Lyra's POV
Strong arms seized both my arms from behind, tight as bands. Then the men began dragging me along the street, my robe sweeping the stones, raking up dirt and dust.
It's her. The men had simply said, as if it was a crime being me. I had no idea what I had done—why I was being taken. My mind snapped back to the very moment I and Zarek landed on the hill, searching for the crime I might have committed. Was it the bread?
It couldn't be the bread. One of the men had asked me to take it. Besides, that doesn't explain why I was being treated like a criminal.
I looked up ahead, throwing my eyes desperately in search of Zarek. But he was gone—vanished from the street.
What did I expect from the bastard anyway? Future past. He was still the same evil bastard. The evil bastard had always wanted me dead.
I was all alone in this, all alone in a world that wanted my head. It was left to me to save myself. I couldn't just let them take me. I still have a purpose for this life—I still have to save the future Draziel. I struggled, writhing like a trapped fish in their arms, fighting for my freedom.
I kept struggling against their grip on my arms, each effort leaving me weaker than before. I began to gasp, slowly at first, then louder, knocking out air after air from my lungs. Yet my arms were still firmly locked in their grips—like tight bands, they bound tight against my arms so that I could barely move them—against their strength, I was powerless.
Exhausting my strength, I relaxed weakly against their vice grip, all the fight drained out of me. They continued dragging me with them along the stone-tarred streets.
For perhaps the hundredth time in days, I hated that I was a damn bar girl in this lifetime. I bit down hard on my lower lip, muttering under my breath, hating myself. This wouldn't be happening if I had been reincarnated as a skilled warrior, just like in my previous lifetime before this.
Market vendors and pedestrians gathered on both sides of the streets, staring at me closely, watching me being dragged along the streets like a criminal. They leaned closer to each other, whispering into each other's ears.
"It's her," a man whispered, nudging his jaw at me. "It's really her,"
"Yes, it's her. She looks just like in the sketch," the woman beside him agreed, arranging her apples on her cart while her eyes escorted me.
I moaned softly, gritting my teeth gently from pain, both my shoulders aching as the men tightened their grip on my arms and kept hauling me down the street.
"But how did they catch her easily? I thought they said, She was a skilled warrior and a brilliant strategist." I turned my head to another man under a green tent as he whispered to another vendor next to his stall, who nodded complicitly.
Skilled warrior. Brilliant strategist. What do they all mean? I was a damn bar girl in this lifetime, and not all those things.
I stared wildly at them, my eyes jumping from one villager to the other, desperate for answers. What was happening?
Some of the villagers lay their hands over their hearts, smiling at me, while some folded their hands together, their heads bowed low as if saying prayers for me.
Their eyes bright and their expressions soft as some of them carefully escorted me and the soldiers.
I have never been more confused in all my lifetimes, staring at them. To them I didn't look like a criminal, as the soldiers claimed. To them I seem to be something else—something like a martyr.
"Get back," the soldiers yelled at the crowd when some of them blocked the road. The crowd dispersed quickly from the road, scampering into the safety of the stalls around.
The soldiers kept dragging me down the streets, then they hauled me through the large wooden gates of a small castle.
My eyes moved over the sketches pasted on the stone walls of the castle with the caption 'WANTED.' Most of them were all of a particular person. At first glance it was just a random person in random sketches, but as I stared more at them, my eyes jumping eagerly from sketch to sketch, my heart beating furiously inside my chest, my insides tying themselves in knots, the face began to look familiar and began to look more like me—me. Not then did I grasp the extent of trouble I was in. I was a big criminal in this lifetime.
The men dragged me across the small field and towards the castle's keep. Gradually, the air became colder and damper, each draw of breath scalding my lungs. I was in a big mess.
The men eventually stopped. They threw me roughly to the ground before another man. He was wearing an aristocratic robe with gold embroidery. The bangles on his thick wrists caught the sun as he inspected his fingers gracefully. They reflected against my eyes as I stared up at him, forcing me to look away.
The soldier with the scroll drew closer to the nobleman, rolling the scroll open before him. "We have found her, sire. She really is the one."
The nobleman's eyes flitted from the sketch in the scroll to me, consecutively, until his aged, wrinkled eyes registered the resemblance.
His face tightened into a scowl, and he bent lower to me while I knelt on the grass.
I hadn't prepared for it. So I couldn't dodge it. His palm thudded hard against my cheek, sweeping my head fast to the side, sending a stinging pain that rang through the whole of my head. For a moment, I couldn't feel any sensation from that side of my head—I felt nothing but pain.
My jaw was on fire, my head ringing like an alarm bell vibrating on repeat, as I lifted my head to stare at him—an intense stare that made him flinch back from me—color draining from his face for a moment.
I wanted to yell at him that it wasn't me. That I wasn't the criminal. But it was useless. He probably wouldn't believe demons existed, nor would he believe that time travel was possible. Nobody would believe those things. If I hadn't lived it, I wouldn't believe it either.
My fingers retracted on my thighs, folded into a claw-like position. The only thing keeping them from his thin old neck was the soldiers that stood around us. He might be justified for hitting me, but even that couldn't stop my hate for him.
He dropped back from me further. His chin quivered as he turned to the soldiers. "Lock her up, torture her," he ordered. "Beat her up until she reveals where she stashed everything that she stole and the list of her conspirators."
He moved out of the way as the soldiers snatched my arms once again, leading me into the dungeon.
I have desperately tried to hold onto this life, survive until I get back to the future Draziel. Perhaps I never will—perhaps this is where it all ends for me. Humans, demons—it didn't matter. I was prey everywhere.