"I'm cold," I said blankly, shivering as I crouched next to an empty soup bowl on the ground. Alice stood beside me, trembling just as much. "Alice, I'm cold."

I had been repeating those words for several minutes, to no avail.

The first time I mentioned my discomfort, Alice went over to the campfire to ask Blert and his subordinates for help. They sat about twenty feet away from my dismal little "dining area," gathered around a bonfire so large that its light illuminated every inch of this barren patch of land we'd stopped on.

Alice had returned with a grim expression, and since then, she hadn't said a word.

There was no knight guarding us tonight. They were all huddled by the fire. I guess they hadn't expected Fokchick estate to be so damn cold tonight.

Though their absence should have comforted me, somehow, all it did was enhance the disgusting, foreboding feeling in the pit of my stomach.

"Alice," I started again, rubbing my arms aggressively, trying to generate some semblance of warmth beneath this wretched cloth. I clenched a small, circular object in my right palm. "What did Blert say?"

Alice waited a moment before answering, her pink eyes avoiding mine, her expression blank.

Alice was usually unreadable and strange, but she was acting even weirder as time went on...

"'We do not welcome criminals among our comfort,'" she repeated in a robotic tone.

I wasn't surprised.

"... Did he offer you a place by the fire, leaving me here to freeze?" I asked. "Sounds like something he would do."

"Indeed, he did."

I turned to her, confused. "And you didn’t take it?"

"A maid interjected, saying that leaving you unsupervised and unshackled would be irresponsible on their part, my lady. So someone had to stay with you."

I snorted, going back to rubbing my arms. "As if I could go anywhere without him knowing." I glared toward the blazing bonfire, which made the camp resemble a lamp in the dim.

Alice could have pressed harder with Blert, insisting I couldn't go anywhere even if I wanted to. After all, she knew about the ritual from last night.

Why she didn't remains a mystery... One I suppose I'll never solve, given tomorrow will be my emancipation day, and I'll never have to see her foreboding face again.

Footsteps in the distance alerted both of us to a new arrival.

"Ahem," a familiar silhouette approached from the bonfire area. Broad-shouldered and tall, the gleam of the glass dagger at his waist confirmed his identity before I even saw his face. "It's me," he said, perhaps to avoid startling us.

"Sir Truman," I greeted, the corners of my lips lifting into a polite smile.

The cold metal of the tiny gold ring I held pressed against my skin, reminding me of its presence within my palm as I watched Truman draw nearer.

I had spent the entire day turning this moment over in my mind, debating the best way to read this man.

In the end, I decided the quickest way to gauge him—at least on the surface—was to use this ring.

"Miss Alice," Truman greeted, holding an oil lamp in one hand. The mouthwatering smell of cooked meat followed him. "Lady prisoner," he gave us both a nod.

Alice's posture had returned to her usual stiff, silent self, while I remained crouched, trying to conserve heat.

"Commander Blert has given the order that you two be taken to your sleeping tent as a gesture of mercy toward Miss Alice. He ordered me to relay this oil lamp to you as a symbol of his apathy... human apathy." He blinked, realizing his error.

Alice leaned slightly toward me. "He means empathy," she solemnly corrected.

"How gracious of him," I mumbled, reaching for the lamp as Truman extended it toward us.

"Thank you, Sir Truman," Alice nodded.

She stopped shivering the moment Truman arrived.

"Oh, thank the commander," Truman chuckled, his white teeth flashing as he grinned. He shrugged, standing up. "He only extended his pity to Miss Alice for she declined his offer to take place by the fire, abandoning the prisoner lady."

A jolt of disbelief surged through me as I looked at Alice.

I opened my mouth without thinking. "What kind of ill individual are—"

"Nonsense," Alice's soft, lifeless tone cut through the air, firm and imposing. She didn’t look me in the eye; instead, she stared Truman down, her gaze piercing his very soul. "Impudent knight. Do not speak of matters your simple mind cannot comprehend."

Truman blinked, looking around as if unsure whether her words were really directed at him.

With that, Alice marched off, leaving both of us standing there, confused.

"I thought she was some scheming snake, but it turns out she's just a weirdo," I muttered, toying with the oil lamp in my hands. I studied its shape, wondering how to turn it on. "Don't mind her, Sir Truman," I waved a dismissive hand.

"Weirdo?" Truman repeated, still watching Alice as she disappeared toward the tents.

I stood up with a grunt, dusting off my clothes and offering Truman a polite, hopefully amicable, smile. He returned it with a faint, slightly confused grin.

"Let’s head to your tent, then," he offered.

"Yes, let's." I swung my right hand dramatically to usher Truman ahead.

Clink.

The ring I held slipped from my hand and landed softly on the ground. Pretending not to notice, I continued walking.

"You dropped a ring," Truman said, making me stop. "My lady, doesn’t this belong to you?" He stepped forward, holding Delilah’s ring in his palm.

