Riven climbed onto the driver’s seat the moment the fight was over. His hand trembled as he seized the reins, yet he forced himself to appear calm.

“Melly, you can open your eyes and ears now,” he said softly.

The little girl slowly blinked awake, still dazed. Her gaze fell on the red stains scattered across the ground behind the carriage. She froze, her face turning pale.

Riven snapped the reins, urging the horses into a faster run. He had no intention of lingering here. If any of their enemies remained, they might come looking for the mysterious woman who now lay unconscious inside.

Melly turned to her brother. In the dim light of the moon, Riven’s face was revealed—drenched in sweat, lined with scratches. His clothes were torn in several places, blood still dripping from his arm and shoulder.

“Brother…” her voice trembled, “what did you fight back there? Your wounds… they’re so bad…”

Riven gave her a faint smile, trying to reassure her though his lips quivered with pain. “Nothing serious, just a wolf. A few scratches. Don’t worry.”

Melly looked unconvinced, but she pressed no further. She knew her brother rarely lied, yet this time, she could feel he was hiding something.

The carriage rolled on along the silent path. Only the creak of wheels, the pounding of hooves, and the chill of the night wind accompanied them. Slowly, weariness weighed down Melly’s eyelids. Before long, she drifted into sleep, her head resting against the side of the carriage, her breathing calm.

Riven glanced back at her. He watched his sister’s peaceful face, then the unconscious woman beside her. For a moment his eyes were empty, before he let out a long, heavy breath.

On the outside he might have looked fine. But as the adrenaline of battle faded, the pain surged mercilessly. Wounds he hadn’t even noticed before now throbbed and burned, deep enough to scrape bone.

“Damn it…” he cursed inwardly, brow furrowing.

But he had no intention of stopping. He wasn’t yet far enough from the village behind him.

After nearly two hours, his heavy eyes forced him to seek a place to rest. When he caught the glimmer of a river in the distance, Riven tugged the reins, steering the carriage off the path and into the woods.

The wheels bumped over roots and damp earth until finally they stopped by the quiet riverbank. The gentle murmur of water was soothing, a sharp contrast to his broken body.

Riven climbed down, his knees buckling for an instant before he steadied himself. He tied the horses to a tree and drew in a long breath.

Before allowing his body to collapse, he knew he had something more urgent to do: treat his wounds. With slow movements, he stripped off his upper garments, revealing gashes and bruises across his body.

He had never fought a battle this brutal before.

From a small pouch he pulled out cloth and simple ointment. Painfully, he cleaned the blood and wrapped the worst of the wounds. Each turn of the bandage made him wince, cold sweat dripping from his forehead, but he pushed on, forcing himself to stay awake.

When he finally finished, he sat back against a large stone by the riverbank, lifting his gaze to the star-filled sky.

For a fleeting moment, the world was silent.

Riven returned to the carriage. He reached for the blanket he had left behind the driver’s seat, but his eyes were drawn to the woman lying inside.

Her body trembled violently, as though seized by a cold that pierced to the bone. Her breath was shallow, broken and uneven, her chest rising and falling in ragged rhythm. Tears welled in her eyes, spilling down as her body convulsed, the silent cry mingling with the agony she could not contain. Cold sweat poured down her deathly pale face. Her red lips parted slightly, quivering, releasing a faint, almost inaudible whisper—weak moans of pain.

“I… it hurts… please… I’m not… a monster…”

The pleading tone was unlike anything Riven had expected. For a moment, she looked like a noblewoman who had fallen from her throne; her beautiful face still carried traces of elegance, now torn apart by suffering. To Riven, watching such fragile beauty writhing in pain felt unnatural, wrong, as if it should not exist.

“Is she… trapped in a nightmare?”

He froze, the blanket still clutched in his hand. A memory surged to the surface—the words of the white-haired man striking his mind as clearly as if they had just been spoken.

“That woman… she is not human! She is the REINCARNATION OF RUIN! A madwoman… bloodthirsty… who revels in suffering! The world will fall if she is allowed to live… she must die… SHE MUST DIE!”

Riven clenched his jaw. The words hammered against his chest, weighing it down. Yet at the same time, another memory returned—the woman’s back. The scars he had seen there were not of someone untouched by cruelty. They were lashes, cuts, marks of torment repeated not once or twice, but countless times over the years. That back was the testament of long, unending suffering. Too real to ignore.

For a moment, his resolve faltered.

If she truly was a monster, then how could she have suffered like this?

His thoughts tangled. Her face and appearance clearly marked her as nobility. Yet how could a noblewoman end up like this? Covered in wounds, hunted down, left unconscious on the roadside like prey. Was she fleeing a family or court that had tormented her?

And that white-haired man… who was he, really? He had infiltrated Westford while the city still reeled from its defeat against Mordune. Was he a spy from that kingdom? If so, was this woman also part of a larger game of politics?

The fragments circled in his mind, but none fit together. Like a puzzle missing half its pieces, the more he tried to arrange them, the less sense they made. A wild thought crept into his mind, absurd enough to make him sigh as he glanced at the woman still writhing in her sleep.

“Impossible,” he muttered bitterly.

And yet, unease gnawed at him. From the beginning it was clear she was dangerous. Even before fainting, she had shown hostility toward him and Melly. What her intentions had been—whether to harm them, or something more complex—Riven could not tell.

Riven did not know. If Ashtoria hadn’t been poisoned, wounded, and drained of her strength after the previous battle, Riven and Melly would already have been nothing but torn flesh, nameless corpses.

Cold logic led Riven toward the obvious choice. Leave her. Tomorrow, when Melly woke, he could lie as always, saying the woman had already awakened and gone her own way. That was the safest path. He and Melly could continue without further risk. After all, he bore no responsibility for protecting a dangerous stranger.

He drew in a long breath. The blanket in his hand felt heavy, like the weight of a decision.

Then suddenly, something jolted him. From the woman’s nose trickled a thin line of blood, vivid against her pallid skin. More followed, seeping from the corner of her lips, staining her sweat-soaked face.

Riven froze. It was as if his own thoughts had struck him, shattering all the logic he had just built. All plans of leaving her, all careful reasoning about safety, fell apart in an instant.

This woman… if left like this, she might die.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep