The wagon swayed rhythmically, lulling them to the quiet, steady creak of its wooden springs. The roads, which only few days ago had seemed buried alive under a two-week-old blanket of snow, had finally been cleared. The heavy outposts of Aden were left behind, and Gaston now led them forward with confidence along the packed, open highway.

They were heading home, to the old border estate of the Rosenthal family. It was a simple, in places dilapidated house with creaking floorboards and a roof that leaked during spring rains, but it was the only property the spouses had managed to hold onto after the ruin of their lineage.

Elena was asleep, leaning against Azalea’s shoulder. A heavy travel cloak shielded them both from the piercing wind, and Azalea tried to sit perfectly still so as not to disturb the woman’s slumber.

Every now and then, she looked down at her hands. The glow was gone. They were ordinary human palms. Though they had recently been roughened by the harsh, forced labor in Albert’s house, they were now completely smooth and soft again, just as they used to be. Inside, right beneath the skin, she could still feel a faint, barely perceptible tingling. The magic pulsed in time with her own heartbeat, and Azalea alternatively clenched her fingers into fists and relaxed them again, trying to grow accustomed to this new, frightening sensation.

The wagon jolted over a pothole, and Elena stirred, slowly opening her eyes. She didn't lift her head from Azalea’s shoulder right away, but merely smiled softly, gazing up at her pale profile.

“What are you thinking about, dear?” Elena asked quietly, her warm, sleepy voice cutting through the monotonous hum of the road. “Or rather... what is it you fear? You’ve been sleeping fitfully these past nights, and when you’re awake, it's like you're in the clouds.”

Azalea’s gaze flicked to her own fingers, then to Marcus’s back as he silently guided the horse from the driver’s seat, before finally returning to Elena. The woman’s question had struck a nerve. She was afraid. Afraid of waking up back in the forest. Afraid that Albert or Berthold would find her. But most of all, she was tormented by a single question she hadn't dared to ask all these days.

Azalea took a quiet breath, gathering her courage.

“Why did you help me?”

Elena raised her eyebrows in surprise, finally straightening up and looking the girl in the face.

“You couldn’t have known that magic would awaken within me,” Azalea continued, her voice growing steadier. “I didn't even suspect it myself. To you, I was nothing but a burden. The runaway wife of a petty border officer, the daughter of a ruined nobleman, followed by a trail of debt and disgrace. You spent all your saved money you’d been hoarding for years on my freedom. Why?”

At those words, Marcus’s back noticeably tensed on the driver’s seat. He didn't turn around, but Azalea saw his broad shoulders freeze unnaturally beneath his doublet, his fingers tightening their grip on the leather reins. A heavy, ringing silence settled over the wagon, broken only by the snorting of the horses.

Elena cast a brief, barely perceptible glance toward her husband, a deep, long-hidden sorrow flickering in her eyes. She turned back to Azalea and gently but firmly squeezed her cold hand.

“Because the world isn’t made entirely of transactions and profit, Azalea,” Elena replied quietly, yet with absolute certainty. “Sometimes, you just have to remain human.”

Up front, Marcus gave a muffled cough, breaking the lingering silence, and called out to the horse a little louder than usual, urging it forward. But Azalea had already noticed how his lips trembled. Behind their secret lay something far greater than mere compassion, and Marcus’s silence spoke louder than any words.

“Whoa, Gaston,” Marcus pulled on the reins, and the wagon came to a creaking halt by the roadside beneath a canopy of spreading fir trees. “Let’s take a break. The horses need a rest, and it wouldn’t hurt us to stretch our legs either.”

He leaped down onto the cleared road, but instead of tending to the harness right away, he reached into the inner pocket of his doublet. His fingers trembled slightly as he drew out a small silver tinderbox. Marcus slowly, deliberately rolled a cigarette, as if the ritual helped him gather his thoughts. Stepping into a snowdrift, he walked a good dozen paces back along the road, turning his back to the wagon, and lit it, exhaling a thick plume of blue-gray smoke into the frosty air.

Elena watched him with a heavy gaze and let out a quiet, bitter sigh.

“He hasn’t smoked in a long time,” she murmured, adjusting the slipping cloak on Azalea’s shoulders.

Azalea looked at Marcus’s solitary figure in the distance. The ember of his cigarette seemed like a tiny, barely visible speck against the backdrop of the endless snowy forest.

“Marcus used to have a niece,” Elena began softly, her hand tightening slightly over Azalea’s. “Jane. His older brother’s daughter. Marcus and I had only just married back then... Oh, she was a wonderful girl. Kind, compassionate, and incredibly bright. You know, she was the type of person who couldn’t pass by anything unusual or interesting. She loved animals, always bringing wounded birds and stray dogs into the house... And she loved one man. They were supposed to bind their lives together; the entire estate was buzzing with pre-wedding hustle. Marcus and Thomas were so happy...”

Elena paused for a moment, her gaze drifting somewhere through the trees, as if she were reliving that nightmare all over again.

