Elos caught up with the cart in front of a wooden bridge, with a fair stretch of the way to Ophina Village still to go. A warhorse runs faster than a cart in the end.
Two riders blocked the carter from the front, and over the faint sound of water the clash of armor seemed amplified.
The carter stopped, and Elos spared a glance for the bewildered, trembling old man.
Without saying anything, she tore down the curtain at the back of the cart, and her eyelid twitched.
"Where is she?!"
Glaring at the entirely empty compartment, with no regard at all for the dignity proper to a noble house's daughter, Elos kicked the cart's wheel hard.
The cart did not move. Two of the guards dragged the carter over.
"I'll ask you. Where is the person who was riding?"
"G-gone."
The carter was shaking.
"Halfway along she— she told me to take this to Ophina, and then she got off herself."
The carter opened his hands. In them was the ring Ella had stolen.
"Tsk..."
Elos's fist closed. She had been played.
"That creature. Clever enough, isn't she. She knew she'd be caught up with, so she bought herself time instead. Is that it?"
Grinding her teeth, Elos snatched the ring out of the carter's hand.
Where Ella had gone was unknown, but this much was certain: she was carrying a leg injury and could not get far, and without the ring she could not hire anyone else to help her either.
"You. Lead the way. Tell us when we reach the place she got off."
At her word the soldiers hoisted the old carter onto another horse.
Elos braced a hand against the cart, and her heart went faster. She did not know why she was in such a hurry.
Was it fury that Ella had stolen from her? Was it that she had been taken in by the weakness Ella put on? Or was it simply that she did not want her to leave?
Ella was special. That much was confirmed all over again. She was different. She was not afraid of her. She would put herself in front of Elos for somebody else's sake, and she would talk back, and she would complain about her behind her back.
That was unlike everyone else. Elos had been alone since she was small. She had been taught that she must not converse with commoners, because commoners were base and filthy, near enough another species beside a noble — they did not even possess the organ called a magic circuit, a difference in the substance of the body and of the soul.
Elos had the finest talent for magic, and at the same time she had known, as far back as memory reached, that she would not live past thirty. Everyone knew it. And everyone knew she would have to draw a partner's life out of them to live any longer. The nobles her own age were afraid of her, afraid of becoming the sacrifice that extended her days. No one was willing to talk to her, for fear she might take the smallest liking to them.
Nobody dared bully her, of course. People simply would not speak to her.
Fifteen years of life, and Elos had never once had an exchange with anyone as an equal. Ella was different. She was not a commoner, not one of those creatures who were practically a separate species from her, and at the same time, she was not afraid of her.
Accustomed to being feared by everyone, she wanted Ella to fear her too, but... Ella had to stay at her side.
Elos wanted her, even though she had once been beaten to tears by her, even though it had cost her every scrap of face.
"She's mine. She has to be mine. Whether I hit her or curse at her, she is mine. She was sold to me!"
Elos's head was down, and she muttered it to herself.
The mana inside her churned with the movement of her heart. Elos straightened, and swept an expressionless look over the soldiers and the trembling carter in the distance, and nothing more showed on her face.
Fire elements gathered of their own accord beside her, moved by her mood, and set the cart alight. In an instant it swallowed the cart and the old horse together and reduced them both to ash.
Elos had never even entertained the idea. She had merely felt anger.
"Hoo..."
She breathed deep and forced the churning mana down, and the elements in the air went still.
She mounted, and turned back along the road she had come.
The old carter watched the tool he ate by and the old companion of many years be swallowed by fire, and did not dare let his anger show.
As for the guards, they had known the young mistress's temper and House Beaumont's curse for a long time, and so they only stayed silent.
The mood of the column grew heavier, and Elos rode at the head of it.
"If I find her, I'll pay you ten carts. If I don't, you can die too."
That was addressed to the carter.
***
"Cough, cough... faster. A little faster."
In the dense forest well off the main road, Ella was making her way through, limping.
The dress on her was far too elaborate and got in the way of her hands and feet, and she had no knife and could not tear the hem, so it was thoroughly awkward.
"Damn it."
Stepping across a stream, she swore under her breath.
She had known in her heart that Elos would most likely catch up, and that a commoner's cart could not outrun horses, so Ella had got off halfway and had the carter carry the ring on to the destination for her.
"Hoo... what a nuisance."
Ella remembered the direction of Ophina Village.
Only once she was deep in the forest did she turn toward the village she remembered.
"Still, am I really going back? If Elos can't find me, will she post people to lie in wait for me? Father would stop her, surely?"
Of course Ella felt lost too. Getting off the cart had only been a strategy she had thought of in an emergency.
She was slightly hungry, so she took out the dried meat she had stolen from the castle, ate a few strips at random, and pressed on.
Her dress was pulled open by branches and brush, and her right leg ached almost past bearing, and Ella forced herself along.
"Go back. Go back anyway."
She had only ever wanted to see her mother, she thought.
Worst came to worst, she simply would not go and see her father. As for where her mother's grave was — she had lived there fifteen years, after all. She had friends, and what they called a "secret base." She could go to the secret base and ask her old friends. Children keep faith better than adults do.
"Go and see Mother, and then leave."
Ella touched the jade pendant at her waist again.
She was the protagonist. Everywhere was the same to her.
With a little confidence back, Ella quickened her pace. She picked a branch up off the ground to serve as a crutch and tried to keep her weight off the injured right leg.
She walked on like that, until night came down.
Meanwhile, Elos had begun searching the woods on both sides of the road with the people she had.
She had brought only a dozen or so out, and the area to be searched was vast, so naturally there was no progress at all.
Standing in the trees, using magic for light, she was restless with impatience.
The carter kept close beside her, trembling.
Elos turned her head and spared the old man a glance.
"You. Get out. You're an eyesore."
"Yes, yes! Milady, I'll get out at once."
He had already given up any hope of compensation. At this moment, the carter named Hob only wanted to get home alive.
"Take it."
Elos threw out two gold coins. She had left in a hurry and had no purse with her.
Watching the carter feel for the coins in the dark and then leave, rolling and crawling in panic, Elos thought of Ella again.
"Little mouse. Once I catch you, don't ever think of running again," she said to herself.