My eyes trembled as I took in the sight before me, and the realization hit me like a physical blow—there was going to be a bloodbath here. Soon.
I could see them scattered throughout the crowd—children clutching their mothers' skirts, elderly merchants hunched over their wares, innocent people who had no idea what was about to unfold.
My chest tightened as I watched a little girl with pigtails point excitedly at the colorful fabrics hanging from a nearby stall.
'They're all going to get caught in this,' I thought desperately, my hands clenching into fists beneath the cloak.
I knew enough about the wolf tribes from the Empire's records—they were fiercely loyal to each other, bound by pack bonds that ran deeper than blood.
The moment they heard one of their own crying out in pain, nothing would stop them from intervening.
And Javrian... I could practically feel the killing intent radiating from his direction.
The merchant's whip cracked again, followed by another agonized cry, and I felt my stomach lurch.
This place was about to become a slaughter ground, with innocent people caught in the crossfire.
"Javrian, this... huh?"
I spun around to stop him from overreacting—I could see royal guards positioned at various corners of the marketplace, their armor glinting in the afternoon sun. If he lost control here, if he let his wolf instincts take over...
But what I saw made me freeze completely.
There he stood—Javrian, my supposed captor, the beast who had torn Victor and Livina apart without hesitation—just standing there with his head turned away.
His expression was as calm as ever, almost eerily so, holding that bucket of apples like nothing was happening.
He wasn't even looking toward the commotion where his own kin was being brutalized.
"Let's move, everyone," he said quietly, his voice carrying that familiar authority. But there was something else there—something strained.
He had already turned and started walking in the opposite direction, deliberately putting distance between himself and the scene.
'What?'
I stood there, staring at his retreating back, and something inside my chest twisted painfully.
This man—this beast who had seemed so powerful, so capable of destroying anything in his path—was walking away.
Abandoning one of his own people.
But as I watched him more carefully, I began to see what others might miss. The rigid set of his shoulders.
The way his jaw was clenched so tight that I could see the muscle jumping beneath his scarred skin.
His hands, which should have been relaxed, were curled into white-knuckled fists at his sides.
He wasn't calm. He wasn't uncaring.
He was restraining himself with every ounce of willpower he possessed, and it was tearing him apart from the inside.
'Why?' The question burned in my mind as I watched him force each step away from his suffering packmate. 'Why is he doing this to himself?'
I didn't understand it.
The man who was known for his strength and cruelty, who had not hesitated to tear apart Victor or anyone like him, was now deliberately ignoring the cries of his own people.
And somehow, seeing that struggle—that vulnerability he was trying so hard to hide—made him feel... alien to me.
Different from what I had expected.
My heart started pounding, but not from fear. From something else entirely.
Something that made me feel irritated and restless.
'Why do I care?' I clenched my jaw, trying to push down the strange emotion rising in my chest. 'Why does it matter to me if he's suffering?'
I shouldn't care about any of this.
I shouldn't care about the innocent people in this marketplace, shouldn't care about that wolf woman being beaten, and I definitely shouldn't care about Javrian's internal struggle.
But I did.
Maybe it was because I had spent years managing Victor's estate, collecting taxes, handling territorial disputes—taking care of people was something that had become second nature to me, even when those people had never shown me any gratitude in return.
Or maybe... maybe it was something more personal.
Something about seeing this mountain of a man, who had seemed invincible, reveal such a profound weakness.
It was as if I got to see a strange gateway that was still unnoticed by anyone else... a vulnerability of someone like him.
Before I could second-guess myself, my feet were moving. Not toward Javrian, but toward the source of the commotion.
The crowd parted as I approached, my borrowed cloak billowing behind me.
The merchant—a portly man with greasy hair and cruel eyes—raised his whip again, preparing to bring it down on the cowering wolf woman.
"What are you doing?" The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them, clear and authoritative despite the chaos around us.
The merchant paused, whip still raised, and turned to look at me with annoyance and surprise.
And somewhere behind me, I could feel Javrian's silver gaze burning into my back, as if my approach to this person had just caught his attention.
"What?" the merchant asked, his voice dripping with the kind of casual cruelty I'd heard too many times before.
I stood there, my lips pressed into a thin line, and for a moment the only question echoing in my mind was: Why am I here?
The rational part of my brain—the part that had kept me alive through years of political maneuvering and abuse—was screaming at me that I'd acted without thinking.
If this man raised his hand to me, if he so much as touched me wrong, Javrian would undoubtedly kill him.
I could practically feel that silver-eyed predator's attention focused on us like a blade waiting to fall.
By coming here, by inserting myself into this situation, I had just endangered everyone around me. The innocent bystanders, the children, even myself.
"Nothing," I said flatly, already turning to leave before this could escalate further.
But as my head turned, my crimson eyes caught sight of her again.
The wolf woman lying on the cobblestones. One eye was swollen shut, bound with torn fabric, leaving only one visible—a striking yellow that seemed to glow against her bruised skin.
Her hair was an unusual mix of black and white strands, matted with blood and dirt.
She lay there staring straight up at the sky, her expression completely blank. Not a single tear on her cheeks. Not even a whimper of pain.
Just... nothing.
Looking at her was like looking into a mirror of my own soul. That same emptiness, that complete numbness to pain that came when you'd endured so much that your body simply stopped registering it as suffering.
She's just like me.
My feet stopped moving.
"Stop." The merchant's greasy voice cut through my thoughts as I felt his hand reaching for my shoulder. "Where is my compensation for disrupting—"
I turned.
The motion was swift, economical, born from years of self-defense lessons that Victor had insisted upon—not to protect me, but to protect his reputation if his wife was ever harmed.
My leather boot—the sturdy, well-made one that Lila had stolen for me—connected with the merchant's groin with satisfying precision.
Bam!
"AaaaRrrrrGgggHhhhhhhh!"
"Here," I said simply, watching as his face went from red to purple to an interesting shade of green.
The marketplace resonated with the pig-like cries of that merchant while I just stood waiting for Javrian to arrive.
But to my dismay, a handcuff appeared in front of my eyes and a declaration.
"You are under arrest for physically violating an honored citizen."
"EH? W-wait, officer, Javrian, he is...." And somehow, before processing the situation, I found myself handcuffed and being dragged by a soldier.
I turned my eyes to tell him that I was with other people, but damn, there was no one.
And a realization deeply dawned on me.
'....Did I just get abandoned?'