“Right before the ceremony, one of her friends... a girl Jane considered almost a sister, came to her when our girl was left alone. She confessed that she and Jane's fiancé had slept together. What’s more, the girl was pregnant. Jane... her fragile, pure world shattered in an instant. She couldn’t endure that double betrayal. Without a word to anyone, wearing nothing but her light wedding dress, she ran out of the house. Right into the very heart of winter.”

Her voice sounded lifeless, as if every word was saturated with sadness. Azalea felt everything inside her tighten. Jane’s story mirrored her own flight from Albert’s house.

“A terrible blizzard began that day,” Elena continued hollowly, tears cutting into her voice as if she had been transported back to that fatal moment. “We searched for her. Marcus and Thomas personally scoured the forests for weeks, wearing their feet to the bone, begging the guards, the mercenaries... But she was only found two months later, when the snow began to thaw. No miracle happened, Azalea.”

A single tear rolled down Elena’s cheek, but she quickly brushed it away with her free hand.

“After that, everything fell to ruin. Her father went mad with grief. He lost all sense of what he was doing, and the vultures immediately began to circle him. They cheated him, swindled his money, slipped him forged debt obligations... Marcus and I were in the Eastern Empire at the time. By the time we returned, the Rosenthal lineage was completely ruined. Our main estate was taken for debts. Marcus and I loved Jane. She was like a daughter to us. And when he saw you on that snowy road...”

Elena turned to Azalea and looked straight into her eyes with such infinite tenderness and warmth that Azalea’s breath caught.

“Marcus simply couldn’t walk past a second time. Saving you was his chance to beg heaven for forgiveness for failing to save Jane. Because of you, Marcus feels a little lighter now. I can see it. He may have saved you, but you saved his soul.”

Azalea remained silent, feeling hot tears streaming down her own cheeks.

In the distance, Marcus tossed his cigarette butt into the snow, crushed it with the toe of his boot, and slowly walked back to the wagon, adjusting his collar. His face was an impenetrable mask once more, but Azalea could now see what a deep, noble soul was hidden behind it.

The man approached quietly, stepping softly along the packed rut with his hands behind his back. His face seemed impassive again, but a warm, playful spark lurked in the depths of his attentive eyes. He stopped by the driver’s seat and asked calmly, with a slight squint:

“Gossiping, are we?”

Before Elena could answer, Marcus swiftly whipped his hand out from behind his back and hurled a neatly packed, firm snowball at his wife. It struck her squarely on the shoulder, bursting into white flakes against the green cloth of her cloak. The travel wagon instantly echoed with his booming, genuine laughter.

Marcus spun around and bolted down the road.

“You scoundrel!” Elena cried in a mock-stern tone.

Instantly forgetting her exhaustion, she leaped from the wagon straight into a loose snowdrift and, scooping up clean snow with her fingers as she ran, gave chase to her husband. Marcus ducked and weaved between the snow-laden firs, continuing to roar with laughter as Elena caught up to him, relentlessly throwing one snowball after another.

Azalea sat on the bench and laughed. It was a pure, ringing laugh, breaking through the remnants of the bitter tears she was wiping from her cheeks. She watched them, genuinely unable to comprehend how two adults who had survived the ruin of their family, exile, and such a terrible loss could behave so childishly and enjoy the moment in the middle of a winter wilderness. In her own home and in the suffocating atmosphere of Aden, every gesture hid a calculated motive, but here... here was life. Genuine, imperfect, and alive.

From this aching feeling of absolute happiness and safety, Azalea gripped the old wooden side of the wagon tighter with her roughened fingers.

She didn't notice how it happened. It no longer hurt, and the power no longer strained her veins, demanding an immediate release. Her palms, pressed against the weathered wood, began to glow with a soft, barely perceptible, steady blue light. The magic pulsed in time with her calm, deep breathing.

Blue sparks ran softly along the grain of the wood, spreading like thin capillaries across the entire side of the wagon. Right beneath her hands, deep old cracks filled with road dust began to silently close up. The tilted step straightened itself out, the joints between the warped parts strengthened, and the embedded dampness vanished without a trace, giving way to pristine durability. The magic did not destroy. It quietly and gently renewed the wagon, turning it into a single, reliable monolith, ready to endure any journey.

Azalea watched Marcus and Elena running among the trees, feeling the old storm inside her finally quiet down for good. Now, they had one road for the three of them.

P.S. For about ten minutes, a complete silence hung over the forest, broken only by the quiet, baffled muttering of a man. With wide eyes, Marcus was practically crawling around the wagon. He touched the sides that had been creaking from dampness just this morning but now gleamed with a noble sturdiness. He examined the wheel joints and the step.

“It can’t be...” he mumbled, tugging at the edge of the wooden canopy that used to wobble. “There was a crack a finger wide right here. I wanted to drive a wedge into it myself at the next inn... Where did the rot go? This is madness...”

Elena and Azalea stood a little to the side. Elena winked at the girl, while Azalea hid her palms deep inside the pockets of her cloak.