I stared at him for a second too long.
My brain was still trying to juggle the system, the gravity thing, the knights, the pain, and now this man who fought four armed knights like he was swatting flies.
Elijah didn't wait.
"Tch. Get up already," he said, his back already turned. "Stay here and die, or don't. Makes no difference to my cause... or to me, really. Just hurry up and pick one."
I forced my legs to follow.
Each step felt like I was dragging chains, but I didn't stop. He walked fast, mechanical arm clicking with a faint rhythm as we moved through the ruined hall.
Behind us, one of the knights groaned.
Then, Elijah quickly noticed my gaze on the groaning knight and told me,
"Stop gawking at that idiot," he said, glancing back over his shoulder. "He's gonna shut up soon enough. Either he bleeds out like a stuck pig, or he chokes on his own guts. One way or another, he's getting sent to hell."
'He isn't wrong,' I realized, a knot forming in my stomach.
We moved through the burning streets, stepping over rubble and ash.
Every few meters, there was another body. There were children, women, old men, and all white-haired.
Like me.
No—
like the body I was in now.
This couldn't just be a battle or a small skirmish.
This was a genocide.
But why?
Why would the kingdom—
No.
The empire of Valoria—
wipe out an entire people?
I wanted to ask Elijah, but the question sat at the back of my throat, heavy and bitter.
I kept it there, as I needed to see more before I opened my mouth.
I didn't want to sound clueless and get myself in deeper trouble.
Breaking through my thoughts, I heard it.
A sharp, frantic sound cutting through the crackling fire.
Horses.
Multiple.
Their hooves slammed against the stone, fast and getting closer.
Then,
Elijah stopped. His hand went to his sword, the polished steel of the hilt cold against his palm, but he didn't draw it. His head tilted slightly, listening not just to the heavy beat of hooves, but to the slight hesitation in their rhythm.
A clear, sharp voice sliced through the din of the fire.
"No need to draw that thing, Lijah," the voice said, closer now. "It's just us. Put it away, or you'll scare the boy."
Elijah's posture instantly shifted. The tension in his shoulders didn't disappear, but the readiness to fight evaporated.
"Seraphina," he ground out, a mix of mild irritation and relief in the single word. "You move fast for someone hauling a load."
The horses burst around the corner of a collapsed building. There were two of them, and riding the first was a girl who looked barely older than me, but whose wear was torn and whose gaze was utterly focused.
Her dark hair was pulled back tight, and she held the reins with the easy confidence of someone who had lived their life on horseback.
"I didn't haul the load, I stole it," Seraphina corrected, pulling her horse—a massive, black warhorse—to a sliding stop beside Elijah. She glanced at me, her eyes taking in my tattered clothes and the way I was leaning on the wall. "And who is this scrawny thing? The one you finally decided was worth dragging along?"
"Tch. He's not" Elijah replied. "Just one of the survivors. That one wasn't here apparently."
"Get down," Elijah suddenly ordered, not to Seraphina, but to me, as he stepped toward the horse.
"Don't waste time standing around, Lijah. We have four more scouting squads due within the hour," Seraphina said, dismounting with a fluid ease that belied the weight of her plate armor. She then expertly maneuvered her second, riderless horse between us. "You two take this one. I'll keep the beast."
She gave me a quick, assessing look. "Can you even mount? You look like you're about to fall over."
The challenge in her voice, and the cold, dismissive tone, jolted me more effectively than Elijah's commands. I might have been drained, but I wouldn't let this new warrior girl see me collapse.
"I can," I forced out.
Elijah didn't wait for proof. He simply grabbed the back of my collar with his mechanical hand and practically hoisted me onto the saddle of the second horse. The rough leather scraped my already bruised skin.
Before I could even find the reins, Elijah swung up behind me with frightening speed. His mechanical arm wrapped around my chest to grip the reins, the cold metal pressing through the thin shirt the body wore.
"Hold on, unless you want to be introduced to the cobblestones at forty miles an hour," he joked, his voice low and close to my ear.
But there was something about his voice, it held that deep, gravelly quality, demanding obedience without needing to shout.
Impressive, one would say.
Seraphina already began to urge her horse forward, kicking up sparks and dust.
"Let's go up the northern road. We're late."
Elijah didn't reply with words, just a harsh Hah! of assent. He dug his heels into the horse's flank, and we were suddenly moving, blurring past the burning buildings and the silent, ash-covered bodies.
We galloped out of the shattered walls of the city and onto a narrow, rocky trail leading toward a line of dark forest. The air instantly became cooler, thick with the scent of pine and damp earth instead of smoke.
The tension was a tangible thing, stretching tight between the three of us even as the city fell behind us. I bounced awkwardly in the saddle, every jar sending a fresh spike of pain up my spine. Elijah's solid, unyielding body behind me was the only thing keeping me upright.
The horse's rhythm eventually became a numb drumbeat in my head.
I watched Seraphina ahead. She rode like a force of nature, her focus unwavering. She didn't look back, didn't check on us, just drove her horse deeper and deeper into the forest.
The questions I wanted to ask—about the genocide of the white-haired people—were still lodged like stones in my throat. I couldn't risk asking them now, not with the cold, dangerous weight of Elijah pressing against my back, and the formidable Seraphina guiding us into the forest.