- Bridget -

I hugged the cloak to my body and kept my head down, just like Stacy told me. We made it to the ground floor and slipped past a few guards, but there were a few guards at the front door that we wouldn’t be able to sneak past.

I glanced at Stacy, silently communicating my concern.

She waved a hand and released a shadowy bat which flew out through one of the barred windows.

After a minute, Leslie appeared in the doorway next to the guards and whispered something into their ears. She walked away, beckoning them with her finger. The guards had stupid grins on their faces as they were lured around the corner.

Stacy and I followed, and when we reached the corner we saw Leslie standing over two bodies with daggers stabbed through their hearts.

“Next we need to get over the walls,” Stacy said. “The front gate is too heavily guarded. Leslie, take Bridget.”

Before I could say a word, Leslie wrapped her arms under my armpits and lifted me into the air, flying with wings made of giant flower petals sprouting from her back. A sweet smelling pollen filled the air as she carried me into the sky.

My stomach churned as the ground retreated. I was used to the ground rushing up to meet me, but this was a new feeling. I could hardly breath as we rocketed through the air.

Stacy leapt from window to window, climbing up various handholds on the side of the tower until she cleared the wall and jumped onto the battlements.

There were guards patrolling the walls as well, so Leslie grabbed onto the edge of the wall and hung there waiting, still holding me with one arm, while Stacy vanished into the darkness and neutralized three nearby guards.

With the path cleared, Leslie flew me over the wall while Stacy jumped down to the ground below.

Leslie deposited me onto the muddy soil, and Stacy steadied me as I stumbled to my knees, the world spinning.

“Hold on,” I gasped, trying to catch my breath.

Stacy scooped me off the ground and held me princess-style. “No time to stop and chat.” She started running, and leapt from tree to tree to clear the murky depths of the swamp that swirled with ravenous monsters. I wrapped my arms around her neck, holding on for dear life. I mean, not that I wanted to live. It’s just an idiom. Leslie followed gliding with her wings, and we ran all through the night.

When the sun came up Stacy was forced to slow down. She was wearing her cloak so her skin was shielded from most of the sun’s rays, but it still obviously bothered her. We made it through the worst of the swamp. Now the ground was mostly solid, but we were instead forced to trudge through a dense jungle of swamp willows.

“We should stop,” I told Stacy, worried for her wellbeing.

“We can’t,” she shook her head. “Dagon can walk freely in the day. I don’t know if her would bother to follow us personally, but if he did… We can’t afford to stop moving. He’ll be gaining on us, even if we move as fast as we can.”

“Why did you even save me then!?” I cried, hugging my arms tight around her. “I thought you were angry at me.”

“Angry?” she slowed slightly, “Why?”

“Because,” I muttered, “your god… I insulted him. That stuff is important to you right?”

“Bridget…” she sighed. “You’re right, I am angry at you. But not over that.”

I blinked tears out of my eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve been trying so hard to help you, but you keep trying to throw it all away. You say you’re worried about causing trouble for others, but that’s what causes the most problems! You see…” Stacy was about to continue talking, but she was interrupted by a crashing sound behind us.

We all twisted our necks around, laying our eyes on the figure of a man with large red bat wings and long crimson hair flowing in the wind, standing in a crater of mud.

A red eye glowed from behind his disheveled hair. “Stacy,” he grunted. “I never would have imagined this sort of behavior from you.” He let out a long breath, and blood swirled around him and formed into crimson claws tipping each of his fingers. “Hand over the girl.”

Stacy silently handed me to Leslie who flew me a distance away and dropped me in the mud.

Stacy turned to face Dagon. “Bridget is mine,” she told him with a scowl. “You can’t take her from me.”

“She’s a criminal, Stacy,” he stepped toward her. “She insulted Haimorrha. A crime punishable by death.”

“I received a message,” Stacy said. She was sweating. “When I prayed to him, Haimorrha told me. That you insulted me, and I should take her back.”

“Oh, of course.” Dagon laughed. “How foolish of me. Forgive me Haimorrha, I was too hasty in my blood lust. To take someone’s property, one must first defeat them in combat. In other words, as her owner, you will take her punishment.” Dagon pointed at Stacy with his blood-cloaked claw. “That is Haimorrha’s will.”