Lia (1)
He had long since stopped counting how many days had passed since he left the capital. He thought he might have kept track for the first day or two. The third, maybe. Or the fourth.
Then, at some point, the thought simply came to him.
What now?
Walking for ten days did not mean he would arrive anywhere in particular. A month passing would not suddenly create something he needed to do. Counting the days only mattered to people who had somewhere to be tomorrow. Leon had nowhere.
The wind at the turning of the seasons was sharp enough to cut. Low black clouds hung heavy, ready to spill rain at any moment, but Leon did not quicken his pace.
There was nowhere he needed to hurry toward.
No one left to scold him for being late.
No one waiting for him anymore.
And yet, every so often, familiar sounds still reached him.
The steady rhythm of Kael's footsteps leading the way. Sila's limp, drawn-out voice complaining that they should rest just a little longer. Irene snapping that she should have trained her stamina properly in the first place.
And then—
Golden hair turning back every few steps.
Estelle had always checked on whoever walked last.
Are you okay?
The moment that remembered voice brushed his ear, Leon shook his head hard.
"...Damn it."
He did not even know who the curse was for.
The people in his memories.
Or himself, still digging these things up one by one days later.
It was over.
He had said so himself when he walked away.
Clinging to the past now, chewing over every scrap of it, was not in his nature.
Leon pressed his lips tight and started walking again.
That was when he heard it.
A horse's scream, far off.
Hiiiii!
Not just one.
The tangled thunder of hooves and distant shouting rode the wind toward him, mixed with the sharp ring of steel on steel.
Leon's steps halted.
His hand moved to his sword hilt on pure instinct—the habit of four years spent walking dangerous roads. His body reacted before his mind could decide.
The sounds were still distant.
Trees and hills hid whatever was happening. But somewhere beyond the road, a small skirmish was definitely underway.
Bandits, maybe.
Or mercenaries turning on each other.
Common enough.
Leon listened a moment longer, then started to step off the path.
No reason to get involved.
He was no longer in any position to meddle in the world's every little affair.
But then—
Thud.
Something heavy struck in the distance.
Thud. Thud.
A single set of hoofbeats began closing in with unnatural speed.
Leon's brow furrowed.
"What the...?"
Two horses burst around the bend.
Their eyes were rolled white with terror.
The reins whipped wildly through empty air; the driver's seat was vacant. Behind them, a small, heavy iron carriage lurched and rattled in tow.
A runaway.
Whether someone had cut them loose on purpose or the driver had been thrown during the fight, he could not tell.
The horses came straight at him, directionless and blind with panic.
"Shit."
Leon threw himself off the road.
The carriage screamed past him by inches.
In that same instant—
Clunk!
The left wheel climbed a stone jutting from the roadside.
The whole body of the carriage tipped hard.
The horses shrieked.
And then—
CRAAASH!
The axle snapped.
The carriage slammed onto its side and tore a long, ragged scar through the dirt. The sound of splintering wood and shrieking metal rolled through the trees.
The two horses, still dragging the broken harness, vanished into the forest.
For a while the frantic beat of their hooves thrashed between the trunks.
When even that faded, silence settled over the road as if the chaos of a moment ago had never existed.
Leon slowly pushed himself up, arm still shielding his face.
Dust hung in the dull air. The shattered wheel still spun weakly. From the cracked wood and twisted iron rose the mingled reek of oil and blood-metal.
The overturned carriage lay sprawled across the middle of the road like a dead animal, hard to believe it had been racing only seconds earlier.
"...What kind of day is this..."
Leon brushed the dirt from his clothes.
Faint shouting and the ring of steel still drifted from far away.
But they were not coming closer.
If anything, they were drifting farther beyond the trees and hills.
Leon watched that direction for a time, then turned his gaze back.
Only then did he properly examine the wreck in front of him.
One runaway carriage had simply broken free of the column; the fight itself seemed to have continued on the far side of the road.
Leon hesitated briefly.
He could have just walked past.
But the carriage had flipped right in front of him.
There might have been someone inside.
In the end he let out a short breath and approached.
Up close, it was no ordinary merchant wagon.