I eyed the ring, then looked up at Truman, narrowing my eyes.

"I... Thanks," I said, taking it from him.

My palms were in a fist, and the fabric around my neck felt tight, slowly causing me to suffocate.

"No problem," he said casually. "You should be careful. With everything you're carrying, it'd be easy to lose something."

I blinked, watching his thin lips move as he scratched his jaw.

"I... I have no idea what you’re talking about."

"Oh, I mean the jewelry you're hiding under your clothes," he said, his tone completely innocent. His golden eyes met mine with what almost seemed like obliviousness, while his words might give me a stroke.

Truman analyzed the mortified, barely concealed look on my face, which I couldn't control in the spur of the moment. His eyebrows shot up as he covered his mouth.

"Oh, I had decided not to mention that," he said with an awkward chuckle. "I guess it's too late now."

"W-what are you trying to say? Are you threatening me?" I took an unconscious step back.

"No, I wouldn’t dare." He raised his hands defensively as if offended by the mere suggestion. "I am quite inept at keeping secrets, or even at telling lies, to speak plainly. Still, I am no fool to attempt coercing you into relinquishing your treasures, Lady. With a simple scream from you to alert my party, I would lose more than I could ever gain. Such an admission on my part would only serve to confirm the commander’s suspicions towards me, and at best, I might get a measly reward for my moral righteousness."

I watched him speak. My breathing was discomforted as I felt the bandages on my neck claw at my throat, something that couldn't be right given how I had loosened them while bandaging it.

Focus.

Truman seemed like the type who filled silences on his own. His words should have reassured me, yet the unease in my stomach only grew with every passing moment.

"Pray excuse me—" Truman’s golden eyes met mine once more. "Ah, and on the subject of apologies, I have yet to express my gratitude for your... discretion in the forest." He smiled, a faint but genuine smile.

"... so no one else knows?" At this point, I couldn’t deny the truth.

As I studied his simple features, the campfire blazing behind him, with Alice’s footsteps fading in the distance and the crackling bonfire echoing through the night, the newest thought in my mind was...

"Of what?" Truman blinked, clueless.

The southernmost land of Suttone, the Fokchick Estate, stretched out as a barren expanse, its hills lifeless and soil dead. A few desolate forests lingered, whispering of a green past.

Blert Blach’s 4th Division of the Penalty forces camped after a long day’s travel.

The fog seeping in from the very ground they camped on cut the moonlight's rays into a million sparks, scattered upon the terrain.

Commander Blert sat near the large fire, his rough locks glinting a deep orange hue in the face of the fire's heat. It had been ignited by the handful of shackled, fire-blessed children who accompanied them on the journey. Their blue eyes gleamed with something hollow, small snake tattoos etched on their cheeks as they shuffled aimlessly through the camp. When their work was done, they begged for scraps, drifting through the crowd like forgotten shadows. When done, they were meant to return to their carriage, unseen and unspoken of.

One of those kids had gotten lost in the clamor, the rusty metal binding his small foot clanking with his every move. The little boy ended up where the carriages sat.

"C-Coachmen..." He mumbled, a confused glint in his blues as he recognized, far down the road the caravan came from, the coachmen silently dragging a horse each, walking back.

Everyone had been granted permission to warm their limbs beside the flare's grandeur tonight, even the fire-blessed children. All except the caravan's loathed, self-absorbed villainess. By her side was one foolish commoner girl and a golden-eyed mercenary.

"Yes, yes..." Holison mumbled to his colleagues, sitting on a fat wooden trunk the knights brought off the nearest forest, which was a little farther from where the prisoner's designated 'dining area' was located. "Indeed, this grand caravan's staff order was in fact summoned within a mere period of three hours!"

"Capital!" A male servant nodded. "That must mean they handpicked the most capable workers to join this excursion, wouldn't ya say?"

A maid jumped in, "They even assigned us a Clergywoman as capable as Melissa, in addition to a medic! I expected no less from our King, Korpa bless his heart!"

"Long live the Bravehearted." Blert lifted his wooden cup, his hazel eyes glittering with a bluish core as sweet pride carved a light grin on his pursed complexion.

The rest of the people chanted the phrase, giggling as they sat there, reveling in their ignorance, utterly oblivious to the absolute death that was creeping up on them from... Well, from absolutely everywhere.

Unbeknownst to a soul other than the coachmen who were marching back towards the capital in grim quiet, was the fact that the journey route the caravan had taken was planned out by him.

And that route met its planned end here, in the barren center of Fokchick's ghostly hills.

There would be no passing through a grand, miraculous lake. There would be no arriving at Suttone. There would be no surviving for anyone who rode this caravan right upon their arrival on Fokchick's foreboding soil.

Not even to the coachmen, who mistakenly thought they would survive this night as they unknowingly walked toward their dug graves.

As such were his orders.