She ran.

  The snow pulled at her feet like quicksand, each step heavier than the last. The air burned her lungs, and her face tried to cry—but the cold wouldn’t allow it. Tears were born and died before they could fall.

  Why do I care about this?

  Why should I care?

  Idiot.

  Idiot with that sword.

  Always serious.

  Always distant.

  Thinks he’s better.

  Thinks he’s strong.

  Thinks he’s—

  She stumbled, almost fell, but kept going. Words

  shattered inside her head, mixing with the pain in her legs and her heart beating far too fast.

  Damn it, Elaris, why do you think so much?

  Why do you care about this?

  Why does it hurt?

  She stopped suddenly.

  The silence of the snow was cruel. No sound but her own breathing—short, uneven.

  Her hands trembled, not just from the cold.

  I just want you to come back.

  The sentence escaped without a voice, as if afraid to exist.

  Her knees gave out. She fell sitting into the soft, freezing snow. Too small for that world. Too small to understand why people left.

  The gray sky seemed endless.

  "Daddy…"

  The word came out broken.

  "Why did you leave?"

  Her chest hurt. Not like before. This was a kind of pain that doesn’t bleed—but stays.

  She hugged her legs, trying to warm herself, trying to protect herself—as if that were possible.

  Behind her, footsteps approached. Heavy. Firm. Constant.

  Elaris didn’t turn her face.

  She already knew who it was.

  She glanced around, panting.

  An ancient tree stood there, crooked but strong, its roots tearing through the snow. The heavy branches formed a makeshift shelter, breaking the wind.

  Elaris was beneath it. Small. Fragile.

  Like a blue flower lost in winter near its roots.

  Weak from the cold—but still standing… only because something supported her.

  She clenched her fists.

  "GET AWAY!!"

  The scream tore through the white silence, hoarse, desperate. Her voice echoed between the trees—but changed nothing.

  Bruno kept walking.

  Step after step, the snow crunched under his boots. There was no rush. No anger. Only constancy. As if the world could collapse around him and he would still advance.

  "I told you to leave!" she insisted, her voice breaking at the end. "I don’t need you!"

  He stopped a few meters away. Didn’t touch her. Didn’t come too close.

  His hand rested on the sword’s hilt—not as a threat, but as habit. As if letting go of it were harder than letting go of words.

  "You’re freezing," he said quietly. No harshness. No

  comfort. Just a fact.

  "I don’t care!"

  She turned her face away, tears finally defeating the cold and running down, burning her pale skin.

  "You never care… you never change… always that empty face, always those cold words!"

  The wind blew stronger. The tree creaked.

  Bruno remained still.

  "I’m still here," he replied at last. "Whether you want me to be or not."

  She laughed—a short, broken sound.

  "See? That’s it! You never change!"

  He took a few seconds before answering. When he spoke, his voice felt heavier than the snow.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  "I don’t change," he admitted. "But I also don’t leave."

  Elaris trembled—not just from the cold.

  Because he was right.

  He never changed.

  And yet…

  he never left.

  Bruno closed his eyes for a moment.

  Tried to think. Anything.

  But the thought was torn apart by a familiar sensation—that cold deep in his chest.

  The warning that always came too late… or too early.

  "ELARIS!"

  The shout came out raw.

  A blade cut through the air, fast, descending toward the small princess.

  The impact came with blood.

  Red stained the white snow, splattered across Elaris’s frozen face like a cruel painting. For a

  second, it looked like art.

  But it wasn’t her blood.

  It was his.

  Bruno stood in front of her.

  The enemy’s sword was embedded in his open hand. The blade trembled, trapped between flesh and bone. His fingers slowly closed around the metal, as if it were nothing more than an inconvenience.

  The flesh was dense. Strong.

  Not even a sharp sword could cut through that kingdom of muscle, scar, and pure stubbornness.

  A low, animal grunt escaped his throat.

  "Run, Elaris."

  The words crossed the air…

  and reached nowhere.

  She was frozen. Not by cold—but by terror.

  Eyes wide. Body unable to obey.

