The atmosphere was heavy and foreboding. Alice gulped as it seemingly ratcheted up a couple of notches even though nothing noticeable happened.

Lily situated herself on the far side of the couch, looking like she was attempting to squeeze herself into the corner and become one with the carriage. It was…n’t working out for her. She’d stopped crying after the ninth speed bump, at least.

Alice coughed lightly, the tension making her itch. She tapped her feet impatiently, wondering when Blanche was going to return and put an end to this stifling atmosphere. Was he seriously planning on staying up in the front for this entire trip?

Lily and her had gotten along fairly well before—or at least as well as two people who’d met during an impromptu alliance born out of the mutual desire to survive could—and Alice wouldn’t mind returning to that familiarity. Unfortunately, it appears like whatever happened in the village made Lily completely shut off, her body delegated to breathing and the occasional grunts when they hit another speed bump.

Alice cast her mind back a couple of days ago to their grand escape. Why did Baron let them go? She’d combed through her memories repeatedly, searching for any details that may have appeared insignificant in the moment but had greater implications. The only thing that came to mind was the extravagant jewel Baron explicitly made certain was in his hand before sentencing the trio.

It all came down to that jewel, she was sure of it. Now all she needed to do was connect the dots and form the picture.

At that moment, the carriage rolled over another bump and jostled the inside. Alice bounced up, hitting her head on the roof before slamming onto the floor. Cursing, she started to get back up before being smacked with a heavy weight. Falling back to the bum, she barely caught herself on the couch.

“What the heck? It’s heavy.” Alice griped, cracking open her eyes. She was met with Lily’s face way too close to her, seeing the immaculate, pale skin only inches from hers. “Ah!”

She barely stopped herself from heaving Lily away, forcing her limbs to be dead as stone. It wasn’t that difficult, honestly. Lily’s weight was pushing down on her arms anyway and making it fall asleep.

The elf shifted, accidentally elbowing her in the stomach. Alice let out a small oof!, grimacing as a dull ache rippled from the area. “Uh, can you get off?” she asked as politely as one could given the circumstances.

Lily drew back, showing the entirety of her face. This was the first time since their journey began that she showed Alice her face, and Alice made sure not to let this opportunity pass. She examined Lily’s face, searching for any indicators. Of what, she wasn’t really certain yet.

The other girl’s eyes were bloodshed and tinged red, clearly the aftermath of hours of crying. Alice wouldn’t have been surprised if Lily had cried until her tear ducts dried up.

Lily’s face was sunken and her skin looked stretched over her cheekbone, giving her an overall gaunt expression that was more fitting in a ghoul than an elf. She wore a haunted look, like she’d seen horrors one couldn’t imagine.

That made sense. For Alice, it had simply been another village in an increasingly long line where she had to flee. For Lily, it had been her home, her cherished family. One could hardly compare the two.

With that taken into account, Alice had tried to be as understanding and patient as possible. She thought she did fairly well with that. She’d suffered two full days in this jostling carriage with Lily emanating the most suffocating aura of despair and guilt. She’d conserved her water and food, knowing full well that Lily wasn’t in any state of mind to do so. When Lily lost her appetite midway through a meal, it was Alice who gently coaxed her to take a couple more bites so she wouldn’t starve. It was Alice who held her when Lily completely descended into a crying fit and was unaware of her surroundings.

For over 48 hours, she’d dutifully taken care of Lily because she felt like it was her responsibility. After all, would things have turned out this way if she hadn’t interfered in their life?

Regardless, even saints had limits and Alice was no saint. Questions were bubbling up inside her, and as hard as she tried to keep it contained, it was becoming more difficult by the second. It would have been nice if she could go up to the front to be with Blanche and ask him privately, away from Lily’s ears, but when she’d tried, he had brusquely demanded she head back into the carriage.

So now she was stuck with having an overflowing amount of questions while being too apprehensive of setting off Lily’s fragile mental state to do anything about it.

