It was cold.

  The carriage creaked forward over snow-covered stone roads, accompanied by cracking noises and an unsubtle rocking. Blue and I huddled under a shared blanket, nestled among barrels and wooden boxes. Comfort had never been a priority, but traveling alongside the supplies due to the weather was downright miserable.

  We had heated stones in the campfire before leaving, tucking them under our blanket for warmth. But their heat had long since faded. Now, all we had was our shared body heat. Not that we had any grounds to complain—the horses outside were a sturdy breed from the Frozen North. For them, this weather was practically a pleasant summer day. The knights riding atop them, however, were far less fortunate.

  “Having fun?” I asked Blueberry jokingly, rubbing my numb hands vigorously.

  “Would it be strange if I said I am, Miss Gift?” She didn’t lift her head, but I caught a faint, discreet smile from the corner of her lips. “I’ll admit, I’d prefer if the cold weren’t so harsh, but… this is something I never imagined I would ever experience. Also, everyone is so kind to me; they talk to me like I’m not even a slave. They like my food, even Master Uther do. I don’t remember ever being this happy.”

  I smiled and gave her a gentle squeeze; she was such a gentle soul. To be honest, I had questioned myself several times about whether bringing her along was the right choice, but at that moment, I finally made peace with my decision.

  It had been four days since we left Darkmoon. At first, I feared that Blue might have overheard my conversation with Dahlia that night, but I noticed no change in how she treated me. Eventually, I concluded it was just an unnecessary worry.

  My musings were abruptly interrupted by one of the knights letting out a loud grunt, followed by a string of curses vividly describing the promiscuous life of some unknown person’s mother. A series of thudding sounds, like rocks striking a wooden plank, echoed inside the carriage. A metal tip pierced the side wall, making Blue and me jump.

  A distant shout, muffled by the wind, reached my ears. The carriage jolted to a sudden stop.

  Orders were barked. The clatter of hooves and the sharp sound of steel being drawn filled the air.

  “Blue, stay here,” I ordered firmly.

  I carried the circlet inside my cloak to keep it warm, knowing I might need to wear it. Just the thought of placing a freezing piece of metal against my temple gave me a headache. Slowly, I opened the back door of the carriage and peered outside. A group of men emerged from behind the bushes and trees lining the road.

  One of the knights was struck by a hunting arrow. It seemed a salvo of arrows and spears had been launched at the caravan, though with little success.

  Uther led the charge against the bandits, flanked by four of the kingdom’s finest knights. There was hardly any combat to speak of. By the time the riders finished encircling the bandits and the first splashes of blood stained the pristine snow, the remaining assailants had dropped their weapons and surrendered.

  I wasn’t exactly a military analyst, but it didn’t take one to see that the bandits never stood a chance. They were poorly equipped, poorly trained, and completely uncoordinated. Against an unprepared merchant caravan, they might have had a slim chance of success. But here, their attack was nothing short of suicidal.

  Professors Locan and Dhalia, traveling in the third carriage, arrived after the fight and wisely chose to stay out of it. Uther was a royal and a military commander, anything he decided to do with those bandits had the force of law.

  The medic and the army spellcaster were traveling in the other supply carriage. I wasn’t familiar with the mage, but the medic was a regular presence during Uther’s journeys—a no-nonsense doctor who had taught me much of what I knew about first aid during our trips, if for no other reason than pass the time.

  One of the knights was hit by a lucky hunting arrow in the arm, but the arrowhead was not even capable of fully penetrating the armor, so the injury was very mild. That was the only wound suffered by our group.

  “Sit here. Let me take a look at this wound,” the medic ordered, pointing at the carriage foothold.

  “This is just a scratch.” The knight complained. “We don’t have time—”

  “You will sit down, you will shut up, and you will let me take care of this wound.”

  Well, he was a combat medic. Handling stubborn, muscleheaded soldiers was routine for him.

  The knight looked startled but complied in silence. The medic opened his bag and began tending to the wounds.

  I looked over at the bandits seated in a circle under the watchful eyes of three knights. There were fifteen men in total, with at least four visibly injured. I had my bag of first aid supplies with me.

  “Can I treat the wounds of the prisoners?” I asked Uther for permission.

  He studied them for a moment before replying, “Yes, but don’t use healing potions, we don’t have any to spare.” Turning to the prisoners, he barked, “This kind lady will tend to your wounds. If anyone even looks at her funny, I will behead every single one of you. Is that clear?”

  Even I took a step back. Uther was pissed and sometimes I forget just how terrifying he can be.

