If he heard her, then he showed no signs of doing so. He only thrust an open fist in the air and wiggled it from side to side, bidding her farewell. Ugegbe stood still, fairly in shock. It seemed that he had not heard her, but she could not repeat her statement again. Once the words were past her lips, her courage was gone with them out of her reach, not to be reclaimed in the nearest future.

She did not feel brave. Not at all. Not in any way. But she was calm and collected. She'd gathered her bearings, and they were right in her hands. The feeling scared her imperceptibly. She was not in a situation that called for this sort of relaxedness. In fact, she should be tiptoeing through the halls, knowing the gravity of what she had done and the punishment that would accompany it if her sin was found out.

Then why was she moving so deliberately? Why was she treading yet not hastening through the dark path leading to the secret escape way? Why, most importantly, did she follow the instructions of Zelunjo's fiancé without a second thought? Oh, she knew why.

She was aware of what it was that was causing her to be this careless, about nearly carefree. It would be impossible for her not to note the guilt weighing her down like excess baggage. It had become a cross on her shoulders, one she was no sure how to let down.

If she were honest, she was certain she would never rid herself of the heavy stone tied around her neck, making her feel as if she was being dragged through a river of mud, except she was drowning in its swampy waters, stuck in place, losing air, suffocating. Dying.

Her legs quaked to a stop as she tumbled to her knees. The pain was stubborn. It did not want to go. She beat a clutched fist over her chest, black spots clouding her vision as she gasped for the breath of air eluding her. A common occurrence it was becoming, her fight for each breath. It was almost as if the universe was against her escaping from the hell she had created with her own hands.

Well then, so be it. She mused mournfully as she reclined against the wall, virtually all hope lost. Maybe, she should give up then and there. Her mind tossed about the idea and found it not too wanting. After all, she'd been on the verge of giving up since she left Debare.

What, it was the very reason why she'd since not run or hurried. No matter what angle she chose to look at the issue from, she could not see why she deserved to leave and continue her life when she'd taken away the same choice from a man.

The guards should hurry and come to take her away. She was a murderer. She deserved to be locked up and punished according to the laws and customs of the land. That was what her actions warranted, which she would be receiving in the nearest future. What was the need for dragging out the inevitable? She saw none.

Where were the guards? Why were they not coming? Hadn't they discovered what she had done already? Weren't they coming to avenge their master? Had they lost their ways? She wondered whether to yell to draw attention to herself or walk back to the palace and turn herself in. But she did neither. Her bravado lay solely in the ideas she had made and nothing else.

Ugegbe mustered all the courage that she could, yet she failed at motivating herself to alert the guards of her whereabouts. She did not want them to find her. She did not want things to end this way. She did not want to die. Not today.

How could she let herself die when her papa was waiting for her? Even if she was to appear at the palace with her hands turned upwards, and in the air, she had to say goodbye to him. It had been months since they last saw each other face to face, and though she'd received a few messages from him, she'd not been able to send a reply.

It was too expensive to pay the messenger, and she had no one who was not in slavery as a friend who could relay the message. And it was known that any slave that went further than the distance of seven farms from the palace was punished. It was farther for those who were enslaved due to the war between Osisi and Oguri and those whose parents had been slaves.

There were not many of them, but Ugegbe had come across them severally in the queen's palace. There was not much to differentiate them as they spoke almost exactly as the indigenes of Osisi. She could only tell by how they were treated: on the same level as animals, without any respect or regard for them as full-fledged humans.

As a witness of the horrors they were subject to most of the time, Ugegbe had come to detest the existence of the strive between the two villages. Why couldn't each faction be satisfied with what they had and stop eyeing the possessions of the other? It was her opinion, but it was hard for her to defend her stance when the people of Oguri claimed that the land of Osisi also belonged to them.

"Ah..." she muttered to herself, shaking her head at the fact that she'd turned to reflect on the war and its effects when she wasn't sure whether she would live past today or not.

I need to get home. She concluded as she heaved to her feet and recommenced her run, continuing on her course home. The pile of logs blocked the most of the passage, but she could see a little corner open if she shifted backwards and tilted her head to the side. It was quite small, but then again, she was also on the small side in size.

Her figure was lithe though not tall. It was similar to her mother's, as she'd been told by the women who knew her mother before her death. Such comments often made her feel empty and incomplete. They made her hunger for what she was very much aware she could not have: the love of a mother.

A lone tear made its way down her cheek as she slipped through the crack, immediately appearing in the queen's palace. She wiped it away as she released the breath she did not know she'd been holding.

