39 Chapter 39: One Question (1/2)

SALEM: The thing about traveling with someone is that you learn certain things about them you'd never have otherwise. Whether you like it or not. Because you're stuck together under the great ocean of endless sky.

It wasn't my first time traveling with someone, but it was my first time traveling with a witch. And now she didn't have gransia handcuffs on.

Which made things very different.

She had two ways of staying on the cart. She would either sit in the front, her hands folded on her lap, with the quiet dignity of a noblewoman. Or she would lie on the corn, sprawled out, without a care in the world, oblivious to everything.

And right now, she was on the corn.

She stretched and yawned. Took a cob, summoned a dancing flame into the palm of her hand, roasted it and ate it.

”Salem, you want some?”

I ignored her.

”You want?” She prodded my back with the corn.

I turned around. I shook my head.

She made a face.

She said, ”My magic isn't poisoned, you know.”

There's always two sides to a person. A good side and a bad side. Kindness and savagery. It exists in everyone. It exists in me. And it exists in Elina. More so than in anyone I've ever met.

When I first saw her in Altheim: a grey dress, magic all around her. A kind girl loved by everyone. More like than angel than a witch.

Then in the honeytrap village. She played along. Watched the charade unfold. In the end, she killed everyone. Using magic I've never seen before.

At that time I didn't realize it. Because of the shock. Or because I was just glad to be alive. But that village had roughly a hundred people. She had killed a hundred people. Just like that. And she would've killed the children too.

She did it without blinking, without remorse.

She lay in the back of the cart, munching her corn, humming a tune, as content as a priest on a Sunday morning when all the folk came for prayers and offered donations.

Such capacity to kill was frightening. Even the most hardened mercenary would need to see a priest after butchering an entire village. Honeytrap or not. It would shake anyone's conscience. But not hers.

”Is something wrong?” Elina asked.

I said nothing.

She climbed into the seat. Sat down next to me.

The seat was too large for one person, too small for two. Our shoulders touched. I could feel her warmth.

I glanced at her.

Her blank silver eyes looked up at me, mildly curious, a spark of smugness hiding in their depths.

She said she wanted my trust.

She forced me to rely on her.

She hadn't killed me. But she could've done so.

Did she spare me because she wanted to keep her word? Or was there another reason?

With the handcuffs off, she didn't need me anymore.