heavy in the air, a constant weight pressing down on him. And in the middle of it all stood a king. A former king. A man whose kingdom had been torn from him in less than a year.
Now he ran through these forsaken lands, with no direction, no destination. Just the desperate search for a shred of hope in a world drowning in shadow and despair.
Fatigue began to creep through Aris's body—both mental and physical.
He rested against a boulder roughly the size of a house.
The rain still refused to fall, and the fennecs were starting to poke their heads out.They watched the exhausted king slumped against the stone.A small grin curled on their lips as they spotted the bodies of their kin still tied to his armor.
It was a good day for hunting—but before the feast, they had to get past the guardian.The prey looked like he was on the brink of death, but he had already taken five of their own.
Aris slowly turned his head and saw the fennecs approaching.There were five of them, baring their fangs, thirsting for blood.
He was tired. Wounded. His mind was slowing down, heavy and sluggish as he watched them draw closer.
He muttered to himself :
"Maybe I should just kill them all ?"