A small transport carriage, every side plated in thick iron.
The only opening that could even be called a window was a single barred slit barely wide enough for two hands.
On the side, beside a merchant crest, a number had been stamped.
17.
And beneath it—
a small red brand.
Product.
Leon's eyebrow twitched.
"Slave traders."
Strange, though.
Slave wagons meant for moving people in bulk were usually large and long.
This was not.
The interior had been built for one person only.
One chain.
One pair of shackles.
No long bench.
A tiny prison designed from the start to carry a single soul.
Leon gripped the crumpled door.
After a few hard pulls the twisted iron plate screamed open.
There was someone inside.
The first thing he saw was her hair.
Too blue to call black, too deep to call blue. Under the overcast sky it looked nearly black, revealing its true navy only where light touched it.
Deep navy.
Between the strands, a pair of beast ears rose.
A wolf beastkin.
A girl.
She sat slumped against one corner of the carriage.
Her forehead was split—probably from the crash—and drying blood had run past her temple and down her cheek.
Both hands were bound in thick iron chains.
Shackles on her ankles.
And around her neck, a black collar of layered leather and metal.
Even so, she did not move.
She looked almost dead.
Leon's footsteps drew closer.
Then—
one navy wolf ear twitched, just barely.
She had heard him.
A moment later the other ear turned toward him as well.
But nothing changed on her face.
Slowly.
Very slowly.
Only her golden eyes moved.
They lifted to meet his.
No fear.
No hope of rescue.
No wariness toward a strange man.
No relief at still being alive.
Nothing at all.
The gold was clear, yet hollow.
That was the first time Leon understood that beautiful eyes and living eyes were two entirely different things.
Leon looked at her a moment longer, then dropped his gaze.
The chains binding her wrists.
Old, but thick.
And far too heavy for a girl like her.
Layer upon layer of scars ringed her thin wrists.
Fresh red marks from this latest binding.
Older scars healed beneath them.
And fainter still, traces so old the color had nearly vanished.
These were not the first chains she had worn.
Without a word, Leon drew his sword.
Shing.
The instant the blade moved, the girl's ears flattened hard against her skull.
A reflex.
Her face stayed blank, but her body flinched from the sound of steel first.
Leon pretended not to notice.
He slid the tip of the blade into a link of the chain.
He was about to twist it like a lever and snap it when something cold settled over the back of his hand.
Leon stopped.
It was the girl's hand.
The pressure was so weak it barely seemed meant to stop him.
But it was clearly resting on his.
His eyes rose.
Those empty gold irises looked up at him.
"...Why."
Her voice was cracked.
Like someone who had gone so long without speaking that she had forgotten how.
Leon asked,
"Why what."
Her gaze fell.
To the sword.
To the chains.
Back to Leon.
"This."
"It's meaningless."
Leon did not lower the blade.
"Why."
"They'll just put them back on."
The words were flat. Certain.
Not sad.
Not bitter.
As natural as saying that winter brings cold.
She might have been freed once.
She might have run.
Someone might even have told her it would be all right.
But in the end she had been caught again.
Sold again. Bound again.
After enough repetitions, freedom stopped being joy and became nothing more than the brief empty space between one set of chains and the next.
Leon looked into her eyes for a long moment.
Then, carefully, he slid his hand free from beneath her small one.
He gripped the sword again.
"Even so."
He put his weight into it.
Crack!
One link twisted and broke.
Again.
Clang!
The heavy iron dropped to the carriage floor.
"They're off right now."
The girl's ear flicked, just a little.
Her gaze fell to her own wrists.
She curled her fingers once, then opened them.
Again.
She stared at the place the chains had been as if the bare skin were something foreign.
Then—
"...Okay."
That was all.
No joy.
No smile.
No thanks.
Something twisted unpleasantly in Leon's chest.
He had not wanted gratitude.
He had never done it for that.
And yet it still felt wrong.
The chains that had bound a person had just fallen away.
And this girl expected nothing from that fact.
The feeling was probably not aimed at her.
Leon looked away.
Only a few days ago, the future had been just as obvious to him.
There had been people he believed would still be walking beside him tomorrow.
