Ester climbed the first step of the carriage, the toe of her boot tapping against the icy wood. She rested her hand on the door, but didn't enter. She paused, as if remembering something, and slowly turned to Damon.
Her gaze, still as cold as the air around her, raked him up and down. "Damon…" she called, her calm voice concealing a sharp heaviness.
He swallowed hard. "Y-yes…?"
She pointed with her chin at the petrified body of the Hounds' leader. "Take his head off."
Damon blinked, astonished. "What?"
"Bandits have bounties," she explained, as if she were talking about something trivial. "I want you to claim them when we get to town. Get the money." And with that money… buy a decent spear."
He glanced at the frozen corpse, then at the destroyed spear still on the ground. "Is this… serious?"
The corner of her lips lifted, a barely perceptible smile. "Consider it my apology for destroying your spear."
"A woman like you apologizes?" Damon thought.
The way she said it didn't really sound like an apology… more like a gift from a predator to a surviving prey.
Ester then turned and continued up the carriage stairs, each step echoing against the wood, as if she were closing a chapter in a book written in blood and ice. Before entering, she glanced back once more.
"And don't be long. I hate waiting."
A heavy silence enveloped the field again, broken only by the distant sound of wind rustling through the trees.
Damon took a deep breath, preparing to do as she asked…
Damon approached the motionless body, the ice crackling beneath his boots. The air around the corpse was even colder, as if the last breath of the leader of the Hounds had been trapped there, caged by Esther's touch.
He crouched down, reached out, and grabbed the man's broken sword. The metal was almost sticking to his fingers from the cold. He took a deep breath, feeling the icy air cut into his throat.
For a moment, he just stared at that frozen face—the expression of terror immortalized like a grotesque statue. The man who minutes ago had seemed an untamable beast was now nothing more than an icy trophy.
Damon raised his sword. "I hope it's worth it…"
With a firm, sharp blow, the blade came down. The sound wasn't of flesh being cut, but of something solid was breaking—a deep crack, like ice cracking in winter.
The head came off with a snap and rolled a few inches, leaving behind a trail of frozen crystals instead of blood. Damon caught it by its stiffened hair, feeling the weight and coldness seep through his gloves.
He held the trophy aloft for a moment, staring into its dead, glassy eyes. "The strongest survive… and the weakest die… it makes sense."
He turned toward the carriage. Esther was already sitting inside, watching him with an almost feline interest, like someone evaluating the obedience of a newly tamed dog.
Wordlessly, Damon began walking, carrying the frozen head as proof… and as a reminder that this woman wouldn't ask twice.
Damon climbed the carriage steps with the frozen head of the Hounds' leader dangling from his hand.
Damon climbed into the carriage, throwing the frozen head of the Hounds' leader into a leather bag he found in the corner. The impact It made a dull sound, like stone hitting stone.
Before he could say anything, he heard a voice from outside.
"Damon!" It was Garrick, one of the knights traveling as escort. "Are you still in one piece?" Were you hurt anywhere?"
Damon tilted his head to the side and saw Garrick and the other knight, Caelan, already on their feet. They had regained their composure, though they were visibly battered. There were marks of fighting on their armor, deep scratches, and dried blood on the plates, but nothing compared to the state of the surrounding field. The ground was covered in shards of ice, dark stains, and mangled bodies.
"Yes… I'm fine," Damon replied, holding his head as proof.
Garrick glanced at him, then cast a quick glance at Esther's still figure inside the carriage. A nervous half-smile appeared on his face.
"I guess we were lucky to have her with us." He shook his head, as if trying to convince himself it hadn't been a nightmare. "Lucky… or something close to it."
Caelan gave a dry, humorless laugh.
"Lucky, yeah…" he muttered, climbing onto the bench beside her. Garrick.
Damon didn't answer. He simply settled into the carriage, closing the door behind him and feeling the wood tremble slightly as the horses prepared to leave.
The sound of creaking leather and metal indicated that Garrick was back at the reins. Damon sat in the seat across from Ester, but she continued to stare out the window, which was somehow a relief. He leaned back, still holding the frozen trophy.
"She's scary when she wants to be…" Garrick said from outside, his voice thick with respect and apprehension. "I've seen skilled people, but… this? I've never seen anything like it."
Damon shifted his gaze to Ester. She didn't react to Garrick's words, made no gesture of pride or disdain. She simply kept her chin slightly raised and her gaze fixed on the horizon.
Scary…?
The word echoed in Damon's mind, but he didn't agree. Not with that term. Scary was the natural reaction to something unknown and dangerous, but what he felt wasn't just fear. It was… something more.
He closed his eyes for a moment and mentally returned to that moment. The way she moved… there was no waste, no hesitation. Just one step, one turn, and all the men fell, shattered and frozen before they even realized they were dead. He couldn't even see the blow. It was as if the world had blinked, and in the next second, the field was covered in ice and corpses.
Speed… no, it wasn't just speed. It was precision. It was absolute control. And there was a strange beauty in it—a lethal harmony that left him uneasy and fascinated at the same time.
Beautiful.
That was the only word his mind could find to describe it. Not the kind of beauty of a smile or a landscape, but something brutal, savage, and perfect. An act of death so pure it seemed like a work of art.
He opened his eyes and realized he was still looking at her. Ester then turned her face slightly toward him, as if sensing his gaze. He didn't say anything, but for a moment her cold blue eyes met his. Damon felt a shiver run down his spine—not of fear, but of excitement.
He quickly looked away to the opposite window, as if nothing had happened.
Outside, the road was covered in tall trees, their branches leaning over the road, letting only fragments of light through. The sound of hooves hitting the damp ground echoed steadily, almost hypnotically.
"Damon," Garrick's voice came suddenly, breaking the silence. "Did you see that?" He laughed nervously. "You mean… did you really see it?"
"No…" he answered truthfully. "I couldn't keep up."
"Yeah," Garrick shook his head, still controlling the horses. "I don't think I could even train for a hundred years. She… she's like a force of nature."
Damon didn't answer. Force of nature was a good description… but it still didn't fully capture what he saw. Garrick saw a dangerous storm. Damon, on the other hand, saw a spectacle.
The conversation died there. The icy wind continued to seep through the carriage's cracks, bringing the distant scent of blood mixed with the clean chill of the ice. Damon rested his elbow on his knee and let the Hounds' leader's head rest beside his leg, her weight reminding him that this was no dream.
Ester remained still. Only the gentle rocking of the carriage made her body move slightly, but even that didn't seem to break her posture. It was as if none of it had required effort, as if the massacre he'd witnessed was just an insignificant detail in her day.
Damon wanted to ask. He wanted to know how she did it, how she could move like that, how she could kill without hesitation and still find room to "apologize" for destroying someone's weapon. But something in him told him that asking could be dangerous.
So he fell silent.
The sound of hooves, the creak of wood, the cold… and, above all, that presence. A presence that needed no words to assert itself.
He noticed that, although Garrick and Caelan had regained enough confidence to return to work, there was still a tension in the air. Neither of them looked directly at Ester. Neither of them seemed to want to catch her eye.
"She's truly someone I want."