The crushing weight in my chest eased just enough for me to draw a ragged breath. The phantom sound of Elias's revolver fading from my ears left a hollow, ringing silence.
"It was just Charlie,"
Elicia whispered, her hands gently massaging the tense, rigid muscles at the base of my neck where my wings met my spine. She pulled me close, letting me rest my forehead against her collarbone until the violent trembling in my feathers finally subsided into a dull, exhausted ache.
"He's gone, little Ren. You're completely safe inside these walls. I've got you."
"Thank you... thank you, big sister," I murmured, my voice small, fragile, and completely devoid of the calculating, high-rank hunter persona I usually wore like armor.
Evelyn walked back into the living room, her small boots tapping softly against the floorboards. She had set the sticky jar of strawberry jam aside, but a tiny red smudge still lingered on her chin, completely mismatched with the crisp, authoritative collar of her Luminous Knights uniform jacket. She holding the freshly printed bundle of parchment tightly in her hands.
Approaching the sofa with a hopeful, innocent smile, she held the rolled papers out toward my 5'5" trembling frame.
"Big sister, look, Here are some newspapers. Wanna read? Maybe it has stories about your old missions, or… "
The word newspapers detonated like a flashbang inside my mind.
A horrific, geometric calculation instantly locked my brain in a vise of pure terror.
Newspapers. Media. Public notices.
My older brother… the legendary Shadow Walker, the infallible marksman of the Bureau… had seen my demonic form. He knew what I was. He had a duty to report anomalies. If he had filed his post-mission debrief, if the Luminous Knights Bureau Association had processed the data before midnight, my name, my face, my exact biological classification as a threat would be plastered across the front page. The entire city would be looking for the one-armed monster hiding in the 3rd district. The execution squads would already be checking the registries.
"No!"
A violent, hysterical spike of adrenaline hijacked my motor functions. Before Evelyn could finish her sentence, my newly regenerated left hand snapped forward in a frantic, uncalibrated blur, slapping her small hand away with a sharp, echoing smack.
The rolled bundle of parchment flew from her grip, unraveling as it hit the floorboards with a dull thud, the black ink of the headlines staring up into the dim room.
"No! No, I don't want that! They would know me! It's in there, isn't it?! My face, my name! Elias told them! They're going to hunt me down like a rabid dog! Don't look at it! Don't let them see us!" I shrieked, my voice cracking into a high-pitched, manic panic as I violently recoiled, pulling my legs tightly against my torso.
Evelyn blinked, startled by the sudden outburst, her small fingers reddening slightly from the force of the slap. But instead of crying, she looked at me with a quiet, heartbreaking understanding. She knelt down on the wooden floor, her tiny hands carefully gathering the scattered sheets of paper. She didn't force me to look at them anymore. Instead, she smoothly smoothed out the front page and began to scan the ink lines herself, her young eyes darting across the columns to check for the danger I was so terrified of.
I couldn't watch her. I couldn't look at the ink.
Sinking entirely into a tight, desperate fetal position on the light blue sofa, I buried my face between my knees, wrapping my arms over my head. My massive, crimson blood wings folded completely over my body like a heavy, suffocating shroud, locking out the world, the light, and the terrifying reality of the city outside.
"Hey, look at me, breathe... just breathe, Eirene,"
Elicia murmured instantly, shifting her weight onto the sofa to lean over my curled-up form. She wrapped her arms around the outside of my trembling wings, pressing her warmth against the cold, leather-like membrane, keeping her voice incredibly low, steady, and grounding as she tried to pull me back from the psychological prison of my own design.
"I'm right here. Nobody knows. We are right here with you."
Elicia gently shifted her weight on the light blue sofa, keeping her arms wrapped securely around the outside of my tightly folded crimson wings. The rhythmic warmth of her presence slowly began to act as an anchor, dragging my processing core back from the frantic, looping calculations of my own execution.
"Well, Eirene, Did you kill the vampire who liquidated Branch 2?"
The question cut clean through my hysteria. My mind flashed back to the ruined outpost, the stench of ash, and the terrifying, mocking smile of the purebred threat that had initiated my descent into damnation.
