Chapter Text
"Who is she, I suppose?"
Subaru looked at the finger first. It was small and pale, pointed straight down the lane, past the dying lamplight, at the woman in the dark.
"Huh?"
The sound came out of him like a cough. He even tried to laugh after it, waiting for the rest of the joke to follow. Beatrice had been playing along with him for days. This was just another round. It had to be.
"Beako, come on," he said, forcing a grin that made his broken ribs protest. "That's Elsa. Tall, scary, carries way too many knives. She's been riding in our carriage for nearly three weeks."
Beatrice did not laugh.
Her pink eyes stayed fixed on Elsa, with the same sharp, measuring coldness she had turned on the barefoot boy in the restaurant. A stranger stood in the lane with blood drying on her coat and a blade loose in her hand, far too close to someone Betty had just spent ten minutes putting back together.
"Betty heard you call her that," Beatrice said, her voice completely level. "Betty is asking who she is. Her wounds closed faster than any human flesh should allow, in fact. Betty noticed that much while she was fighting."
Subaru turned his head toward the ground.
Meili was sitting against his knee, where she had collapsed after the fight ended. She was looking at Elsa too, her expression blank and cautious, the exact face she put on whenever an unfamiliar traveler approached their wagon.
"Oni-san," Meili asked softly, "who is that scary lady?"
On his other side, Shaula lifted her face from his shoulder, blinking into the dust.
"Master, who is the lady with the knife?" she asked, tilting her head. "Is she lost? She looks very lost."
Nobody smiled. Nobody was pretending.
※ ※ ※
The realization did not arrive all at once.
It came in jagged pieces, the way a person finds shards of a shattered cup hours after dropping it on the floor. One piece under the bench, another near the door, a third buried in the heel of a boot when everyone thought the room was clean.
Beatrice entering the fight.
He had explicitly told her to stay back with Meili, to keep her distance and guard the child while he and Elsa handled the archbishop. Beatrice rarely obeyed commands she considered foolish, but she always respected plans that had a clear purpose. What had she seen from the bottom of that hayloft ladder? A boy fighting alone in a dark alley against a Sin Archbishop, with a strange woman who had appeared out of nowhere. Of course she had thrown herself into the battle.
Then the hesitation. Beatrice running forward to cast healing magic on Elsa, and pausing for a split second before her hands made contact. Subaru had heard that tiny hitch in the middle of the chaos and dismissed it as fatigue. Now the truth felt like cold iron in his stomach. It was the hesitation of a spirit touching someone she had never seen before in her life.
Then Meili walking straight into the middle of the lane, heedless of the danger. Elsa had stepped in front of her, ordering her to get back because the battle was beyond her control. And Meili had ignored her completely. She had treated the voice like background noise, like words shouted by a stranger in a crowded street.
And before that, in the world that had burned away when he died.
Meili sitting in the ash beside his body, terrified of what Mother would do to her now that oni-san was dead. Not a single tear for the woman who had thrown her over the fence. Not a single word for the sister who had shielded her from the white light. He had watched that whole night from the dark, lying on his back in the Shadow Garden, and he had assumed she was simply too numb to speak.
Roy had spoken her full name, slow and savoring, and Subaru had let him, because he assumed the eating would take a while. Names take seconds to swallow, or so he had believed. It had gone down in one breath. And Subaru still remembered her, because the Authority of Gluttony had never touched him.
Beatrice had not interrupted the meal. She had arrived after it was finished. By then, her name was already gone.
And now Roy Alphard was dead. Shaula's endless hell snipe had wiped him off the world completely, leaving nothing behind at all.
"Oh," Subaru muttered, the word completely hollow.
Nothing else came out.
※ ※ ※
Elsa had heard the question clearly.
She did not move. Her smile remained fixed in place, the same gentle, amused curve she had worn while stepping out of the dark. It was the only part of her that never needed to heal after a battle.
She had understood the situation faster than Subaru. Meili had not listened to a single word she said, and had not once looked for her in all that chaos. That told her enough.
Now she knew. Her eyes drifted down to Meili.
The little girl was watching her with polite, guarded eyes. Elsa knew that look intimately. She had taught it to her years ago, back when Meili still struggled to conceal her fear. Smile at the ones you don't know, little sister, so they never see you deciding what to do with them.
Meili was using that lesson on her now.
