TNLA 52

Chapter 52

10. The Journey

They changed horses twice through the night and rode without rest; by the time the world began to pale into blue-gray dawn, they reached a small hut.

Azen carried Arlen in, holding her steady as she tried to shake off the fatigue, and inside was someone they hadn’t expected to see.

“Miss! You’re safe! No — are you really all right? How did you get so thin… my goodness, you’ve had such a hard time…”

“Nilo…”

“Don’t stand there like that — sit down comfortably first. You’ve been through so much; you must have suffered on the way here. Did you ride all night? No, no — why don’t you just lie down? You must be exhausted…!”

His voice was frantic and quick, tears welling in his eyes as he fussed.

Nilo busied himself making a simple meal while flustered, and Azen fetched a towel soaked with water. He knelt before her and, taking her hand to wipe it, Arlen pulled her hand back in embarrassment.

“I can do it myself.”

“I want to do it.”

He looked up at her, not withdrawing his empty hand when hers slipped away.

“It’s been so long since I could serve the lady again.”

When she stayed quietly silent, he took that as consent. He turned her hand gently over and, with a reverent motion, began to wipe each finger. Soft cloth enveloped her pale, thin fingers and carefully rubbed between them.

It had taken far too long to be able to hold this hand again. In the meantime, those once-soft fingers had withered and become half what they used to be.

So much had broken and changed over the past year. It was impossible to tell what could be restored, what could be healed—if anything—let alone how far recovery might go.

Still… he wanted to heal it as far as possible, to fill and cover what could be filled. Even if scars remained, open wounds needed to be closed.

Even if he couldn’t plug the huge hole blown in her heart, he wanted to at least let her live and breathe again — to get her pulse going.

After wiping up to the tenth finger, he looked at her once more. She had been watching him quietly; when their eyes met she offered a faint smile.

They set out simple finger foods that could be eaten by hand. Nilo sat at her feet and carefully took off her shoes.

“Ha… who would do something like this… what bastards…” Nilo grimaced; Arlen forced a small, awkward smile.

“Can this be fixed?”

Azen, unable to wait, pressed him for an answer. Nilo clicked his tongue.

“This was deliberately left untreated, wasn’t it? God, the people who did this should be hanged. You’d think they at least called a doctor, right? Some man with a ‘doctor’ badge comes and does this? Those kinds should have their hands cut off… Anyway — the joints are dislocated, yes, but worse is they let the insides keep rotting on purpose. Damn them… I’m sorry, it’s been infected for so long a complete cure is impossible.”

Azen ground his teeth at Nilo’s rough words, but Arlen nodded with a resigned expression. She had suspected as much. Even when doctors came daily to examine her and her wounds never healed, she thought perhaps someone was taking measures to make sure they stayed damaged.

“He can still make it better than it is now. It must hurt terribly every time you put weight on it… it hurts if he even touches it, right?”

“…Yes.”

“First we have to set the ankle properly because those bastards didn’t even set it right. It’ll hurt a lot; so take some painkillers first…”

“No, painkillers take a long time to kick in. I can stand it — just do it.”

“There’s time. We have that time…”

Azen cut him off, his voice barely controlled. Arlen looked at Azen.

“There’s enough time to take painkillers so she won’t hurt. Please — take them.”

She hadn’t known.

She knew she limped and couldn’t walk well, but she didn’t know that each step was agony. She hadn’t known it in her previous life, and she hadn’t known it now. She had never said she was in pain, and that bastard had never tried to notice.

He had probably only said something like “make sure she doesn’t wander alone,” and the physicians, in obedient fulfillment of that order, had let that fragile ankle rot.

That bastard was satisfied that she could no longer walk alone and didn’t look at the suffering she endured behind it.

The thought that she had still tried, every time she met him, to walk around by herself so she wouldn’t appear completely broken made his blood boil.

After she took the painkillers and some time passed, Nilo grasped Arlen’s ankle and twisted it. The sickening crack echoed horribly through the room. Even with the painkillers, Arlen’s face went white with pain, but she endured it without a cry.

She generally bore pain without fuss, but even so, not to that degree. How had she grown so accustomed to pain?

While Nilo continued talking and applying medicine and bandages to her ankle, Azen gritted his teeth. That bastard. I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him someday. A man like him should die the most cruel and horrible death.

“Azen? Are you watching? Pay attention — you’ll need to do this every day.”

“I am watching.”

He watched without missing a single detail and memorized everything without error.

