Damon's face flicks to hers, his red eyes moist, his expression devoid of any arrogance.

"You... you don't care..." His voice trailed off, almost a stifled accusation.

Ester didn't look away from the narrow gap between the curtains. Outside, vague shapes moved in the mist. Clear eyes, glinting like blades in the morning darkness.

"I care," he replied firmly but without emotion. "I just won't let myself go down with them."

The answer hit Damon like a punch to the gut. He opened the door with both hands, his body trembling. The blood still splattered on his skin began to cool, sticking to his skin like a red-hot iron.

Outside, light footsteps on a lama. Silent as predators.

Ester pulled Damon away by the collar, forcing him to crouch on the floor of the carriage.

"If you lift your head, you'll die."

"They... were my companions!" His voice cut. "I know them, I..."

"They're corpses now," Ester snapped, without even looking at him. There was no gratuitous cruelty in her tone, but there was no comfort either. Only the harshness of reality. "You'll work for them later. You'll survive."

Damon swallowed hard, his chest rising and falling in uncontrolled spasms. He didn't remember feeling anything like this. It wasn't physical pain, it wasn't distorted pleasure, it wasn't the delight of temptation. It was a deep emptiness, a fissure that opened in his chest and left him shattered.

He couldn't bear it.

The sound of arrows ceased. Silence returned, but it wasn't a safe silence. It was a stillness before the siege.

Ester closed her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. When they opened them again, the lights shone a piercing blue.

"We're encircling ourselves."

Outside, shadows materialized among the trees. Thin silhouettes, bows still in hand, precise movements. Elves.

Damon's heart raced again. The images of Garrick and Caelan, bloodied, came back with brutal force, superimposed on the present. He clutched his hair, his teeth clenched.

"No... I can't... I can't see that again..."

Ester turned to him, finally, her gaze cold as ice.

"You'll see," she said dryly. "And you'll survive, because if you don't endure it now, you'll die before you can hate this world the way you want."

The words sank deep. Damon blinked several times, stunned, unsure if she was insulting him or finally delivering a truth.

The curtains shivered as a shadow moved. Light, almost inaudible footsteps circling the carriage.

Ester slowly extended her hand, signaling silence.

Damon, still panting, pressed his back against the cold wood, trying to control the tremor that shook his body. His chest burned with the weight of the images. Garrick gasping for air, his eyes pleading for help he couldn't give. Caelan falling like a doll. Oh, the blood. The blood that still flowed in his memory.

It was the first time he truly understood what it was like to lose.

Ester remained still, every muscle ready to react. Her coldness didn't come from insensitivity—but from experience. She had seen death up close many times, and she knew: she would hesitate to join the dead.

A soft sound, almost like the rustling of leaves, announced the elves' arrival.

A voice echoed from outside, clear, sharp as an arrow:

"Leave. Slowly. Without weapons."

Damon looked at Ester desperately, seeking instructions.

She didn't respond immediately. She just stood openly erect, calculating every possibility. Then I turned back to him. His blue eyes burned like ice under the gray dawn.

"Pull yourself together. Now." His voice was so firm it left no room for argument. "They can't see you trembling. If they see weakness, they'll shoot."

Damon bit his lip, tasting blood. His body still shook with involuntary spasms, but he forced his fingers to close around the spear, his breathing steady. Not out of courage—but because there was no other choice.

The weight of Garrick and Caelan's deaths crushed his chest, but there was something else now: a strange desire not to let them be in vain.

Ester, without moving from the window, murmured in a low, almost whispered tone:

"Pretend to be the monstrous thing they fear. If you can't be strong for yourself, be strong for them."

The curtains suddenly parted, gray light flooding the carriage. A drawn bow loomed toward them, the tip of an arrow glinting inches away.

Damon felt his muscles lock. Instinct screamed to run, but his body didn't react.

Ester, on the other hand, didn't blink. Slowly, she uncurled her hands, palms exposed, and spoke in a cold Elvish voice, like polished steel:

"Don't shoot."

The soft sound of the Elvish tongue seemed to hold, for a moment, a tension.

Damon, still in shock, lowered his gaze, taking a deep breath, trying to hide the despair that ate at him. But inside, the emptiness continued to grow.

Garrick and Caelan's deaths would not be forgotten. Never.

The arrowhead still glowed inches away, trembling only in the cold morning air. The archer, with pale skin and nearly white hair, kept his bow drawn, his gaze hard as stone.

Other figures appeared behind him, slowly emerging from the mist—ten, maybe more. All armed, all with the same lethal, silent stance.

Ester didn't move more than necessary. Her hands were raised, her voice calm, each Elvish syllable pronounced with absolute clarity:

"We are travelers. We are heading south. We do not seek conflict."

The archer's eyes narrowed. His voice, low and sharp, replied in the same language:

"Two bodies on the road. Armed men. Yours?" Damon, curled up in his seat, felt his stomach churn. Garrick. Caelan. They were still out there, exposed, pierced, forgotten. His chest opened as if crushed by an invisible hand.

Ester didn't hesitate.

"They were our guards. They were killed by your arrows."

A murmur ran through the group of elves. The lead archer inclined his head but didn't lower his bow.

"Human knights... with a... Woman in Master Stadium." He then looked away and fixed his gaze on Damon. The archer tightened his fingers on the string, as if planning to identify an even more dangerous target. "...and a demon."

Damon slowly drew his eyes back. His heart hammered, each beat echoing the memory of the sound of the arrows we'd made piercing the two soldiers. The metallic taste still seemed to be stuck in his throat. But Esther's words echoed within him, cold as iron:

"Run away later. Now, be the monster they fear."

His pink eyes heated with an intense glow. He said nothing. He didn't mean it. He just held the archer's gaze like a predator tired of playing.

The archer didn't blink, but the bow didn't advance. He hesitated, and that hesitation was all Esther needed.

"We didn't attack anyone," she said firmly. "And yet… they killed our guard. How will you take responsibility?"

Esther's cold eyes began to freeze the world.

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