  The assassin tried to pull the sword free.

  He couldn’t.

  Bruno pulled.

  And he could.

  The blade came out with a wet sound. Before the man could react, Bruno already held his head with his free hand.

  Then came the motion.

  One.

  The body was thrown against the tree.

  The sound of two solid things colliding echoed dryly in the snow.

  Two.

  Crack.

  The trunk split.

  So did the skull.

  Three.

  The final impact crushed whatever life remained.

  Flesh and blood slid down, splashing onto Bruno’s face—warm remains of something that, seconds ago, had been breathing.

  The tree remained standing.

  The man did not.

  There was no time to breathe.

  An arrow cut the air.

  Bruno raised the same wounded hand and caught it mid-flight. The wood creaked between his bloodied fingers.

  He turned his face toward the hidden archer.

  "Ignis immitis."

  The word came out far too calm.

  A sphere of fire was born in his palm and crossed the distance in an instant. The archer’s scream was short—swallowed by flames that consumed him along with the snow around him.

  The smell of burned flesh spread.

  "Bruno, three more incoming! Careful!" Kearlin warned, his voice now stripped of all mockery.

  Bruno didn’t answer.

  He simply positioned himself, once again, between danger…

  and the child who still couldn’t move.

  They came all at once.

  Three shadows tearing through the snow, steps far too fast for ordinary men. Bruno felt them before he saw them.

  The air changed.

  Intent killed the silence.

  He stepped forward, opening his stance, closing the path.

  Elaris stayed behind him.

  Always behind him.

  The first enemy came from the left, blade low, trying to slip beneath his guard. Bruno answered without thinking.

  He rotated his body, let the enemy blade pass close to his stomach, and drove the dagger into the man’s knee.

  It wasn’t clean.

  It was cruel.

  The joint gave way with a wet crack. The scream came out far too loud for that night. Bruno gave no time.

  He dragged the dagger upward, tearing flesh and tendon to the abdomen, opening the body like old cloth.

  The man fell before understanding he was already dead.

  The second came from behind, trusting speed.

  Bruno felt the wind of the strike and ducked at the last instant. The blade passed where his neck had been.

  He answered with his elbow.

  The impact crushed the enemy’s nose, driving bone inward.

  Before the body fell, Bruno grabbed him by the hair, spun, and hurled him into the third who was charging.

  Two bodies collided mid-air.

  Bruno advanced.

  He stepped on one man’s chest with enough force to break ribs, heard the air escape the lungs like a punctured bag.

  He grabbed the other by the arm and twisted until the bone burst through the skin—white, shining under the moon.

  The man screamed.

  Bruno didn’t care.

  He used the man’s body as a weapon. Spun once and threw him against a tree.

  The impact was so strong the trunk shook. The man collapsed crooked, head at an angle far too wrong to be alive.

  The last tried to flee.

  Mistake.

  Bruno ran.

  The snow exploded beneath his feet. He caught the man from behind, jumped, and slammed his full weight into the ground with him.

  The dagger fell once.

  Twice.

  Three times.

  Each strike precise, slipping between ribs, seeking organs, until the body stopped reacting.

  Silence.

  Bruno breathed heavily. Blood dripped from his wounded hand, staining the white snow.

  He turned slowly.

  Elaris was still there.

  Small. Trembling. Alive.

  Bruno knelt in front of her—not touching, just lowering himself enough to not look like a blood-covered monster.

  "No one is going to hurt you," he said, voice hoarse, tired, true. "As long as I’m breathing."

  Behind them, the bodies no longer moved.

  The forest watched.

  Finally, the ice princess broke.

  Her small body lost strength all at once, as if all the fear she held decided to fall together.

  Bruno caught her before she hit the ground.

  Too light.

  Too cold.

  He exhaled slowly.

  "Do psychologists exist in this world?" he muttered to no one. "Because I really need therapy."

  Kearlin floated beside him, ethereal arms crossed.

  "Not even the best psychologist would survive what’s inside your head."

  Bruno grimaced as a heavy throb passed through his skull.

  "My head hurts…" he grunted. "Come on, ghost buddy."

