Flight of the coward

“Yeah… I’m fine,” Jari lied.

The trader girl—Sapphire, he would later learn—looked him over as if studying a wounded animal. “You don’t look it,” she said with a light laugh. “You’re pale as a ghost.”

“I must’ve eaten something bad,” Jari muttered. Cowardly words for a prince who’d just overheard whispers of murder.

“Well,” she said, rummaging through the small bundle slung across her shoulder, “you’re lucky I’m a wandering healer. I’ve wormwood, mint, and balm straight from Dravengarde.”

She knelt beside him, crushing herbs between her fingers, releasing their sharp scent. The world still spun around Jari, but her closeness anchored him.

“I’m a lucky man,” he said, the words slipping out before he could catch them. “What’s your name, beautiful lady?”

She smiled—small, embarrassed, genuine. “Sapphire. And you?”

“Jari.”

She froze. “Prince Jari!?”

Her voice cracked across the marketplace like a hammer blow. Heads turned. Faces hardened. Hands reached for belts and pockets. Jari saw hunger there—not for food, but for vengeance.

And vengeance was always fed with blood.

His blood.

Gods… do they have blades? If they rush me—I'm dead.

“Hey? Jari?” Sapphire waved a hand before his eyes.

“I… I need to get home,” he said, stumbling to his feet.

She followed at once. “What’s going on? Really.”

“The people are angry,” he hissed, breath shaking. “I’m a target. And I don’t want you caught in it.”

Her expression shifted—fear, sorrow, something gentler. She touched his arm. “I understand.”

He looked at her then—truly looked. The curls of her brown hair, wild from travel. The deep blue eyes that held more kindness than his home ever had. A face too soft for a world this harsh.

“Do you want to run away?” she asked, eyes dropping, ashamed of her own boldness.

Jari’s heart kicked in his chest. Run. Leave the castle. Leave the fear. Leave the arguing and lies and the weight of being the son of a king the people now hated.

“I… can’t.” The words tasted like ash. “I can’t leave my family.”

“O-okay.” Sapphire nodded slowly. “Then… I hope you survive. I truly do.”

She leaned forward and kissed his cheek—a fleeting touch, warm as sunlight, gone too soon. Jari watched her go, cursing himself for a coward.

He could have run. Could have lived.

Instead, he walked back to the castle like a man walking to his own execution.

The shouting began before he even reached the landing.

His parents again—voices sharp and bitter. Once they’d laughed together. Once they’d been a family. Now they were two storms trapped in the same room.

He climbed the stairs and slipped into Raollin’s chamber.

“Hey, bud.”

Raollin sat up, bright-eyed. “How’s training?”

“Haven’t done much lately.”

“Well get to it then!” Raollin laughed.

Jari forced a smile and tossed him the carrot. “Brought you something.”

Raollin caught it and hugged him tight. Jari closed his eyes. For a moment the world softened.

Then the yelling came again—but from outside.

“What’s that?” Raollin asked.

“Dunno…” Jari said, though dread already coiled in his gut.

He left the room, descended the stairs, and found his parents at the door—faces pale, frantic.

He shoved past them.

Outside, the desert simmered with heat—and a mob. Hundreds. Scraps of metal for blades, sticks sharpened to points, stones in clenched fists. Their eyes were the worst part—hungry, furious, betrayed.

“Raollin!” Jari shouted. “Down here!”

The boy ran, leaping into Jari’s arms. Jari held him tight. The front door was the only escape.

“Fuck it,” he muttered, and threw the door open.

The roar of the mob swallowed them whole.

A sword swung at his head—Jari ducked, ramming forward, plowing through three men. Steel scraped his ribs, another blade tore across his back. Raollin screamed into his shoulder as Jari ran, bleeding, desperate.

A strike caught Jari’s chest and he fell, dropping Raollin. Pain burst like fire through him. He clawed upright, dragging the boy up by the arm.

Someone seized Raollin—

—but it wasn’t an enemy.

“Sapphire!?”

She shielded the boy behind her, shoving him away from the blades.

The mob didn’t notice. They only saw the prince.

And Jari snapped.

His sword hissed from its scabbard.

He slashed a man’s ear clean off. Rolled beneath another blade and cut a calf. Dodged, weaved, struck—hip, shoulder, leg, leg, leg—blood spraying, men screaming. A blow crashed into his guard; he shoved back, buried his blade in a belly, heaved the man over the bridge.

Another arm severed. Another thigh carved. Another body dropped.

Somehow he broke through.

Somehow he survived.

He ran. Sand pounded beneath him, each step ripping pain from the wounds on his ribs and back.

Behind him lay his family. His mother. His father. Raollin. Sapphire.

And he left them.

A hero would have turned back.

A hero would have fought.

But Jari ran—fear driving him harder than any ambition ever had. He fled the only people who loved him. Fled the kingdom he was meant to protect.

He ran, and in doing so, he abandoned them all to fate.

And he knew, even as the wind tore at his face and his blood soaked the sand—

—he would spend the rest of his life trying to outrun this shame.