Tucked into Meili's sash, resting against her hip, was the doll Subaru had sewn. It had long black yarn hair, sharp stitched eyebrows, and a small cloth blade with its edges deliberately left soft. The girl had carried it everywhere since the morning in the cellar, refusing to let it leave her sight.
The doll bore Elsa's face.
The child holding it no longer knew whose face it was.
Elsa had lost a name before. A freezing night in Gusteko, and a choice she made herself. I am Elsa Featherrun. No, scratch that. Elsa Granhiert. She took that one off a broken bottle in the snow, and it was the first thing she had ever given herself, the first thing nobody else had decided for her.
Until a barefoot archbishop had licked it clean off her soul.
"Ara," Elsa whispered to the empty air.
Her fingers tightened around the handle of her kukri. Then, realizing she had drawn the weapon halfway from its sheath, she slid it back into place with quiet, deliberate care.
Meili shifted closer to Subaru's knee, putting him between herself and the strange woman.
Elsa watched the movement, and her smile did not flicker once.
※ ※ ※
Subaru pushed himself up from the ground.
His legs shook, and his ribs ached with a dull, throbbing heat, but the bones held together. He pressed one palm flat against the brick wall until the street stopped spinning, then took a steadying breath of the cold night air.
"I need to talk to her," he said, keeping his voice as calm as he could manage. "Alone. Just for a few minutes."
Two pairs of eyes snapped toward him at once, and neither held any approval.
"Alone," Beatrice repeated, her voice rising in disbelief. "With an armed stranger who smells of fresh blood and regenerates like a monster. After Betty has just spent much of her remaining mana putting your foolish body back together, in fact."
"She isn't a stranger, Beako," Subaru said gently. "Not to me."
Meili remained silent, but her fingers gripped the hem of his trousers, anchoring him in place.
Shaula scrambled to her feet, kicking up dust as she threw her arms wide between Subaru and the rest of the lane.
"Master, absolutely not!" she protested loudly, puffing out her chest. "If that woman is trying to seduce Master with those suspicious curves, she will have to defeat Shaula first! Master already possesses a devoted apprentice! Master already has access to curves! Mine! Look at them, Master, they are right here!"
She gestured toward herself with total pride, completely ignoring the tension in the air.
Subaru let out a dry breath. "Nobody is seducing anyone, Shaula. We are just going to have a conversation."
"Conversations are dangerous," Shaula insisted, narrowing her eyes. "Conversations lead to holding hands, and holding hands leads to terrible things. I read that in a book!"
"You have never read a book in your life."
"Then I invented it just now, but the wisdom remains completely solid!"
Beatrice crossed her small arms, glaring past Subaru toward Elsa before shifting her gaze back to him. Her expression made it clear that she hated every single part of this arrangement.
"At the end of the lane," Beatrice commanded, her chin tilted high. "Subaru, you stay where Betty can see you every second. If you step out of Betty's sight, Betty will drag you back by your collar, in fact."
The name slipped out quickly, buried in the middle of her warning as if she hoped he would miss it. A moment later, the tips of her drill curls trembled as pink heat rushed into her cheeks.
Subaru stopped.
"Aah, no," he said, a slow grin spreading across his face. "Beako is saying my name so casually now. How lovely. What a wonderful night this has turned out to be."
"Betty did not say your name, in fact." Beatrice's chin went up, though her ears had already gone pink.
"You did. More times than you would ever admit tonight." He looked far too pleased with himself. "I am never going to forget that, Beako."
He meant every word of it. In another world, under a gray morning sky that no longer existed, a small spirit had sat alone in the dirt and carved his name into a flat stone with the tip of one finger. He was the only person alive who carried that memory. Now he had a new one to set beside it.
"Stop mocking Betty, human!" Beatrice snapped, her face burning all the way to the tips of her ears. "Or there will be severe consequences, in fact! Betty has not yet decided which ones, but they will be thoroughly unpleasant, I suppose!"
"Aah, Beako, back to human again," he said, pressing a hand to his heart like she had stabbed him there. "I was starting to like hearing my name from you. This stings, you know."
A quiet tug pulled at his trouser leg.
Meili was staring up at him. The guarded mask was gone, replaced by the fragile, uncertain look of a child who had seen too much violence in a single evening.
"Oni-san," she murmured, "be careful."
Her blue eyes flicked toward the tall woman waiting in the shadows, hardening with quiet resentment.
"Meili doesn't like the way that lady looks at you."