“Excuse me,” Alice grunted, slowly pushing Lily off. The elf went limp and didn’t complain as she lifted her by her armpits and draped her over the couch. She was surprisingly light, lighter than she’d felt when she was on top of Alice. Or maybe Alice had gotten stronger.

Lily was positioned at an awkward angle, limbs contorted and head bent to the side. Alice got to work unraveling her limbs since Lily didn’t seem like she could be bothered to do it herself. Even a few hours earlier, she would have hesitated at touching another person so frivolously. You only did so for those you were intimate with. At this point however, Alice couldn’t care less about what the society thought. Lily was hurting, and she’d do whatever she could to alleviate that pain.

After she was completed with her task, she took her seat on the other couch again. She’d tried to sit on the same couch as Lily but whenever she sat down, Lily had begun to freak out and begin hyperventilating. She didn’t have a problem when Alice was tending to her, but the instant she placed her bum on the same piece of leather, that was too much for her.

The carriage came to a halt and she raised her eyebrows. They usually stopped whenever they were going to sleep. Alice peered out the window; sure enough, light was streaming through the hole. Footsteps were audible, going around the carriage and stopping in front of the door.

Blanche fumbled with the key, cursing when it fell to the ground. Alice hid a giggle with the back of her palm as the sound of the key gnashing against the wood increased in intensity. The dwarf let out a low growl before Alice heard something thud against the door, rattling the carriage. Lily inadvertently squeaked and the amusement poured out of Alice.

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Stalking forward, she unlocked the door and forced it open, smacking Blanche across the face. He stumbled backwards and rubbed his nose, glowering at Alice. She merely shrugged in a what can you do? motion.

“You. Leave.” He pointed at Lily before cranking his finger over his back. “Go catch us some food.”

Alice gazed at him in aghast awe. She knew he was callous to a fault and had difficulty comprehending when to be direct and when to have a softer touch, but this was too much, even for him. She opened her mouth to protest but the words died on her tongue when Lily dutifully got up and walked past Blanche.

Alice stood on her toes, trying to peer over Blanche and make sure Lily was safe. From the way she was shuffling forward like a mindless zombie, she didn’t have the highest hopes for her probability of survival.

She snapped her attention back to Blanche. “What the hell was that for!? You know she’s not all there mentally!”

Blanche closed the door behind him as if he was worried Lily would be eavesdropping. She rolled her eyes at his paranoia. “You underestimate her. Baron taught her how to hunt from when she was a baby until it became ingrained into her bones. She’s a better hunter than you even in this state.”

Alice flushed. “T-that’s not the point! It’s about her mental state, not just about the dangers! How are we supposed to cure her?”

Blanche scoffed. “‘Cure her?’ Stuff like that, kid, aren’t always cured. I’ve seen some people return from endeavors with that same look in their eyes, and they’re never the same. Getting cut from your family is a wound that will never close, not completely.”

Alice paused. Something in Blanche’s voice…it was more raw than he tended to show. Why would he—oh, right. He doesn’t have a good relationship with his family either. She looked at him in a new light. He probably knew more about Lily’s condition than she did. She had been the one to leave her family, and even then, her family hadn’t imprisoned her. In this case, it might be wise to defer to Blanche’s greater experience.

But she couldn’t deal with watching something wither away in front of her. She’d thought that rescuing Lily from the noble would be the end of it, but she was still carrying the pain. And Alice didn’t know how to make the pain go away, or if she even could.

“Lily…has an interesting relationship with Baron.” Blanche began. Alice perked up, instantly going on alert. Were these finally the answers she so desperately craved? “We’re going to be stuck together for a while depending on what happens in our next stop, so it’s wise for you to know what’s going on. This way, you won’t make a mess of things like you almost did back then.”

Alice bristled but held her tongue. The confirmation that they were going to another village was something she’d already known—Blanche had stated that this was the final stop before the capital—but she didn’t like the way he worded it. What would happen to Lily in the upcoming village?

“Lily wasn’t born of the tribe. She was a baby they found during one of their trips in the land further up. She was surrounded by the bloodied corpses of guards. All of them were elves.” Blanche explained.