  Blueberry poked her head around the side of the carriage, so I asked her to gather some wood to start a fire, which I ignited using the spell I knew.

  The first one I went to treat had a cut across his abdomen. He had been absurdly lucky—the sword had only grazed him. Just a few millimeters deeper, and he would have been disemboweled. I pressed a cloth over the wound to stem the bleeding, but something felt off. It was as though I could feel the contours of his organs beneath my hands.

  I looked at his face. His skin clung to his skull like a thin sheet of cloth, his eyes sunken and lifeless.

  “When was the last time you ate?” I asked, keeping my voice as gentle as I could.

  “Don’t know, milady. A week? Maybe more…”

  I glanced at the others. Their winter clothes made it hard to judge their bodies, but they all wore the same gaunt, hollow expressions.

  I treated the remaining wounded. Two had serious injuries, though not life-threatening—one would likely lose the use of his left arm, and the other would need absolute rest for at least two weeks.

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  The last one, however, had a fatal wound. I could have saved him with a potion, but Uther’s orders were clear. In a way, he was probably the luckiest of them all. He only had to endure a few more minutes, the other ones still had two or three weeks of starvation to look forward to.

  “I am Prince Uther Dimetres of the Kingdom of Central and Marshal of the Capital Army. You have attacked my group without provocation. Explain your actions so I may pass judgment.”

  Uther spoke with a firm, commanding tone, his voice carrying an edge of menace. It sounded as though he had memorized the words from an old decree. He rarely acted with such formality.

  The prisoners exchanged uneasy glances, their expressions shadowed by fear and exhaustion. Finally, an older man rose slowly, his movements heavy with weariness, and knelt before Uther. His voice, tired and resigned, broke the silence as he began to explain his actions.

  “We’re from a village nearby, your highness,” he said, gesturing toward the side of the road. Through the sparse trees, a few houses were faintly visible in the distance. “Most of our crops were destroyed by the monsters, but we managed to survive the past few months by hunting and foraging. Then, just before winter, a band of ogres found our village. We fled and hid until they left, but they took everything we had saved for the winter—all our food.

  “Sometimes, caravans carrying food pass through this road. We tried stopping them to buy some, but they said they couldn’t sell to us, even if we had the money—which we didn’t. I even offered my children to them so they could survive as slaves, but the man just laughed and left.”

  He paused for a moment, the weight of his words hanging heavily in the cold air.

  “I was desperate. We decided to attack the next caravan that came through this road. It was that or starve.”

  Uther looked at the man’s face in search of signs of subterfuge, but he was just too exhausted to try anything.

  “How many people are in your village?”

  “There are twenty more, all women and children,” he replied.

  Uther remained silent for a moment, his gaze sweeping over the prisoners, their frail, emaciated forms and the absence of hope etched into their hollow expressions. His demeanor betrayed no thoughts, but the weight of his judgment hung heavy in the air.

  “You have attacked us unprovoked, injured one of my men, but you have taken no life. In retribution, I will claim the life of one of your men,” Uther declared, his voice cold and unyielding. He gestured toward the gravely injured man who had just succumbed to his wounds. “That one will do. You may return to your families, but this mercy will not be granted again.”

  There was little joy among the prisoners, but they accepted the mercy all the same. Quiet discussions broke out as they debated what to do with their recently deceased comrade.

  “Maybe we can eat him,” one of the men suggested matter-of-factly. “If we cut him into small chunks, we can tell the children we found some game. They don’t need to know…”

  The suggestion churned my stomach, but I said nothing. I had no right to judge them.

  I came close to Uther, speaking to him in a volume that we would not be overheard.

  “Master, can’t we leave some food for them?”

  He did not looked at me, just replied: “We can’t spare anything.”

  “But maybe if I left some of my share of the...”

  “Gift,” Uther interrupted me with a soft, almost apologetic voice. “You know the logistics of this mission better than I do. You know what we will be facing, the dangers of our journey, and the stakes if we fail. So, I ask you: Can we spare anything?”

  I wanted to say ‘yes,’ I really, really wanted to say it. But reality is usually indifferent to my wishes.

  We needed to transport a lot of military material: inflammable oils, potions, explosive stones, even an anti-dragon ballista in case we faced an airborne enemy. There was a limit on how much food we could carry, and we had no idea how much time this quest would take.

  “No, we cannot,” I said, my voice heavy with defeat. “I am sorry, Master. I was out of line and ask for forgiveness for my rudeness.” I bowed my head.

  “You were not rude,” he replied gently. “I understand how you feel. I, too, wish we could help if it were possible.”