The girl had endured enough tonight. She had watched Subaru get smashed against a wall like a broken toy. She had strained her divine protection until her temples throbbed and blood dripped from her nose, forcing terrified witchbeasts to fight an enemy that horrified them, all because she knew that if Subaru died, her promise of freedom died with him.
He was the only person who had ever sworn to kill Mother for her. He was the only one who had built her a doll with his own hands. She did not know why the doll looked like the woman in black. She only knew who had given it to her.
"Nothing is going to happen, Meili," Subaru told her, keeping his voice gentle.
He reached down, placing one palm on her messy hair and the other on Beatrice's curls.
"Betty's head is not an armrest for insolent humans, in fact," Beatrice complained, though she did not pull away.
Meili went perfectly still beneath his hand, relaxing just enough to let the tension drain from her shoulders.
Subaru gave them both a soft pat, took a breath, and walked toward the end of the lane.
Elsa turned and followed him into the dark.
※ ※ ※
They reached the end of the lane. For a long time, neither of them spoke.
Subaru had talked his way through assassins, knights, and monsters, but now his throat felt tight and useless.
Elsa broke the silence first.
"Meili wears a fine stranger's face," she said lightly. "I taught her that myself. Smile at the ones you don't know, so they never see you deciding how to carve them."
Subaru said nothing.
"She used it on me just now." Elsa tilted her head, almost amused. "For a moment, I was proud of her."
She wound a loose thread from her torn sleeve around one finger and pulled it tight. "Everything that boy opened on me healed tonight. Ribs, shoulder, stomach, all of it. I have never once had a wound that refused to close."
The thread pulled tighter.
"The boy is dead. When the one who ate something dies, the stolen thing comes back. That is how this world works, is it not?"
Subaru met her gaze. He did not speak. His face said enough.
The ribbon stopped winding.
"I see," Elsa said softly.
She let go of the fabric. It uncoiled from her pale finger, falling limp against her wrist.
When she spoke again, the playful lightness had thinned into something brittle and fragile, like dry leaves ready to crumble underfoot.
"Was this part of your plan, Subaru?"
He parted his lips, then closed them again.
Every possible answer led straight into a trap. If he said no, she would hear the lie in his voice. If he tried to explain that the situation was complicated, she would take it as an admission of guilt.
And if he told her the complete truth, that he had sat in the dark of the Shadow Garden with Satella and weighed the benefits of either outcome, there would be nothing left between them except hatred.
Defending himself right now would only make the cut deeper. So he stayed quiet.
"Tell me why you have nothing to say," she said.
Her voice had dropped lower, losing every trace of its usual velvet purr. The smile remained on her lips, but it looked carved onto her face, completely disconnected from her eyes.
Subaru did not answer.
Elsa took a single step toward him.
"You are never quiet," she said. "You joke with bandits while they bleed. You drank tea with me with a blade at your throat. And now, one question, and you lose your tongue?"
She took another step.
"Say something to me."
The sentence wavered at the end, cracking slightly before she could catch it.
He said nothing.
Then her hand shot forward, her fingers knotting into the fabric of his collar, and slammed him back against the stone wall.
The impact was not strong enough to crack the masonry, and Beatrice's healing held his ribs in place, but the jolt knocked the breath from his lungs. The cold stone pressed against his spine, bringing back the exact terror of Roy's final leap.
Elsa stood inches away. For the first time since he had met her, the mask had fallen away entirely. Her lips were trembling, her breath was shallow, and her entire frame shook with an anger that was trying desperately not to turn into tears.
"Last time, when you failed your promise," she whispered, her grip tightening on his shirt, "you asked me about my name. Where it came from. Whether anyone had given it to me, or whether I had chosen it myself."
Subaru's breath hitched.
"You spoke of Od Lagna. Of how this world writes a soul down. What Gluttony can eat, and what it cannot." Her voice went lower. "I thought you were just curious. You are never curious, Subaru. Not about people. Not unless there is a use for it."
She stepped closer, her knuckles pressing into his breastbone.
"Did you get your answer tonight? Did you finally learn what happens when Gluttony devours a name that was never blessed by a family?"
He did not look away. He forced himself to hold her gaze, taking every ounce of the venom she was pouring out.
"Do you have any idea what a name means to someone like me?" Her voice cracked. She pushed on anyway.
"Everything I ever owned was given to me, or sold to me, or taken in the snow. That name was the one thing I picked up with my own two hands." Her hand flattened against his chest, fingers splayed, holding him there.
She stopped, her jaw working as she fought against the moisture rising in her eyes.
