“I’m placing my hopes in each of you.”

The girl had been raised, as it were, among the flowers and the butterflies. Having been brought up with the utmost care in what amounted to a cage, she knew nothing of the seamy side of the world. No one would judge her for that—human lives were so short anyway. Who could fault her parents for wanting to give her a life of silken safety?

Her father, my master—the previous king—had led a life much the same. If one attempted to shine a light into the world’s gloomy corners, disruption might result, but just keep diplomacy humming and there were no problems. Let the starving starve, the sick be sick, the rich be rich, and the prosperous be prosperous, and all would go smoothly. Those who felt it incumbent upon them to change the world tended to be arrogant and cruel.

Revolutionaries felt that the status quo was wicked and that safety was of no value, and they thought nothing of trampling upon others. And why? Because they were convinced that their own actions were right and just above and beyond all others.

Thus when the young lady’s cradle was brutally shattered, I took it upon myself to take her away, to help her escape. In this, I had the aid of my friend. My small, brave friend, who valued the princess more than anything in the world.

That man was cruel and violent and would no doubt use the princess for his own ends before casting her aside. The princess, I was sure, would quail before it…

But I was wrong. She was resolved to stay in the castle to the bitter end, turning upon us a gaze so stern it pierced to our very hearts.

There was no longer any hope within the castle. If there was hope, it lay outside. A knight who had once served the court was said to be leading a quiet life somewhere beyond the city. Many knights had turned to follow the prime minister, or else were under his thumb—but this man, this one knight… Perhaps…

And so, trusting our hopes to a world into which the princess had ultimately refused to flee, we ran. Us and those rogues.

§

It was all over about the time I had grown tired of trying to count the number of robbers.

Or more precisely, it felt like it was all over before I knew it.

Despite the traces of heat it still carried, the desert wind was too cold for exposed skin. My muscles cried out in pain from the uncourteous treatment I’d given them. The stars in the cloudless sky seemed oddly sideways, the light of them blindingly bright. That was what finally made me realize that I was lying on my side like a discarded doll.

My body was doused in its own fluids, sweat and spit and tears. But the smell of an elf was the aroma of flowers. The wafting stink I smelled came from the remnants of a mostly eaten banquet.

“U-urgh… This is…no way to…treat a woman,” I groaned. I felt like I had something stuck in my throat, and a sharp tang of iron almost turned my stomach. I managed to make myself speak all the same because in order to maintain one’s pride, one had first to excite the heart.

I grasped a cloth so sodden with dirt that it wasn’t fit for a bedchamber, then crawled to my hands and knees like an unsteady newborn fawn.

What in the world did happen to us?

It had started almost as soon as my friend and I had parted ways with those rogues; we had promptly begun to argue about what to do next. Look for help? Out here in this desert it was like seeking one needle out of a pile of twenty million. I had urged that we should find a carriage as soon as possible, but that fool friend of mine…!

“It’s a secret mission, we ought to go on foot!”

“Pfah! And pick the most difficult possible route, I see!”

From there it had quickly devolved into name-calling, and well after we parted ways, I had spotted these merchants and called out to them; but when I got aboard…

How was I supposed to know it belonged to a bunch of kidnappers—and that they’d gotten her, too?

And then my kidnappers themselves were attacked by a bunch of thieves! Just imagine.

I crawled desperately among the corpses of the brutally murdered kidnappers and the discarded dining ware. My chest and thighs scraped painfully against sand and gravel, provoking a small cry from me each time.

When the gods made our bodies, why did they have to give us so much surface area?!

But later—I had no idea how much later—I was finally able to reach what I had been aiming for: an earthenware pot, much like a chamber pot, sitting among the strewn garbage. Perhaps there was still something in it.

But when I tried to reach out to take it, I found my fingers and legs refused to obey me, their master. I didn’t have the strength to stand or even to hold the pot in my grasp, and it clattered onto its side, spilling its contents onto the earth.

“Oh, for the…!”

I supposed this was my punishment for mocking the gods; it certainly was delivered quickly. I grimaced and pressed my mouth to the sand where the water was seeping into it. Trying to keep one eye on my surroundings, I lapped up the silty fluid. To be reduced to licking water from the dirt was so pathetic I could have cried, but it meant I had moisture in my throat.

“…Ergh, ugh.” I tried to swish the water around my mouth, then spat out a sticky glob of saliva. Then I tried to take in a little more water. There was no flavor, no anything, but it didn’t matter.

Elves lived a long time. In the blink of an eye, everyone who remembered my humiliation would be gone. And anyway, compared with the horrors taking place in that castle, this was nothing. And so—yes, that’s why I’d done it.

Out of hatred for the thieves, who had been taking a cut of the kidnappers’ “income,” I had helped the far-away carriage escape. Or more precisely, the shrimp had helped them escape and had roped me into it. The thieves had been understandably upset, and after they had slaughtered all the kidnappers, they threatened to punish my friend severely…

“Ugh, why I’m always sticking my neck out for you is quite beyond my capacity to explain…,” I muttered, but my small friend, who had shown up alongside me at some point, simply shrugged. And then, suddenly, she tossed a golden amulet on the sand in front of me. How she had managed to get back the amulet the kidnappers had taken from me, I didn’t know. But she had.

“This doesn’t count as a favor,” I grumbled, but my friend simply grinned. Very annoying. I took the amulet delicately and hung it back around my neck.

Apparently, while I had been polishing the thieves’ spears and baking bread in their oven, my friend had been negotiating with their leader. Trying to get him to sell us the moment they arrived in town tomorrow or the next day. My gods.

“I suppose they’d take some cheap price for us,” I muttered angrily. “Lord, they didn’t know what they had.” I pulled my knees to my chest and leaned against my friend. It was too cold here in the desert to pass the night sitting alone. “If we’d been sold as water-drawing slaves in the mines, we might not have come out for a hundred years, and then what would have happened?”

My friend shook her head as if to say she didn’t know. Oh, for—

If there was hope out there, where was it?