She would forever be grateful and thankful to Debare, and she hoped someday she would be in a position to repay him back. Her prayers were that his upcoming union with Zelunjo be blessed and fruitful. By his actions, he had proved himself to be a good man as he could have chosen to betray her, a more plausible alternative to aiding her escape.

At the entrance in the smaller palace, he could have alerted a throng of guards to capture her right in the middle of her escape. But he had not. And she hoped she would one day be able to repay him for his kindness.

"Thank you, Debare," she whispered as she hurried to the port located at the posterior of the queen's dwelling, where there were no stout men situated to maintain the mansion's integrity.

Her knowledge of the layout of the palace where she had worked for years came in handy to Ugegbe as she raced past spots where she knew people would surely be, paused to rest at positions she was aware she'd never be found as they were hardly frequented by anyone, and in all, blended into her surroundings seamlessly without fault.

As soon as she was out of view of both palaces, she broke into a run. She'd always been good at sprinting. A wrong life with the only man she'd loved taught her how to do so. He was always on the run, and she learnt soon enough that if she wanted to keep up with him, she'd have to be on her toes too.

Now, it was no problem to find the strength to zoom past lively compounds and lonely farmhouses. At the first junction she arrived at, she picked the turn on her right. Not only was it shorter, but it was also the one shrouded by bushes and long towering trees.

Each time she stopped to catch her breath, her heart threatened to tear through her chest as it thundered loudly without stopping. She was thirsty and hungry and tired of her journey already. She wanted to lie on the ground and not get up for hours. But she knew she could not afford such a luxury.

Though she had not heard the sound of the ram's horn, the king's men could be coming after her with an untold vengeance. She had no seconds to spend loitering around, stoking the fire already set to the pile of regrets she had stacked up and lamenting over the path of grief her life had taken.

Papa would be waiting for her. She just needed to get home. He would welcome her no matter what. Though he would speak the truth and call her out on what she had done, he would be sympathetic and understand that she was suffering. That his daughter was lost in a world of anguish, stuck in its web, which had been spun to trap her.

She could not wait to see him. To kiss his cheek and beg for his forgiveness. She knew he would blame himself for not being there to protect her from the barn that befell her. He would find a way to shift the guilt onto himself and shoulder the burden instead of her.

Of course, he'd never be able to fully achieve such a feat. Murdering a human, Ugegbe knew for certain, was not a deed she could shirk off responsibility for so easily. Her conscience would not let her do so. And she doubted her father would encourage her to add another evil to her list of evils done.

Her papa was a good man who did not tolerate wickedness towards others. All he did was governed by his rule of making sure that if he would not want to be treated as such, his neighbour should not be receiving any like actions.

So, though Ugegbe was quite certain her father would not turn her away at the first hearing of the destruction she'd caused, she was not confident in what his reaction would be eventually. For if the man as much suspected that she was not remorseful for what she had done, she'd grown with him for years enough to be certain that he would turn his back on her without hesitating. She hoped it would not be the case.

Whatever will happen will happen. She thought as her surroundings grew more familiar, the road narrowing and the upsurging of elephant grasses, spurring her on towards the doors of her father's house, which were not so far away.

It was impossibly hot. Ugegbe tried to dispel the dreadful hotness settling about her by beating both hands in front of her face. Perspiration hung in beads from every corner of her body, the droplets seeming to weigh her down. There was no saying twice that she detested the feeling and the fact that she could do nothing to change the endless sweating.

Even in the shades of the trees, the heat was tenacious. It was indefatigable, refusing to tire in its diligent work of assault. Still cloaked her ripped white baptism dress, Ugegbe found the pungency of the sun's wrath almost intolerable.

She could not entirely comprehend why she'd been unable to take note of its intensity as so in the prince's palace. The building, in contrast, had been cool and thus, bore no hints to what lay outside of its domain.

As she slowed to a trotter, she pulled up a string of methods that might have been used to keep the prince's palace so cool despite the assiduous obstinateness of the sun's strength but stopped after a few suggestions as she could not bear to continue pondering on the place in which she'd brought an abomination to life.

Her plan was to get home, not learn the secrets of buildings. A few steps further and she was at the clearing that surrounded her father's house. One could imagine the depth of the terror that gripped her as she realised that her father was outside his house, a normal occurrence other than the actuality that he was not alone. She could hear his voice, hoarse and dry from pleading, and see the knife pointed at him by an alien man.

"Nnam o!" Her scream was loud enough to stir the dead.
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A/N: Hey lovelies, how are you all?
Hope you all enjoyed this chapter. I'll edit it soonest then try to update next when I can as my school resumes on Monday:)