"I... I did," I stammered, my chest heaving as I carefully slid my right hand out from the protective shroud of my feathers.
With a faint, trembling pulse of my remaining mana, I activated the spatial matrix of my inventory ring. The air warped for a fraction of a second, and a heavy, dark velvet cloth materialized in my palm, loosely wrapped around a solid, silent weight… the undeniable, physical proof of the slaughtered purebred's termination.
Elicia stared at the object, her crimson eyes widening with a profound, quiet awe. A soft, breathless smile broke through her exhausted expression, and she gently squeezed my shoulders.
"You're a brave girl, Little Ren, Only you could have defeated that vampire. The Knights will not see you as a demon, Eirene. They will see you as a savior. You saved what was left of the branch's honor. Don't worry... big sister is right here. We will face whatever comes next together."
Before the cold, cynical part of my brain could argue or dissect her comfort, a soft rustle of paper sounded from the floor.
Evelyn stood up, having finished scanning the ink-stained columns of the scattered sheets. She walked over to the edge of the sofa, entirely unbothered by the heavy aura of the room, and held out the ironed-out pages with a bright, triumphant grin.
"Here, big sister, There are absolutely no signs of you in the newspapers. Look, read it!" Evelyn said proudly, her little voice cutting through the lingering dread.
My breath hitched. Slowly, with my newly regenerated left hand and my trembling right, I reached out from beneath my wings and picked up the damp parchment. My fingers shivered violently against the paper, making the sheets rattle as my mismatched jade-green and crimson eyes frantically locked onto the bold black typography at the very top of the page.
THE CARIA TIMES … THURSDAY EDITION
The text beneath the banner detailed standard merchant tax adjustments, a minor warehouse fire in the 5th district, and political debates regarding the outer border tolls. There were no bounty notices. There was no mention of a anomaly. There was no official report from the Shadow Walker detailing the execution of his little sister.
Elias hadn't filed the report. He had kept the ledger hidden.
The realization washed over me like a freezing wave, finally forcing the lingering, terrifying static in my mind to go completely silent. I held the Thursday edition tightly against my chest, letting out a long, ragged exhale as Elicia pulled me back into her arms, keeping the monsters of the outside world completely at bay.
My eyes, still glossy with tears, scanned past the mundane city notices on the front page, searching for the catch. And then, nestled near the bottom column in a freshly printed update, a specific headline pierced through my processing core like a jagged piece of shrapnel.
TRAITOR OUTPOST? OLIVE OIL, OWNER OF THE MAGIC TAILOR SHOP, SUSPECTED OF HARBORING ANOMALY. KNIGHTS CONFIRM HE KNEW THE BLOOD-SUCKING WINGED DEMON'S WHEREABOUTS. INTERROGATION UNDERWAY, YET NO ANSWERS YET GIVEN.
The text blurred before me. Olive.
My mind flashed back to his cramped, fabric-scented workshop. I remembered the sheer terror in his eyes when my massive, translucent crimson blood wings had first unfurled in front of him, tearing through my clothes. He had panicked, reaching for anything to defend himself against the "monster" in his shop. But I had spared him. We had reached an agreement. And with the steady, meticulous professionalism of a master craftsman, he had personally measured my 5'5" frame… from the base of my spine to the sharp skeletal peaks of my wings… carefully designing the custom crimson trench coat I wore to compress and conceal my damnation from the world. He had kept my secret. He had engineered my armor.
And now, because of me, the Bureau was tearing his life apart. They were interrogating him, treating him like a traitor because he chose to help a broken girl hide her scars.
A sudden, violent surge of raw, unadulterated rage and guilt exploded in my chest. My hands stopped shivering. My fingers violently clenched, crushing the
Caria Times… Thursday Edition into a tight, ruined ball of paper.
With a breathless, choked shriek, I threw the crumpled ball across the living room. It struck the wall with a dull thud and unraveled into a pathetic heap on the floorboards, right near the spilled pool of strawberry jam.
