The One Who Doesn't Tremble
He stood out unmistakably — because he was sitting apart from everyone else, right beside the door.
She was a woman with broad shoulders and a sturdy frame, striking enough to feel a little unusual. Perhaps it was the way she sat cross-legged, but there was something curiously masculine about her presence.
A tumble of long, disheveled blonde hair hung over her face, making it impossible to get a proper look at her. The black satin dress she wore was wrapped tightly around her entire body, as though she refused to let a single inch of bare skin show, and it only made her seem all the more otherworldly.
Was she kidnapped at the party? Or maybe I hit my head and I'm seeing things.
“Um, that person over there…….”
When Cecilia pointed toward the door, the woman who had grabbed her wrist shook her head.
“I've asked her over and over if she was all right. She won't answer. I think she might be deaf.”
Deaf?
Worried, Cecilia studied the woman by the door more closely. For an instant, their eyes seemed to meet through the tangled blonde hair, but the woman quickly dropped her head, and Cecilia couldn't be certain.
The others were still huddled in the corner, trembling with fear.
As her cold sweat dried, the chill rising from the floor pricked at her skin like an awl. Wrapping her arms around herself, Cecilia began making her way around the sealed room, pounding her fists against the walls.
“What are you doing?”
The oldest-looking woman hurriedly seized her wrist to stop her.
Fear was written plainly in the way her eyes flicked toward the firmly shut door. But Cecilia shook off her hand and spoke with resolve.
“We have to get out of here somehow. I refuse to be sold off like this.”
I have to solve this myself. No one is coming to save me.
Davion's face flickered through her mind, but she shook it away. That man no longer existed in Cecilia's life.
White-haired women were rare in the Principality of Lismere, and Cecilia knew exactly how valuable she would be as an attractive commodity.
Which was all the more reason her original appearance could not be allowed to return. Her hands quickened as they searched every corner of the hidden room.
She had reasoned that an old building must have some gap or weak point somewhere, but the walls were sealed perfectly. The boards over the windows, too, were not loose enough to be torn away with bare hands.
So the door is the only way out.
When Cecilia finally began stomping her feet and hammering at the walls in earnest, the women cried out together, panicked by fear.
“Stop it! Those men won't hesitate to kill. Keep that up and you could get shot!”
It was the very woman who had grabbed her wrist earlier. Glancing up once more at the holes scattered across the ceiling, Cecilia argued back in her head.
No, they won't even get the chance to pull a trigger.
From above, a pair of small lights was drawing closer with a soft, hissing sound.
“I—I want no part of this! Do whatever you want!”
When heavy, menacing footsteps began thudding outside, the woman finally gave up on persuasion and hurriedly melted into the darkness.
Cecilia pressed her back flat against the wall beside the door. She could feel the gaze of the blonde woman crouched there, looking up at her.
Astonishingly, that figure wasn't trembling at all — as if watching something amusing.
Then, with a hideous creak, the door swung open.
“Miss me, my adorable little puppies?”
The moment a revolting stench — a foul blend of every odor imaginable — washed over her, Cecilia gagged, forgetting entirely that she was supposed to be hiding.
The thug, snickering with his gun in hand, quickly registered her absence and his face hardened.
“Hold on. One of them's missing.”
He tucked the gun into the back of his waistband and drew out a pocketknife. Seizing the hair of the nearest woman in view, he dragged her toward him roughly and pressed the blade against her cheek.
“Where's the white-haired one?”
At the sound of a scream, Cecilia clapped a hand over her mouth.
“I said, WHERE'S THE WHITE-HAIRED ONE, HUH?!”
Just then, a long shadow slid silently down from the ceiling like a rope. As the thug's hand moved back toward his gun, Cecilia kicked away the door shielding her with all her might.
Bang.
「Nagi.」
“What the—?!”
The thug spun around, startled out of his wits.
Between Cecilia and the thug, a viper with brilliant yellow eyes was staring him down, unblinking.
「Bite.」
Nagi spread her torn gape wide and swallowed the man's face whole.
His scream along with it.
Animals had a few clearly defined traits.
With the exception of dogs, they did not, as a rule, like humans. If anything, they leaned toward wariness and fear.
Those with young in particular did everything in their power to stay out of human sight. Yet once an animal opened its heart, it would love and remain loyal to whoever that person was, until the very end.
Wind the clock back a few years, to when Ruby was still a fledgling crow. Cecilia had climbed a tree and saved him from being eaten by a snake.
And that snake — the one Cecilia had thrown into the creek after saving the baby crow?
What became of it, you ask?
「Mean!」
The day she saved the fledgling and fell asleep, a strange voice jolted Cecilia awake in the dead of night.
A viper with white and black stripes was perched on her chest, hissing indignantly. The viper glared at the bewildered Cecilia, bared its fangs, and let out a shrill cry.
「You made me hungry! Look, I'm hurt! It hurts! It HURTS!」
Animals grow wiser as they converse with humans, accumulating knowledge along the way. Conversely, animals that have never spoken with a human lack the capacity for language and cannot manage even a long sentence — and solitary creatures least of all.
「It hurts!」
Judging by the voice, it was a young female. Barely four months into the world, perhaps.
When Cecilia propped herself up on her elbow in bed, the viper turned to show her its flank.
Whether it had struck a rock when it was tossed into the creek, its torn side was bleeding.
Oh no. Cecilia broke into an awkward, helpless sweat.
“I'm sorry. All I could think about was saving the babies, and I……. I'll apply some medicine for you, so forgive me, okay?”
「Then feed me too. I'm hungry. Tomorrow I'll eat a human!」
“Th-that's not allowed.”
As Cecilia got up and headed down the stairs, the viper slithered after her with a soft hiss. Reaching the modest kitchen, she rummaged for a long while through the basket on the sink before looking down at the viper and asking cautiously:
「Um, by any chance — do you eat fish?」
Unfortunately, Cecilia was a vegetarian who ate only eggs and fish, so there was no meat in the house a snake might enjoy.
The snake venom spread rapidly along the finest of blood vessels.
The thug's body collapsed silently onto the floorboards. Nagi waited until he lost consciousness, then slowly unwound the body she had wrapped around his head.
“Well done, Nagi.”
「Where's that crow you call Ruby?」
“Outside.”
Nagi cocked her head toward the sound of Ruby's cawing, gave a haughty little sniff, and slid smoothly down into the folds of Cecilia's skirt. She usually coiled herself around Cecilia's left leg, hiding from people's eyes that way.
Cecilia knew all too well how potent the viper's venom was. The man's body, which had been twitching in intermittent spasms only moments before, had gone as still as a corpse.
She had no desire to check whether he was still breathing. Kneeling in place, Cecilia stretched her arm out as far from her body as it would go and picked the gun up off the floor.
The gun was loaded.
So he really was planning to shoot someone…….
When she checked the gun and looked up, the women crouched in the corner flinched and clung to one another. Under their gazes — as though she were some hideous monster — a bitter taste spread through Cecilia's mouth.
Nagi poked her head out from beneath the skirt and blew a snort of contempt.
「Humans, honestly!」
“We have to get out of here now. I need to find out how many of them are outside.”
Just then, a sewer rat was scurrying briskly along the base of the wall.
Cecilia patted at her waist and let out a groan of mingled despair and embarrassment.
The pocket where she'd kept her bag of bread was empty. It seemed everything she'd been carrying had been taken when she was kidnapped.
Well, nothing for it, then…….
She knew it was rude, but no better idea came to mind. Blocking the rat's path with her shoe, Cecilia addressed it without preamble.
「Excuse me — hey. How many humans are inside this building?」
