(Eri's POV)
The horse moved slowly through the forest path that night. The moon was high above the trees, lighting the narrow road just enough for the journey back toward Kazunaga. I did not rush. There was no need. The forest was quiet again, but my mind was not.
My thoughts kept returning to the waterfall, the woman at the falls, her name. Elara. I repeated it quietly in my mind. Elara. Where had I heard that name before? It felt familiar, not completely strange. Somewhere in my memory, the name already existed, but I could not place it yet.
My horse continued along the forest road. The sound of hooves against the dirt was steady and calm, very different from the chaos earlier. My thoughts returned to the fight. She defended well, better than most travelers. Not a soldier, but not helpless either. Her stance showed training—basic, but disciplined—and that alone told me she was not an ordinary person.
Still—what stayed in my mind was something else.
Her reaction. The way she looked at me. There was confusion in her eyes, curiosity, and something almost… embarrassed. I almost smiled at the memory.
Strange.
Most people who saw me with a sword at their throat did not react like that. They panicked. They begged. Or they tried to run.
She did none of those things.
She simply stood there and answered.
"My name is Elara."
I frowned slightly. Where had I heard that name?
Then another thought crossed my mind—the bandits.
If she had not been there, I would have killed them. That much was obvious. Bandits in the Forbidden Forest were not new to me. Every mission outside the palace came with danger—ambush, assassins, bandits, sometimes worse. It had become normal.
Sometimes I returned with wounds. When that happened, I stayed in the forest until I healed. I could not return to the palace injured—not with visible wounds, not with a limp.
I refused to show weakness.
If the court saw that, they would whisper. The future ruler of Kazunaga cannot even survive outside the palace.
No.
I would not give them that satisfaction.
So I stayed in the forest. The herbs were enough. The water from the lake. Silence. That was enough to heal most injuries. The palace never needed to know.
My aunt especially.
I already knew she wanted me erased, removed from succession.
The tasks she gave me were not random. Dangerous roads. Remote territories. Unstable borders. Every assignment carried risk.
But that plan had failed.
I was still alive.
And that fact alone must already be frustrating her.
I imagined Sato's expression when I returned safely again. The thought almost made me laugh.
The wind moved softly through the trees. I straightened slightly in the saddle. The capital would appear soon, and with it—the palace, the court, the council, the endless games of power.
But none of that mattered now.
Only a few months remained.
In a few months, I would be crowned the ruler of Kazunaga, and anyone who tried to stand in my way would learn very quickly that storms do not break me. They only make me stronger.
For a moment, another thought crossed my mind.
Why did I think about that woman's safety?
If I wanted to, I could have attacked the bandits immediately. That would not have been the first time I faced men like them. Killing bandits was not something new to me.
But that night, I did not move.
Instead, I chose to hide.
Not because I was afraid, but because I knew there were too many of them.
Outnumbered fights were never simple, even for someone trained like me.
And if I attacked recklessly, the woman would have been caught in the middle of it. She might have been injured, or worse.
So I waited. Watched. Calculated.
I chose the safer move.
Still… the question remained in my mind.
Why did I care if that woman got hurt?
She was a stranger, someone who walked into the most dangerous forest near Kazunaga without understanding what waited there.
Yet in that moment—I chose to protect her.
I frowned slightly as the horse continued along the dark road.
Strange.
Very strange.
Because normally, I never involved strangers in my battles.