"It's my fault... it's all my fault! Olive didn't do anything wrong! He just... he just built the coat to keep me hidden! He's an ordinary shopkeeper, Elicia! And now the Knights are breaking him because of my actions! Everything I touch turns to ash! Elias is broken, Olive is being tortured, and I'm just sitting here in a light blue room while everyone else pays the price for my survival!"
The self-loathing was a physical weight, suffocating me, dragging me right back down into the psychological horror of my existence. I was a plague. Anyone who showed me mercy was immediately infected by my curse.
"Eirene, look at me! Stop it, look at me, Listen to my voice. You didn't force Olive to help you. He chose to be kind to you, and that is his strength, not your failure. The Bureau is the one committing the crime here, not you. I won't let you blame yourself for surviving."
Elicia commanded softly but firmly, her arms tightening instantly around my trembling torso. She pulled my head back against her shoulder, her fingers running through my silver-tipped brown hair, desperately trying to absorb the violent static vibrating through my spine. Beside us, Evelyn quietly moved closer, her little face pale as she watched my wings flare and shudder against the walls, the shadow of the demon twisting under the fierce comfort of my older sister.
The warmth of Elicia's embrace felt less like a sanctuary now and more like an unearned luxury I was stealing from her. Every beat of her heart against my cheek was a reminder of a normal, untainted life… a life I was slowly poisoning just by sitting on her furniture.
My mind, completely unhinged by the headline, slipped back into that cold, clinical, yet utterly terrifying internal monologue.
"Look at what you do, You don't just consume blood, Eirene. You consume lives. You consume safety. Olive looked at your monstrous, translucent wings, he felt the freezing wind of your damnation, and he chose to build you a shroud. He sewed his own noose into the lining of your crimson coat. Right now, in some sterile, white-lit Bureau cell, they are asking him why he helped calamity. Are they breaking his fingers? The fingers that measured your spine?" the voice whispered, echoing with the hollow, mocking cadence of the purebred I had slaughtered at the oasis.
A violent shudder ripped through my wings, the skeletal joints popping with an unnatural, wet sound in the dimness of the room. I felt a sudden, sickening wave of nausea hit my stomach… the camel's blood I had forced down my throat in the desert felt heavy, turning like acid inside me.
"I'm an infection,"
I choked out, the words scraping against my raw throat as I pulled my knees back up to my chest, trying to make myself as small as possible beneath Elicia's hold.
"Elicia, you don't understand... the math doesn't work. If I stay here, they will trace the coat to Olive, and they will trace Olive to the gates, and they will trace the gates straight to House 132. The Knights will come with their purification circles. They'll see Evelyn in her little uniform, and they won't care. They'll purge the whole block just to burn the marrow out of my bones."
"Stop it, Eirene! Breathe! Look at me! You are not a math problem! You are my sister! We are not letting them touch you!"
But my eyes drifted past her, locking onto Evelyn.
Our little sister was standing perfectly still by the spilled strawberry jam. In her oversized pajamas and her crisp, dark Luminous Knight uniform, she looked like a fractured image of a future that was already dead. The dark red pool on the floorboards looked exactly like the puddle that had formed beneath the camel's neck in the dunes. It looked like the blood that must be dripping from Olive's face right now in an interrogation room.
"You think you're safe because your name isn't on the front page? Elias didn't report you because he's a coward who couldn't bear to admit he let a demon live. But the Bureau isn't blind. They found Olive. They will find the thread. And when they do, you will watch Elicia use every drop of her divine regeneration until her heart bursts from exhaustion, and you will watch Evelyn's little uniform turn red. You are the monster under their bed, Eirene. You brought the wolf into the nursery." the monologue escalated, a crescendo of psychological horror that made the room feel like it was spinning.
A tear, thick and hot, slid down my cheek, stinging the skin where the metallic grime of my journey still clung. I wanted to disappear. I wanted the vacuum of my inventory ring to swallow me whole so the people I loved wouldn't have to breathe the same air as the plague I carried.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I didn't die in the desert."
"Don't you dare say that, don't you dare say that, little Ren. We're here. We've got you. Let the world burn outside. We're here."