Alice inhaled sharply. Even she knew that elves were among the top echelon in terms of influence and power; it had been part of the reason why she was so shocked to find Lily here. But to discover that she had such a dark past? And having guards implied she was of a particular statue within the ranks of the elves…

“The tribe didn’t know what to do. Their morals urged them to take in the lost child, but they were wary of inviting the danger that slaughtered the guards. In the end, only one of them stepped forward to take her in as their own. That was Baron.”

She widened her eyes at the revelation. She opened her mouth, about to blurt out a tsunami of questions before thinking better about it. She needed to learn more of the tale as soon as possible, and questions would only derail that dream.

Blanche breathed heavily, looking like he was reliving memories from years ago. “Baron had no idea how to handle a child. He was next in line to become chief, and had no time for romance. He asked everyone he could find with even a morsel of advice on how to handle children.” He chuckled bitterly. “I told him that he was overthinking it and that children just needed some food.”

The thought that Blanche and Baron must have been extremely close for him to go to Blanche for suggestions occurred to Alice, and she bit her lips. Turning your back on an old friend…that was something she knew as well.

“And I was right. He took to fatherhood as well as he did with leadership. Lily grew up strong under him and he taught her everything he knew. She was beloved, and the dark fate that may have befallen her if he hadn’t taken her in never came to fruition. At the same time, he was happier than he’d ever been. I swear, he was smiling so much whenever her name was brought up, it was ridiculous.”

Alice furrowed her brows, trying to connect the man Blanche was painting with the one she’d seen. There was such a huge dischomety between the two, it was hard to comprehend that they were one and the same.

“Then they happened to stumble across a place rich with ore. There was much civil unrest in the tribe. Some wanted to take an extended break from traveling to mine the ore and become rich. Others wanted to stay true to their nomadic traditions and not be tethered by material desires as so many of their brethren tribes had. In the end, both didn’t get their wishes. The nobility came and ravaged the makeshift town. They slaughtered the current chief, Baron’s father. In desperation, Baron rose up and negotiated a term with the nobles. In exchange for protection and safety, they would mine ore and give all of it to the nobility. His silver tongue impressed the nobles who thought commoners were barbarians, and they agreed. Baron had won them their lives, but they were little more than slaves.”

“I tried once, I think, a long time ago, to free them. I was rebuked with ease and told by Baron to leave them alone. And then I realized the depths he would go to maintain the status quo. I knew the instant I laid eyes on Lily.” Baron paused here, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “Nobles…especially lower ranked nobles, don’t like the presence of other species. It’s made even worse when they’re elves. Naturally blessed and superior in every way, they made the nobles insecure, and that was something none of them could handle. They took it out on Lily, ordering the tribe to shun her. They wanted to see her be rejected once more. Baron had no choice but to do so, and the rest of the tribe followed suit. Before they left, the nobles gifted Baron with a jeweled necklace, but in reality, it was just another way they kept him on a chain. A weak magical tool that allowed the owner to telepathically communicate with the person holding the replica. Often bought for children.”

Her mind flashed back to the moment when Baron made a show of taking the necklace from under his shirt and holding it close to his mouth. “Then—!”

Blanche nodded. “A ruse. He kept himself and the village in the good lights of the nobility while protecting his daughter.”

“But won’t they be angry regardless that we got away?” Alice prompted.

“There’s no way around it. He can mitigate the damage, but sooner or later, their interests were going to clash. This was the best way Baron could hold his ground long enough to think up a plan. They’ll be punished, but they won’t be razed to the ground.” Blanche admitted.

Alice placed her head in between her legs, reeling from everything she’d learned. She had been hoping for droplets of knowledge and had received an ocean of it instead.

“Baron was a father who loved his daughter very dearly and the chief of a tribe that existed for a hundred years. Even so, he stood no chance against the night of the nobility, and the best he could do was exchange their souls for their lives.” Blanche locked gazes with Alice, his black-as-coal eyes boring into hers. “You want to change the way the world turns? You have to be better than Baron. Much better.”

He stood and exited the carriage, leaving Alice alone with her thoughts.