"You already know what it feels like," she said. "To have the people close to you look at your face and see a stranger. You know it better than anyone."
Her fingers twisted violently in his collar.
"And still you did the same thing to me."
She pulled him closer, her voice dropping.
"Was I just a tool? Did the Bowel Hunter not fit your plans for the Royal Selection, so you just erased her name to fit her into your plan for the future?"
Subaru looked at her devastated, furious face.
The accusation stung worse than any blade she had ever drawn. He felt the heat rising in his own chest, defensive and ugly, born from the guilt he had been carrying since the moment Beatrice pointed her finger.
He let out a harsh, tired breath and grabbed her wrist.
"I told you," he snapped, his voice dropping into a harsh rasp. "I told you in the street before we ever stepped into this alley. Taking on a Sin Archbishop was going to cost us more than you could afford. My plan was to run. You were the one who pushed to kill him here so you could take a piece away from Capella! And now I'm the villain because I kept everyone breathing?"
The words left his mouth before he could filter them.
Fuck, he thought, watching her face. That did not come out the way I wanted.
He felt the sickening drop in his stomach. It was an awful thing to say, petty and defensive, throwing her own ambition back into her face while she was standing there bleeding from a wound that would never close.
He saw the effect immediately. Elsa's expression did not harden with rage; it simply shrank, the hurt settling deeper into the corners of her mouth. He had confirmed her worst suspicion.
He could have backed down then. He could have apologized, pleaded for her forgiveness, and told her that he would find a way to fix it.
Instead, the cold, pragmatic logic of a man who had died dozens of times took the reins.
"Yes, I was researching true names," he said, forcing his tone into something flat and unyielding.
"I wanted to know if a self-made name would register in Od Lagna. I genuinely thought his Authority would fail. I thought it would choke on your name, cause a backlash, and give Shaula the opening she needed to kill him instantly. I didn't expect him to swallow it in less than a second."
That was the truth, but it was only half of it. The other half was the calculation that either outcome would leave Roy dead. He kept that part locked behind his teeth.
"Yes, I know what that feels like," Subaru whispered, his voice turning bitterly cold. "I know it better than anyone. And I never wanted anyone else to feel it. Not even you."
Elsa stared at him, startled by the coldness in his voice. She heard the raw pain under those words, even if she could not name where it came from, and her fingers loosened against his chest.
Subaru did not give her room to recover.
"He was playing with us, Elsa. The entire time. Until Beako jumped in, neither of us had landed a single hit. You kept lunging for his stomach, and he kept treating it like a children's game. You barely managed to put a scratch on him by the end."
He leaned forward, refusing to let her look away.
"Without Shaula firing from that ridge, every single one of us would be dead on these stones. You, me, Beako, and Meili. He would have eaten all of us and walked away whistling."
He paused, letting the silence settle between them like lead.
"So if you want someone to blame for losing your name, look at yourself. We survived tonight because Shaula was there. Your name was eaten because you were too weak to stop him."
The sentence hung in the frozen air of the alley. Then, slowly, the harshness drained from Subaru's face, replaced by a weary, aching sorrow.
It had hurt him to say those words. He did not take them back, and he did not soften them. He cared about her survival far more than she realized, but he had learned a long time ago that soft answers never kept anyone breathing.
※ ※ ※
Elsa's fingers slowly uncurled.
The fabric of his shirt slipped free, and she took two quiet steps backward, standing on the scorched dirt with her arms hanging limp at her sides.
She did not scream. She did not fall to her knees. Elsa Granhiert had never learned how to weep like an ordinary woman, but a single tear escaped her eye, tracing a pale line down her cheek through the grime and soot. She lifted her hand, touching the wetness with two fingers as if genuinely astonished to find it there.
"Ara," she breathed, staring at her damp fingertips. "How strange. I was fairly certain I had forgotten how to do that."
Subaru took a step toward her, lifting his arms in an instinct to offer comfort.
Elsa raised her hand, pressing two fingers flat against the center of his chest, stopping him firmly in his tracks.
"Do not," she said.
Her voice had regained a fraction of its composure, and a small, crooked smile pulled at the corner of her lips. It was wet and exhausted, but it was genuine.
"I am not an easy woman, Subaru," she told him softly. "You cannot tear my pride apart, show me a gentle face, and expect me to fall into your arms. You will have to put in considerably more effort than that."
Subaru stopped, lowering his hands with a small, tired nod.
