Chapter 3: The Exile's Road
Kael's POV
We left Thornwick before dawn on the fourth day, our entire lives packed into two canvas bags and a small wooden cart.
My father had sold everything we couldn't carry, his prized anvil, his collection of masterwork tools, even my mother's silver locket that he'd worn around his neck for seven years. We walked down the dirt road leading away from the village without looking back, though I heard shutters closing as we passed and felt the weight of fearful eyes following our departure.
"Where are we going?" I asked, struggling to keep pace with my father's long strides.
"East," he said simply. "To the frontier settlements beyond the Whispering Woods. Places where people are too busy surviving to worry about Scripts and prophecies."
The frontier. Even I knew what that meant, lawless territories on the edge of civilization where the Church's influence was weak and life was brutal. Monsters roamed more freely there, bandits preyed on travelers, and people disappeared without anyone asking questions. It was where exiles and criminals went to escape their pasts.
It was perfect for an Error of Fate.
We walked for three days through forests that grew progressively wilder. My feet developed blisters that burst and reformed. My father shared his food with me without complaint, though I noticed he was eating less than half of what he gave me. At night, we made small fires and he taught me things he'd never bothered with before.
"Hold the knife like this," he instructed, placing a small blade in my hand and adjusting my grip. "If something attacks you and I'm not there, you aim for the eyes or throat. Don't try to fight fair, there's no such thing when survival's at stake."
I practiced the motion over and over while he watched. The knife felt heavy and strange in my seven-year-old hand, but I forced myself to keep training until my arm ached.
"Good," he said quietly. "Again."
On the fourth day, we encountered other travelers.
A merchant caravan had stopped at a crossroads, three covered wagons circled defensively around a cooking fire. Armed guards watched us approach with hands on their weapons, but their leader, a heavy-set woman with shrewd eyes, waved us over.
"Travelers? Rare to see folks on this road. Where you headed?"
"East," my father replied carefully. "Looking for work."
She studied us for a long moment, taking in our worn clothes and meager possessions. Her gaze lingered on me, and I saw her eyes narrow slightly. Could she tell? Could she sense what I was?
"Blacksmith, by the look of your hands," she said finally. "We could use repairs. One of our wagon axles cracked yesterday. Fix it, and you can travel with us for protection. These woods aren't safe for a man and child alone."
My father agreed immediately. He worked through the afternoon while I sat nearby, watching the caravan guards practice their drills. They moved with the confidence of people following their Scripts, warriors blessed with combat prowess, scouts gifted with enhanced senses, defenders whose destinies made them supernaturally resilient.
I was watching one guard demonstrate a sword technique when a girl about my age approached. She had silver hair tied back in a practical braid and moved with unusual quietness.
"You're staring," she said bluntly.
I realized I had been. "Sorry. I was just watching how he moves. It's like dancing, but sharper."
She sat down beside me without asking permission. "I'm Mira. My Script says I'll be the Silent Blade someday, greatest assassin of the generation. I'm supposed to start training soon."
The name registered immediately, I remembered her from the Ceremony, remembered her parents weeping with joy. "That sounds impressive."
"I guess." She picked at the grass between us. "Mostly it sounds lonely. Assassins work alone, always in shadow. My Script says I'll never have true friends because I'll never be able to trust anyone completely." She looked at me with those sharp gray eyes. "What's your Script say about you?"
My throat tightened. "I don't have one."
I expected her to recoil, to call for the guards, to reveal me as the Error I was. Instead, she tilted her head with genuine curiosity.
"You're that boy. The one from the Ceremony. Everyone was talking about it." She paused. "Does it hurt? Not having a destiny?"
No one had ever asked me that before. They'd called me cursed, dangerous, an abomination, but no one had asked if it hurt.
"Yes," I admitted quietly. "It's like being invisible while everyone can see you. Like being told you don't matter by the universe itself."
Mira nodded slowly. "My Script tells me I'll kill someone I love when I'm seventeen. It's already written. I'll betray them, murder them, and there's nothing I can do to change it because that's my destiny." She met my eyes. "So maybe having no Script isn't the worst thing. At least you're not forced to do something terrible."
We sat in silence for a while, two children burdened by fate in opposite ways.
"Maybe we're both cursed," I said finally.
"Maybe," she agreed. "But at least we're honest about it."
That evening, as the caravan settled for the night, I overheard the guards talking.
"That boy with the blacksmith," one muttered. "Something's wrong with him. Gives me the chills."
"An Error," another confirmed. "I can feel it. No Scriptlines at all. Like looking at a hole in reality."
"We should tell the captain. Errors attract Scriptbeasts and corrupted fate. He's dangerous to have around."
My father must have heard them too because he woke me in the middle of the night.
"We're leaving," he whispered. "Quietly. Get your things."
We slipped away from the sleeping caravan like thieves, abandoning the protection we'd barely begun to enjoy. My father moved quickly through the dark forest, and I struggled to keep up, branches catching my clothes and roots threatening to trip me with every step.
"Why did we run?" I asked when we finally stopped to rest.
"Because I know what happens when people start talking about Errors being dangerous," he said grimly. "They convince themselves that killing you is the righteous thing to do. I won't let that happen."
We traveled alone after that, avoiding other people entirely. The Whispering Woods grew darker and stranger the deeper we went. Trees twisted into unnatural shapes. Mist clung to the ground even at midday. Twice we heard screams in the distance and hid until they faded.
On the seventh day, we finally emerged from the forest and saw our destination.
Ashenvale, the frontier settlement that would become our new home, sprawled across a rocky hillside like a wound in the landscape. Rough wooden buildings huddled behind a palisade wall that looked barely capable of stopping a determined goat, let alone the monsters that prowled these lands. Smoke rose from dozens of chimneys, and even from a distance, I could hear the sounds of hammers, shouts, and something that might have been music or might have been fighting.
"It's not much," my father said. "But it's a start."
We walked down the hill toward Ashenvale, toward whatever future waited for a blacksmith and his cursed son in a place where destiny's rules held less power.
I didn't know it then, but this would be where everything changed. Where I would meet the boy who would become the Hero. Where I would train, grow stronger, and dare to hope that maybe, just maybe, I could earn my place in a world that had no place written for me.
Where I would plant the seeds of my own destruction.
Behind us, the Whispering Woods rustled with wind or whispers or perhaps the laughter of gods who already knew how my story would end.