  He adjusted Elaris in his arms with unexpected care for someone covered in blood and began walking back, carving a path through the snow.

  Kearlin stopped mid-air, offended.

  "Don’t call me that. I am clearly much better than that cheap ghost. Can’t you see my charm?"

  Even so, he followed behind, grumbling nonstop.

  Ahead, the cart appeared between the trees, the weak light of the fire still alive—stubborn like them.

  "How many more enemies are we going to have to kill on this journey?" Kearlin muttered.

  "Many," Bruno replied without emotion.

  He knelt and laid Elaris gently near the fire.

  Adjusted the cloak over her shoulders, pushing away the cold, pushing away the world.

  For a second, his fingers hesitated. Just one second.

  Kearlin tilted his head, watching from above.

  "If her mother sees her like this, she’ll faint on the spot. Tell me you invented some super-strong soap. Or advanced laundry magic."

  "Something much better."

  Bruno closed his eyes.

  The air grew heavy, as if the night itself held its breath.

  He raised his hand over the princess’s body, palm open, steady.

  "Sanguis, voluntas mea."

  The blood staining Elaris’s face, hair, clothes trembled.

  First, in thin threads.

  Then, in droplets.

  Then… all at once.

  The red detached from her skin like living mist, rising slowly, spinning in the air as if it had a will of its own.

  It left no mark. No pain. It simply went away.

  The stains gathered above Bruno’s hand, forming a dense, pulsing mass—like an improvised heart made of bad memories.

  Kearlin whistled, impressed.

  "That never stops being disturbing."

  Bruno opened his eyes and closed his hand.

  The blood evaporated into black ash, dissolving into the night wind.

  Elaris’s skin was clean. Cold—but clean. Her face relaxed, now just that of an exhausted child, not someone who had stared death in the face.

  Bruno breathed deeply.

  "She’s not injured," he said, more to himself than to the spirit. "She just… broke inside for a moment. But she’s fine now."

  Kearlin hovered beside him.

  "You break too. You just don’t fall."

  Bruno didn’t respond.

  He simply pulled an extra blanket and covered the princess better, positioning himself between her and the forest’s darkness.

  The fire crackled.

  So much time has passed…

  The snow doesn’t hurt as much now.

  Or maybe I just stopped feeling it.

  Bruno is still the same.

  Always wakes before the sun.

  Always with the sword nearby.

  Always looking far away, like the world might attack at any second.

  He’s silly.

  After that day, nothing happened, I think?

  No assassins.

  No arrows.

  No nights of screaming.

  Sometimes I think he exaggerates.

  Sometimes I think he’s afraid.

  He’s strange.

  Very strange.

  Sometimes I watch him while he cleans his sword. He does it even when it’s already clean.

  He wipes it slowly, like he’s thinking about something else. When he notices me watching, he frowns and tells me to go back into the cart.

  Today he gave me the bigger piece of bread.

  Said "I need to grow."

  He didn’t say thank you when I returned the canteen full.

  But… he always adds more wood to the fire when he thinks I’m cold.

  Always stays outside when Mom and I sleep.

  Always walks a little slower when he notices I’m

  tired.

  I don’t understand.

  When he fights, he looks like a monster.

  When he’s silent, he looks… empty.

  Sometimes I want to ask if he hurts inside.

  But I don’t.

  I’m afraid of the answer.

  Today I dreamed he left.

  I woke up with my chest tight, like I had fallen again into that deep snow.

  He was there.

  Sitting.

  On guard.

  When he saw me awake, he just said:

  "Good morning, princess."

  Nothing else.

  Why was that enough to calm me?

  But when he walks too far ahead…

  my chest feels strange.

  It’s not pain.

  It’s not cold.

  It’s like something is… missing.

  Maybe it’s just gratitude.

  Or maybe it’s fear of being alone again.

  I don’t know.

  I only know that when he walks in front of the cart, opening a path through the snow, I feel like nothing can reach us.

  And that…

  that makes me warm.

  I don’t know the name of that feeling.

  But it exists.

  — Elaris