They stood together in the quiet alley, her fingers resting lightly against his shirt, keeping a careful distance between them.
Subaru looked at her, searching for something to break the lingering gloom, and his mouth moved before his common sense could intervene.
"Well," he said, rubbing the back of his neck, "look at the bright side. Capella will not be looking for you anymore. As far as she is concerned, you do not even exist."
Elsa lowered her hand and looked at him.
It was a look of pure, unadulterated murderous intent, the kind that promised a long, careful look inside his stomach.
Subaru's hands flew up instantly.
"Okay! Okay, I am sorry! Horrible timing, terrible joke, absolute zero out of ten on my part!" He took two quick steps backward, pointing toward the other end of the lane. "Let's just head back to the others before I dig this hole any deeper."
Elsa watched him for another second, the murderous edge gradually softening into dry exasperation. She let out a quiet sigh through her nose, turned around, and began walking.
Subaru let out the breath he had been holding and fell into step beside her.
※ ※ ※
At the entrance of the alley, Beatrice had been mentally listing reasons not to obliterate the tall woman with a barrage of magic.
Reason one: Subaru had signaled that he was uninjured. Reason two: the woman had not drawn her blades. Reason three: if Betty started launching Minya spears, that stubborn human would undoubtedly dive into the line of fire to protect someone who did not deserve it.
Reason three was doing the heavy lifting.
"Betty just finished fixing him up," she grumbled, her fingers twitching with faint violet sparks. "Just finished, in fact. Betty pours her mana into his chest, and now some stranger is slamming him into walls like it was nothing, I suppose."
Meili stood beside her in absolute silence. Her small hands were clenched into tight fists, her knuckles white, her gaze locked onto Elsa with pure hostility.
The strange woman had laid hands on oni-san. That was all the information Meili required.
"If the fool needs assistance, he will call out," Beatrice added, crossing her arms tightly.
"Oni-san is stupid," Meili stated bluntly. "He never calls for help."
Beatrice frowned, thoroughly annoyed that she could not find a single argument against the child's assessment.
Shaula, meanwhile, had dropped into the dirt, resting her chin in her palms as she watched the distant figures with sparkling green eyes.
"She pinned Master against the wall," Shaula whispered, her cheeks flushing with pure admiration. "She grabbed him right by the shirt and shoved him. How bold. How incredibly daring."
Her expression grew soft and distant, her voice trailing off into a dreamy hum.
"What if Master did that to Shaula? What if Master marched up, slammed Shaula against a stone wall, and looked down with those terrifying, wonderful eyes? 'Listen to your master, apprentice,' he would say... and Shaula would say, 'Yes, Master, anything you want, Master'... and then he would hold Shaula tight and never let go... ehehehe..."
"Can you shoot her?" Meili asked, not looking away. "Just a tiny hole?"
"Master forbade shooting," Shaula replied, completely lost in her fantasy. "Shaula must obey Master. Master is so forceful and magnificent... ehehehe..."
Beatrice swung her hand, delivering a sharp, resounding smack to the back of Shaula's head.
"Ow!"
"Cease your disgusting delusions this instant, you disgraceful scorpion, in fact!" Beatrice fumed, her face burning crimson. "Betty will not endure another syllable of your shameless fantasies, I suppose!"
"You interrupted the best part!" Shaula complained, rubbing her skull.
"There was no acceptable part to begin with!"
※ ※ ※
The two figures walked back up the lane, Subaru limping slightly while Elsa strolled a half step behind him with her hands tucked away.
Elsa saw Meili's expression the moment they stepped into the lamplight.
The little girl stood rigid, glaring at her with unvarnished, hostile fury. There was no hesitation in her posture, no trace of the sweet, polite mask she wore for ordinary travelers. It was pure, honest hatred.
A stranger had assaulted her protector, and Meili wanted her dead.
A cold ache settled behind Elsa's ribs, sharp and familiar.
Then, beneath the pain, a small, dark ember of amusement flickered to life.
Years ago, in a muddy clearing far from any town, a starving toddler had looked at her with that exact same hatred.
The little thing had bitten her neck until it bled, furious that the beasts she had raised were dead. Elsa carried her out under one arm anyway, smiling through it, and told her she was going to be her big sister.
She had earned Meili's trust from nothing once before.
She could do it a second time.
Starting from zero, Elsa thought, and a genuine, private smile touched her lips.
"Master!"
Shaula threw herself forward, wrapping both arms around Subaru's left side and glaring at Elsa over his shoulder like a guard dog defending a bone.