Now that he knew how hollow that belief had been—
the girl in front of him no longer looked entirely like a stranger.
Leon clicked his tongue.
He searched the wrecked carriage.
Being a small transport, it held little food. A few hard pieces of bread the driver must have eaten, some dried meat, and a single water skin. That was everything.
He tossed the bread and jerky onto the girl's lap.
Thud.
She looked down at them.
"Eat."
A few seconds of silence.
"...Am I allowed?"
"I gave them to you."
"Mm."
Only then did she pick up the bread.
She took a slow bite.
She did not wolf it down.
She did not savor it.
She simply chewed.
Swallowed.
Chewed again.
It looked less like hunger and more like a living body demanding fuel, so she was putting something in.
Leon leaned against the wall and asked,
"Name?"
No answer.
Only one ear turned toward his voice.
"Don't have one?"
"Lia."
She answered without lifting her eyes from the bread.
"I'm Leon."
"...Mm."
That was the end of it.
Leon sheathed his sword.
This was enough.
He had freed the chains.
He had given her food.
The rest was hers.
More importantly, he had no idea when or how the distant fight would end.
No reason to linger.
Leon climbed out of the ruined carriage.
He walked several steps.
But—
behind him, there was no sound at all.
No footsteps.
No rustle of cloth.
Leon turned his head.
Lia was still there.
Sitting in the broken doorway, on the floor of mixed blood and dirt, simply holding the bread.
Her navy tail hung limp beside her legs, never once moving.
"You're not going?"
Lia looked up.
"Where."
"Anywhere."
"..."
"The chains are off. You planning to just sit here?"
Lia glanced at her wrists once.
Then she looked out beyond the carriage.
The forest.
The road.
The gray sky.
None of it seemed to look like a destination to her.
"It's the same."
Leon asked back,
"What is."
"Whether I stay here."
A short silence.
"Or go somewhere else."
The gold eyes returned to him.
"It's all the same anyway."
The words hurt in a strange way.
Maybe freedom only felt good when you had somewhere to go.
"You can go anywhere" sounded fine.
But if there was nowhere you wanted to go, no one you wanted to meet, nowhere waiting for you—
then "anywhere" was not so different from
nowhere
at all.
Leon looked down at his own boots.
For days now, he had been the same.
Walking wherever his feet took him.
Calling it a wandering journey if that made it sound better.
But the truth was simpler.
He had nowhere to go.
Leon roughly raked a hand through his hair.
"Then."
One of Lia's ears turned toward him.
"Come with me as far as the next town."
"Why."
"I'm headed that way too."
It was a lie.
Leon did not even know the name of the nearest town.
Lia stared at him for a long while.
Whether she saw through the lie, he could not tell.
Or maybe truth or lie had never mattered to her in the first place.
After a long time—
Lia braced a hand against the carriage wall.
Her arm trembled; she nearly fell once.
But she stood.
The limp navy tail dragged slowly through the dirt.
Leon started walking first.
A moment later—
Scuff.
Scuff.
Small footsteps followed behind him.
Leon did not look back.
That was enough.
Night came.
They made camp in a small clearing at the edge of the forest, off the main road.
One modest fire.
Smoke rose from it and melted into the dark.
Leon watched Lia across the flames.
She was eating the bread and jerky they had taken earlier.
But when she had eaten almost exactly half, her hands stopped.
She wrapped the remaining bread and meat in a scrap of old cloth.
Then she tucked it deep inside her clothes.
"Why are you saving it?"
Lia looked at him.
In the firelight her gold eyes seemed a little clearer than they had by day.
Not because light had returned to them—only because the flames were reflected there.
"For tomorrow."
"I'll give you more tomorrow."
Lia did not answer.
"You're hungry. Eat all of it."
Her ears dipped, just slightly.
She stared at Leon as if she could not understand what strange thing he was saying.
Then she spoke.
"Tomorrow isn't here yet."
Leon closed his mouth.
There was no sarcasm in her tone.
No resentment that she did not trust him.
Only resignation.
To Lia, today's kindness ended today.
The person who had given her warm food yesterday might not give any today.