  In the end, Uther let the villagers have a bag of oats that were for the horses and some dried meat. It was much, much less than what they needed, probably one single day worth of food, but that was still a risk for us.

  I watched the villagers fade into the distance, a heavy realization settling over me. Whether they had been executed on the spot or allowed to leave, the outcome would have been much the same.

  ***

  The mood soured.

  We camped for the night. The weather was still cold, but the skies were clear, with moonlight illuminating the snow-covered fields. Blueberry did her best to cook for us, but I could barely stomach any of it.

  I finished cleaning the dishes, a task that was particularly challenging due to the freezing temperatures, and was preparing to go to sleep when I noticed that Uther was not there. I looked for him around the camp and found him sitting on a boulder overlooking the plains.

  I wrapped myself in a blanket and went to his side. He noticed my presence but said nothing, simply moving to the side to make room for me. I sat down next to him.

  We remained there for several minutes in silence. It didn’t take much of my empathetic skill to realize that the encounter with the bandits had troubled him greatly.

  “Do you remember the last time we stayed here?” Uther asked.

  We had traveled to Ironwall before, four or five years ago, but I couldn’t recall this place.

  “It was summer. This whole region used to be wheat fields,” he said, gesturing toward a stretch of flat ground covered by snow. “There was a farmhouse near that pond. We didn’t camp here; it was a little farther down the road.” He laughed. “Remember when I asked you to get firewood, and we ended up doing it behind a tree?”

  “Now I remember…” I replied, feeling a flush of old embarrassment. “It was too close to the camp, and I had to keep quiet... You really enjoyed doing risky things like that.”

  At that time, we had just started getting physical, so we were wild about it.

  “I just liked to see you embarrassed. Well, I still do.”

  “What a mean master...” I retorted with fake outrage.

  We both laughed.

  “It was so simple back then.” His laughter faded. “Allan was the genius of the family and heir to the throne. I was just the trouble child, good with a sword and not much else. Nobody expected anything from me, so I could do whatever I wanted.

  “I never took my duties seriously. I just used my status to travel and have fun. Central was at peace; we were powerful enough to keep our neighbors at bay. The only threats were the occasional monsters that wandered out of the dungeons, but dealing with them was more of a sport than a real danger. The country was doing just fine without me.”

  He looked up at the starry sky and sighed. “And now I have to make decisions that will cause children to starve to death.”

  There was this heavy silence.

  “I can’t stop thinking about it,” Uther continued, voice heavy with frustration. “We can’t take them to Ironwall, they wouldn’t survive the journey in this cold, and we can’t spare the supplies for the trip anyway. I considered returning to Darkmoon, but both Darkmoon and Ironwall are being supplied by the capital, and we wouldn’t be able to get enough provisions from either place. I even thought about reaching Ironwall and sending a message through the Guild to request food from the capital, but by the time it arrived... they’d already be dead.”

  I wished I had a solution for him, but I didn’t. The events weighed on me too, but I could take refuge in the fact that, ultimately, the decision was not mine to make. Uther didn’t have the luxury of such a convenient excuse.

  “Rationally, I know I did the right thing, but it doesn’t feel that way…”

  It was rare to see Uther lower his guard like that, and I felt honored that he trusted me enough to share his burdens. Our relationship had always been complicated in that regard, intimate, yet so distant due to our respective social statuses.

  It pained me to see him so distraught. If I couldn’t solve his problems, I could at least offer him the perspective of someone who had accompanied him for as long as I had

  “You are a good person, Uther. From the smallest actions to the largest, you always strive to help those around you. In a way, I’m glad this is so hard on you. It shows that even in these terrible times, under the crushing weight of responsibility and the harsh pragmatism forced by necessity, that good person is still there—suffering with the difficult decisions you must make.

  “But you are mistaken about one thing: people have always held high hopes for you. I’ve never met anyone who didn’t see the spark of greatness in you. They don’t compare you to Allan. It’s not a king they see in you; they see a hero, someone who inspires them.

  “It puzzles me that you’re not aware of that.”

  He stared at me, and I gazed back into his gray eyes. There was something ineffable in them, an intensity. It was alluring but, at the same time, terrifying.

  And before I knew it, he was kissing me, smothering me with a burning passion I hadn’t felt from him in a long time. If I could ease his frustration in that way, I wouldn’t mind at all.

  “Come with me,” I said, grabbing his hand. “There’s an extra blanket in one of the carts. The others should be sleeping, but I’ll still need to be really quiet…”