"Master, do not be deceived!" she proclaimed proudly. "If Master requires curves, your apprentice possesses far superior assets! Observe them, Master! Marvel at them! There is simply no comparison!"
"I am entirely satisfied with zero curves right now, thank you," Subaru muttered, trying to pry her off.
"Master is merely bashful," Shaula informed Elsa with supreme confidence. "It is one of his many charming flaws."
"Ara," Elsa replied smoothly. "Is that so?"
Subaru finally managed to detach Shaula from his arm and turned to face the entire group. He looked at Beatrice's suspicious frown, Meili's balled fists, and Shaula's territorial glare, clearing his throat to reset the mood.
"Alright, listen up," Subaru announced, gesturing toward the tall woman. "Official introductions. This is Elsa. She is a friend of mine, and she will be traveling with us from here on out."
He paused, glancing at Elsa for a brief second before looking back at the others.
"She went through something very difficult tonight, so I expect everyone to treat her decently. No threats, no picking fights, and no trying to eliminate her because she gets on your nerves."
He directed that last warning squarely at Shaula, who nodded solemnly as though receiving a sacred commandment.
He chose not to explain what had happened to her name. He did not mention Roy's Authority, or the bond she had shared with Meili, or the weeks they had already spent together on the road. Telling them the truth would only turn Elsa into a tragic object of pity. Pity was a cage, not a foundation.
He was giving her a clean slate. A true zero.
It was a strange, complicated gift, but Elsa understood its value immediately.
Beatrice scrutinized Elsa from head to toe, her expression resembling that of a strict scholar examining a deeply flawed manuscript.
"Betty supposes we can accommodate one additional person, I suppose," she declared haughtily. "Provided she refrains from tossing Betty's patients into stone walls, in fact."
"I shall keep my hands to myself," Elsa promised, inclining her head with genuine courtesy.
Beatrice accepted the concession with a small sniff.
"And provided she does not prove as incessantly noisy as the other two, in fact."
"Shaula is an absolute joy to be around!" Shaula objected.
"Betty was referring to you, in fact."
Meili remained silent, her glare unmoving.
Elsa turned toward the little girl, offering a soft, unthreatening smile. It was not the predatory grin of the Bowel Hunter, nor the theatrical mask she used for clients. It was simply gentle.
"It is a pleasure to meet you, little one," Elsa said.
It was the first time she had ever addressed her sister as a stranger.
Meili stared at her for a long moment, then deliberately looked away, refusing to acknowledge the greeting. Her hand crept down to her sash, curling tightly around the cloth doll, clutching it against her ribs as if afraid someone might snatch it away.
Elsa watched the small fingers bury themselves in the black yarn hair, and her smile remained steady.
※ ※ ※
They departed Hakuchuri before the first light of dawn touched the horizon.
Nobody needed to explain the urgency. An entire alleyway had been glassed by beams of lethal light, and the local authorities would have uncomfortable questions for anyone found lingering near the wreckage. It was far wiser to vanish before the town woke up.
The dragon carriage rolled quietly through the southern gate, following the trade road toward Flanders.
Elsa took the driver's seat and gathered the reins into her hands. Nobody contested her right to steer.
Inside the carriage, Shaula collapsed across the bench within minutes, snoring softly with her limbs sprawled in every direction. Beatrice sat beside Subaru with an open tome resting on her lap, though she did not turn a single page. Every few minutes, her pink eyes flicked toward the front bench, narrowed slightly, and returned to the text.
Meili curled up in the corner of the luggage space, her knees drawn to her chest, holding the Elsa-doll firmly beneath her chin as she drifted into exhausted sleep.
Outside on the driver's box, Elsa listened to the quiet rhythm of the carriage. Through the small wooden partition, she heard Meili whisper in her sleep, murmuring a half-formed complaint to oni-san about wanting softer bread from the pantry sack.
Elsa knew exactly which sack held the softest rolls. She knew the girl hated the hard crusts and always asked to have them carved away.
The words almost rose to her lips.
Instead, she listened as Subaru gently shifted through the supplies in the dark, finding the food and quieting the girl with an easy murmur.
The carriage rolled on across the quiet plains, leaving the ruined town behind.
Her name was still Elsa Granhiert.
Only one person in the world remembered what that name meant, but for tonight, that single thread was enough to hold onto.
She tightened her grip on the leather reins and drove them toward the morning.
※ ※ ※
End of Part 2