“Now you try, Azen. I’ll watch and guide you.”

When Nilo unwrapped the bandage, Arlen winced again.

“Does it hurt?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“…If it hurts, please tell me, Miss. If you hurt and I don’t know, I might make it worse, and I don’t want to do that.”

Azen looked at her as he spoke. After she looked into his eyes for a moment, she spoke slowly.

“A little — just a little…”

Azen forced himself not to clench his hands in anger and moved them slowly and carefully. He handled her foot like a newborn’s and began to wrap the bandage gently. From behind came an exclamation.

“Azen! That won’t do anything! Even if it hurts a little, you have to wrap it tighter! Oh, you’re hopeless… here, give it to me, I’ll show you again.”

Once Azen learned the technique, Nilo laid out a bunch of medicines and herbs and explained them one by one, even producing a booklet he’d made himself — “Medical Guide for Miss Luthen,” or similar.

The amount was far too much to carry around, so Arlen was taken aback; Azen merely examined the medicines calmly as if he already knew them.

After a brief examination, Nilo scratched his head.

“Her body is far too weakened and unstable… that’s certain. So many things are unstable. It’s not just one or two issues. Honestly, so much has been damaged that it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what’s wrong. Anyway, overall you need to strengthen her body. Take the medicines I mentioned, and for the ankle’s infection, take the medicines I gave you three times daily for three weeks, and remember to re-bandage before walking and take the bandages off at night. Keeping them on all day can actually slow recovery.”

“Okay, I understand. Thank you, Nilo.”

She answered with a smile.

It wasn’t as bright as before and looked rather weak, but it wasn’t a forced smile. Maybe some of her heart had softened, or meeting people she’d known long ago had awakened old habits — she smiled more naturally than expected.

Nilo left.

They parted without telling each other any of their routes or plans, just in case. Nilo would go his way, and Azen and Arlen theirs. No contact.

After Nilo left, Arlen stared, stunned, at the mountain of medicines and herbs now spread before them.

“How are we supposed to carry all this…?”

“We’ll go by carriage from here, so it’s okay.”

In his previous life, that low-ranking knight had been quite good at hiding; tracking him down hadn’t been easy, but ultimately they found him through a clinic.

She was frail, and several physicians had been assigned to her to keep her alive. In a life on the run, it was only natural she’d need to visit a doctor when her health worsened. Concentrating surveillance on the medical practitioners and catching his trail was a straightforward judgment.

So this time he planned to minimize visits to doctors.

He had even considered taking a single physician along when they fled. But where could one find a reliable, trustworthy doctor willing to risk his life and keep quiet?

Someone like Nilo would gladly play the role of doctor and help, but his mouth was too loose. In the short time they had lived together, he’d made dozens of slip-ups.

He trusted Nilo’s loyalty and medical knowledge, but that loose mouth would certainly be a disaster during a fugitive life. So although they had arranged to meet here, Azen kept every other plan secret from Nilo.

Above all, she wouldn’t want more people putting themselves at risk because of her.

It had been so hard to get Azen himself to accept her. He had to meet and persuade her many times before she believed that taking her on the run wasn’t a sacrifice for him but something he desperately wanted.

In fact, there were others who had risked themselves for her in this plan — people who owed her or bore grudges against the Requies family.

No matter how much Azen knew the fortress’s structure and all the holes they’d used to come and go with Jexion, he couldn’t alone set three separate fires that wouldn’t easily be extinguished all at once.

But Azen decided not to tell her about those people. There was no need to pile any more guilt or burdens on her.

To him, the most important — indeed the only important thing — was her. Anything that could make her feel uncomfortable should be hidden.

“Won’t the carriage slow us down too much?”

“We’ll be fine. It’s better to move quietly than hurry.”

They could never outrun them in a speed race. They also couldn’t fight their way past them every time. So they would sacrifice speed and travel quietly, hiding until the watch on them relaxed completely. That would be better for her weakened body anyway.

They had been caught in the east in the previous life. ‘Kashien’ had gone on an expedition to the west, so instinctively he might have avoided him by heading the opposite way, or perhaps the plan was to seek asylum in Berock. The escort knight’s thoughts and plans were unknown.

He deliberately headed west. It didn’t seem likely that people fleeing would run west where Kashien had gone, and besides, there was no reason to return to the ominous place where she had died before.

Of course, west wasn’t exactly a lucky direction…

‘Still, I don’t want to go to the place where she died again.’