"I... I don't know where it went," confessed the witch, calm enough to think with more coherence than when Pike had first arrived, "My hair pin... when you didn't come I thought the worst. Then... then when they came... I managed to pull it free and throw it to the floor lest they find it and punish you."

"It's okay," comforted Pike, "I will find it. Can you cast the light in the water? Do you have the strength? When we reach the river you'll need to make a rift, large enough for us to swim through. Don't expend the last of your energy."

"I worry they'll see it if I try," said the witch, "They'll be watching closely, and we cannot risk them finding out. I... I cannot go with them... I can't..!" 

His face contorted in distress as Pike sought to soothe him. He pressed their lips together, gently stroking the witch's face, and wiping the tears from his eyes. The shackles on the witch's feet were locked in tandem to a central post on the carriage floor. Pike examined it as his hand worked tirelessly to find the pin. There was every chance it had fallen through a crack, or been swept out with the enforcer's brutish stride; but it remained their only hope.

"Hurry," pleaded the witch, his aching body slumped against the carriage wall, "Before they knock."

Pike's fingertips scraped across the boards, through the sludge and filth amassed along their arduous journey to the east. On the furthermost side, closest to the witch's door, Pike felt a ridge. A miniscule, miraculous ridge. The metal pin had been jostled into a precarious position; one wrong touch and it would be lost beyond his reach. Holding his breath, his fingernails scratched at its length, prising it carefully into the security of his shaking fingers.

"I have it!" he cried.

The witch smiled through his tears as Pike tried it in the lock. Easier to reach than the last, he twisted it in every direction; unsure what he was doing, but determined success would reward them. 

"Hurry! Please!" 

He didn't want to alarm him, but Pike had felt the metal bend. The straight pin was now crooked, and bearing down deeper into the recesses of the keyhole. He was unaware how lucky he had been, that the kink had driven his foolish hopes to fruition. With a satisfying click, the irons on the central post were divided. The witch's ankles still ensnared in their metal cuffs, but the chains no longer anchored to the carriage.

"Should I try the ones about your feet?" asked Pike.

"No," said the witch, "I could not run anyway I fear... but... do you think you could carry me? Could you take me to the water..?"

Pike's face was alive with a happy excitement, an expression worn for the first time in adulthood. He held the witch's head between his hands and kissed him through his smiling lips.

"I can take you. I will take you. You are mine now," he said, "And I would tear this world to pieces if it means you are safe within it."

"Just running," cautioned the witch, "No harm, no bloodshed... just run as fast as your legs will take you, and I will do the rest."

There wasn't a second to waste.

The loud and sudden cry from the thicket was serendipitous; when Pike knocked on the door to signal the completion of his task, Enforcer Brox was already absent, and the guards opened the bolt as a matter of course. The sudden expulsion of Pike with the witch on his back took them wholly by surprise; knocked to the ground and reaching for their weapons too late to strike.

His feet pounding across the dirt, Pike raced towards the trees that blocked their view of the blessed river leading them to freedom.

"Hold on!" Pike cried, the witch's chains whipping at his sides, as the fragile figure desperately clung with the little strength his body would allow, "We're almost there!"

The guards were on their heels as they broke through the treeline, calling them to stop and stand their ground as they brandished their swords. Pike heard nothing but the whoosh of air and leaves that rushed past his ears as the water beckoned. His next step propelled him forwards, as the satisying weight of the witch was pulled suddenly from his back.

"Rel?!" he cried in disbelief.

The carriage guards closed the gap and took hold of him, while his opportunistic friend played the last card that remained in his pitiful hand. Clutching the witch to his chest, the rough and jagged edge of his bracer to his throat, Rel retreated towards the riverbank.

"This was what I planned!" he cried, "I planned it alone! I tricked him into bringing me the witch!"

The witch was struggling to free himself, but he was much too weak, and the shackles at his ankles too heavy. His panicked eyes were darting wildly, widening in fear as he looked beyond Pike to the men that stood behind him. Min was watching them in horror, beside him, Enforcer Brox and the soldiers were poised to action.

"He had no part in this!" cried Rel, his proud chin pointing in Pike's direction, "He was fooled by us both!"

The idiot, he was ruining everything! 

"Deliver the Maddening Witch into my hands. Now!" demanded Brox.

Rel's eyes landed on Pike; scared but resolute. Had he done nothing, Enforcer Brox would have caught them before they got halfway across the river. What was he thinking? There was nowhere to run to! They'd have stabbed him to death without a thought, and returned the witch to the carriage. At least this way, he had a bargaining chip. At least this way... Pike would live.

"What are you doing?!" asked Min, confounded by his friend's sudden and irrational change. 

When Enforcer Brox had arrived and broken up the fight, he'd thanked his lucky stars that they were out of danger. And yet, here was Rel courting death in a moment of madness. The figure in his arms looked weak and sickly; long strands of hair falling across its face, but those eyes. He feared those frightened eyes would haunt him for a lifetime.