The person who had put salve on her wounds yesterday might sell her to someone else today.
The person who had said it would be all right yesterday
had no reason to say the same thing today.
So believing that receiving bread today meant there would be a share for tomorrow was simply foolish.
Lia had learned that lesson for far too long.
That was why she saved half.
The only person who could give something to tomorrow's self was, in the end, today's self.
Leon stared into the fire without speaking.
Only a few days ago, tomorrow had not even been something he questioned.
When he opened his eyes tomorrow, Irene would be checking her bowstring and Sila would be sleeping in some ridiculous position again.
Estelle would greet him with a half-asleep face, and Kael would already be studying the road for the day.
And Leon
would have been right there beside them.
But the fact that they had been family yesterday was never a promise that they would still be family today.
Only after a long while did Leon speak.
"...Fine."
He did not tell her to eat any more.
Lia pushed the saved food deeper into her clothes.
The fire slowly sank lower.
The forest was quiet.
Only the wind combing through the branches.
Some nameless bird calling far away.
Small things like that filled the night.
A little more time passed.
Lia's ears pricked.
At first Leon thought nothing of it.
But this time was different.
Her left ear locked toward the forest.
A moment later—
the right ear turned the same way.
The tail that had been hanging limp slowly curled in close to her body.
Leon's eyes sharpened.
"What is it."
Lia did not answer at once.
She lifted her head a fraction.
Listening.
In that instant—
Vmmm.
A faint vibration.
Red light began to seep from beneath Lia's collar.
Leon shot to his feet.
"What is that."
Lia raised a hand to her neck.
When she pushed her hair aside, a mark engraved beneath the black collar was revealed.
The Slave Mark.
It was glowing red-hot.
Lia looked down at it once.
"...They found me."
"Who."
"My owner."
Leon immediately kicked the fire apart.
Thud.
He threw dirt over the embers.
Hiss.
The flames died.
Darkness swallowed the clearing in an instant.
His sword was already drawn.
"How many."
Lia's ears flicked several times.
"...Six."
"No."
Her ears turned another direction.
"Eight."
"Distance."
"Still far."
Leon grabbed his pack.
"Then we move."
But Lia did not stand.
Leon turned back.
"What are you doing."
Lia reached into her clothes.
She pulled out the bread and jerky she had saved earlier.
She held them out toward him.
"Take them."
"What?"
"The food."
Leon's eyes narrowed.
"You said that was for tomorrow."
Lia looked down at the bread in her hands.
The wind stirred her navy hair.
Her ears were still tracking the distant sounds.
But her face—
did not change at all.
"I don't need them."
"Why."
A brief silence, then Lia said,
"I won't be here in the morning."
Leon's expression hardened.
"What won't."
Lia did not even point at herself.
She spoke as if describing someone else's business.
"Me."
Leon said nothing.
He did not take the bread either.
Instead he simply pushed her hand back toward her.
"Keep it."
Lia looked up at him with those gold eyes.
"Why."
In that moment—
a foreign sound mixed into the wind.
Snap.
A dry branch breaking.
A moment later—
another.
Closer this time.
Lia's ears swung toward the sound.
Beyond the trees—
between the dense trunks, a faint orange glow flickered once.
It vanished, then reappeared.
Torches.
One.
Two.
Another a little farther off.
The trunks hid the exact number, but the lights swayed slowly left and right as they clearly drew nearer.
And then, at last, human voices reached them.
"The reaction's getting stronger."
A low, settled voice.
Someone else answered.
"She's close."
Rustle.
Brush was crushed underfoot.
Lia's ears flattened completely against her skull.
Her tail had already curled tight between her legs.
Even so, nothing showed on her face.
As if an ending she had already lived through countless times was simply arriving once more.
Leon tightened his grip on the sword hilt.
Then he raised the blade.
"Eat it tomorrow."
"..."
"You said tomorrow isn't here yet."
Lia's eyes trembled, just barely.
From beyond the trees the voices came again.
Closer now.
"It's number 17."
"She's alive."
Leon slowly turned his body toward the sound.
"So."
The tip of his sword pointed into the dark.
"Let's get through today first, then worry about it."