The Devil's Temptation!

84 Mishap Situation

The chirping and twittering sounds of beautiful birds echoed through the forest as they flew gracefully from one tree branch to another. It interestingly caught Anna’s attention as she walked beside Roshan.

They took a step forward through the earthly path and the tall trees were the first thing their eyes focused on. The big brown trees stretched high above like they were in a race to see who would reach the sky first.

Their roots were long and strong, going deep underground and Anna could tell these trees have lived in the area for a long time, even centuries.

Their leaves were freshly green with a bit of gold color running along the edge, Anna has never come across such leaves in her entire life.

The air smells like soil, leaves and flowers.

“How did we end up here?” Anna turned her attention to the handsome being who walked beside her, his gaze was also scanning the enchanted Forest they walked in and he clicked his tongue.

“It’s complicated.” He told her instead. He was unwilling to go into too much detail as it might mix up her little brain.

Anna’s stare curiously returned to scrutinize the forest and she pinned her lips together. She tried to rack her brain on what happened after they fell from the building, because after she woke up, she found herself here instead of the Viscarrian palace.

“She tricked me.” Anna quietly realized it herself, but she absentmindedly said her thoughts out loud for Roshan’s sensitive ears to grasp.

.....

“Who?” He finally looked at her for the first time ever since they started walking.

“The maid.” Her expression slowly dropped as she cursed herself. She felt eveb more stupid for thinking the maid was really genuine with her words.

Becca was actually right when she said she shouldn’t trust anyone, now Freya’s gone, Roshan’s uncle is back and the mastermind behind the juice had gotten away all because of her own foolish decisions.

“I didn’t listen to your advice for the second time and gave her the pill.” She guiltily admitted and just thinking about all her wrong decisions so far made her wonder if she was jinxed at birth.

“It’s just....she sounded.....” a sigh left her lips when the words weren’t coming and she took a deep breath to calm her nerves before speaking again, “I really thought she had changed.”

“People don’t change easily Anna,” he reminded her, “she’s a demon after all, what did you expect? Did you really think believing her stories and saving her from torture would make her speak? I don’t know if it works on humans but demons are different, they won’t speak until tortured.”

“So what do we do? How do we get out of here?”

“We?” He scoffed, “all this happened because of you, it’s your fault we landed here, so you should think of a way to get us out of here, I have nothing to do with it.”

The way he spoke always made her feel like a burden that he couldn’t get rid of even if he wanted to, and as much as she hated to admit it, he was right. She’s been nothing but a burden to people she’s met and maybe she’s actually cursed to be a burden forever.

Her heart sank at the thought and she looked at the glacier again.

“You should_”

“Shhhh.” Roshan suddenly silenced her, giving her no chance to finish her words and he stopped moving.

“Don’t take another step.” He held her hand, bringing her back and Anna was instantly baffled by his alarmed whispers.

“Wha_”

“Shhhh.” She got silenced again.

The flight of birds fleeing from trees caught their attention. Roshan and Anna remained where they were and his gaze quickly glanced at the bushes beside them, as though he was calculating something.

“When I say run, you run as fast as you can, do you understand?” He whispered.

“What? Why?”

“Just listen and do as I say.”

He wasn’t joking, he really seemed to be picking up something and at the same time, Anna’s ears twitched the moment she heard a twig snap.

“Run.”

And they both took their heels at the same time. All sounds were lost in the whistle of air humming by, followed by the flights of millions of arrows coming after them from behind.

“Is that..!?..”

Anna’s eyes widened in trepidation, and she ran as fast as she could to avoid being touched by an arrow. They came as fast as lightning after them and if she hadn’t learnt a few tricks in Euphrasia, evading those arrows would be impossible.

“This way!” Roshan’s voice reminded her that she wasn’t actually running alone and they quickly cornered, following a divided path in an attempt to evade the arrows following their trail.

A shocking gasp left her lips when a sword showed up from nowhere and was placed at her neck, instantly stopping her in her tracks and denying her the freedom to take a step forward.

She looked up to see exactly who had stopped her and a strange young man dressed in warrior outfits was staring back at her with his coffee brown eyes.

“Don’t move.” He politely warned, Anna’s gaze returned to Roshan who was equally stopped by these men and she realized that they were surrounded by a bunch of men dressed in black warrior outfits.

They looked no different from normal humans, except they were all dressed in warrior outfits and Anna watched as more of them ascended from the bushes.

Amidst all these strong men, a short funny looking bald man stepped out from within them. It took Roshan a lot of restraint not to laugh at the man’s appearance, despite the fact he appeared strict with a venomous gaze.

“Trespassers! Are you spies from the other realm?” He asked a question Roshan found to be very stupid.

“What sort of spy shows up unarmed you birdbrain!”

“Hey!”

“He didn’t mean it.” Anna quickly intervened after realizing his words had offended the man. The last thing she wanted at the moment was to see any bloodshed.

“Spare him... please.”

Roshan frowned at her direction as he watched her plead for his sake. Of course he meant every word he said and he wouldn’t mind repeating it. What’s she pleading with them for??

“Who are you? What is your mission in Ark Ville? ”

“We are.....uhm...” Anna tried to think of a way out and once again, she said something that made Roshan facepalm.

“He’s my brother you see and we’re from the Euphrasia Kingdom.” She grinned nervously before bowing at them, completely oblivious to the death rays a certain glacier had on her.

Brother? ‘I’m not her brother!’ he really wanted to say it but then again, it would only get them into more trouble.

And they weren’t completely out of this trouble yet.

“Euphrasia kingdom?” The short bald man wrinkled his forehead as he remained deep in thoughts, as though trying to figure out if the name of that kingdom was familiar or not.

“Come with us, you’ll explain yourself better to the emperor of Ark Ville!”