"Min... take Pike, and leave this place. It has nothing to do with you! Release my friend and I'll give you the witch!"

Brox sneered, stepping towards Pike with his dagger drawn, the guards pushing him down to his knees.

"And if I kill him?" asked Brox.

"No!" cried the witch; his wretched voice breaking with the last of his strength.

"Conspirators!" levied Brox; the tip of his blade pointed accusingly at the three men from Hofingrad.

"Not Min!" shouted Pike, "And not Rel! Can't you see?! He's trying to save me!"

Everything was falling to pieces before his eyes. His friends had nothing to do with this; it was between himself and the witch. They were never supposed to be involved! He didn't know what to do, what to say; how to save this. The enforcer wasn't listening, and Rel was getting dangerously close to the water.

"Rel!" he screamed, "Rel! You cannot swim! Please... please, step away from the edge!"

He was scared, not only that the witch might leave without him, or that he wouldn't have the energy left to save even himself; but that the armored Rel would succumb to the deep water, and no soldier would bother to save him.

"I need your word!" cried Rel to the enforcer, "That my friends shall not be punished for my schemes! You must promise me!"

Enforcer Brox was not the idiot that Rel was trying to take him for. Granted, all would be killed for their foolishness, but what 'scheme' had he planned except to divert his suspicion? He was making no great demands, had no plan for escape; what other reason could he have for holding the witch hostage if not to discredit his friend's misdeeds? The guilty party remained on his knees in the dirt, while his innocent savior created a scene.

"What were you doing with the witch?" Enforcer Brox asked Pike, "What treason were you concocting?!"

The tip of Brox's dagger was poised at Pike's throat.

"I'm warning you!" cried Rel in desperation.

The witch in his arms raised his head with some difficulty, turning to face his frenzied captor, he whispered quietly to him. Rel solemnly nodded his head in acceptance, and reluctantly closed his eyes. The witch looked up at him with profound sympathy; he wished he could have thought of another way, but time was running out for them all.

"Are you conspiring with the Prince in the West?!" demanded Brox, "Or do you mean to take its power for yourself?!"

"I..." Pike began, the lines of reality seemingly uncertain, "I only wanted..."

The river surged, rising from its bed; the shadow of the water looming over the figures by the riverbank, as the witch muttered the incantation beneath his breath.

"What are you doing?" cried Brox, racing towards them with his weapon drawn, "Stop at once! Stop or I'll kill him!"

The wave rose higher, crashing down with fierce intensity, and washing Rel, Brox, and the witch into the torrents of the river. The soldiers stared in shock at the raging waters, disbelieving that they had stolen away three men in an instant. Pike took his chance, breaking free of the guards that held him. He wanted to call the witch's name, but he hadn't thought to learn it. Min wasted no time, running to his side and dragging him back before he too was swept away.

"No!" cried Pike, "I have to reach them before it's too late!"

"It's not safe!" Min begged, "Please!"

"But... I have to go! We have to help them!"

As quickly as the water had violently erupted, it settled back down to its rightful place, coursing through the countryside as quietly as before... two bodies floated on its surface. One barely living... the other cut and bloodied, his armored corpse sinking beneath the water; his lifeless eyes staring out beyond the mortal realm.

"Rel..!"

Pike's piercing scream rang out, alerting every man to their position, and striking terror into the depths of their souls. Only the witch was too far gone to hear him. The officers and their men were racing towards the sound, the guards disrobing as they rushed to pull Brox from the water.

"Pike! What do we do?" cried Min, swallowing his grief-stricken tears as the fear of their fate began to set in.

Rel was dead, the witch was gone. Min was all that was left to him.

"We run!" he said, grabbing Min by the hand and taking to the trees as fast as his shaking legs could carry him. Spurred on by their adrenaline, it felt as though they were flying; faster and freer than should have been possible. The shock of Rel's death, of what they had witnessed, they ran; fueled by the pain that threatened to consume them.

Had Elion not suggested to his 'friends' that they focus their attention on Brox and the prisoner, rather than follow the traitors from Hofingrad; Pike and Min might never have reached the horses they stole. They might never have ridden so deep into the Witling Forest that the Protectorate could not find them. They might never have lived to change the world to such a degree that Elion could no longer recognize it.

In the years that followed, he regretted it. That moment of pity when he saw the fear in Min's eyes, as he watched his lifeless friend sink beneath the water... he should have stopped them then, when he still had the chance.

"You want to save him..?" the witch had asked Rel in a whisper, "Enough that you would risk your life..?"

In this life and the next... 

He'd closed his eyes and braced himself for death, in the hopes that it wouldn't think to come looking for Pike.

The swift blade of Brox's dagger reached him before the witch had time to pull him through the velvet water. Summoning power far beyond the limits of his exhaustion, the witch had tried an incantation he could barely remember the words to... I owe you this much... he thought, expending the last of his strength, for your sacrifice...

As the portal closed, all that remained behind was a corpse. 

And two men on the riverbank, irrevocably changed. Not a soul on either side could ever have foreseen it; the future that awaited them.