I heard the sound of the door opening.
That person came in again today.
"...I'm going to heal you again today."
His voice held a certain warmth. Unable to even nod, I could only move my eyes as I lay upon the bed.
The sound of a chair being pulled closer followed. That person sat down. As always, he held the small knife at that same angle against his forearm.
Thinly, shallowly, just a single layer—he gently pared the skin from his arm. Blood began to throb and ooze.
He carefully pinched the thin flake with his fingertips and placed it softly onto the burn scars on my arm. Then, he quietly rested his blood-stained hand over mine.
A green light. Something warm. The boundaries of our skin seemed to blur and melt, until I could no longer distinguish between his body heat and my own. There was no pain. There was only the sensation and bliss of dissolving into him.
As he finished the treatment, I gazed blankly up at his face. He was pale from the blood loss and the pain. It was always like that.
For my sake, he was literally shaving away his own body to give me warmth.
Never in my life had I felt such a strange tenderness.
Suddenly, my consciousness was pulled back to a time long ago.
◇◇◇
A small settlement in the forest.
It happened on that day, during the year I turned five.
The Elder’s white beard. The rough, wooden texture of the small wand pressed into my hand. Everyone in the village stood in a circle, surrounding me. A low voice told me to try using magic.
The other children were conjuring gusts of Wind from the tips of their wands or floating small orbs of Water.
Then it was my turn. I gripped the wand with both hands and held it before my chest. I closed my eyes and simply prayed for whatever wanted to come out to appear.
A small, flickering red flame ignited at the tip of the wand.
I felt the surrounding air freeze in an instant.
The Elder’s face stiffened. Behind me, I heard my mother gasp. No one looked at me. No one dared to come near me.
That night, behind the thin walls of our sleeping quarters, I heard my parents whispering.
"To think the Fire attribute would appear among us Elves..."
"She is a Criminal Slave."
"She will burn the forest eventually."
"Why did it have to be our child?"
Criminal Slave.
The echo of those words continued to ring in the back of my mind.
From the next morning, my mother stopped touching me. My father stopped meeting my eyes. I had no brothers or sisters. Under that same roof, I no longer had a single ally.
I didn't understand why. I only felt that I shouldn't be there anymore.
◇◇◇
A short while later, the children my age began to chase me.
"Arsonist."
"The child who'll burn the forest."
They jeered, pulled my hair, and shoved me to the ground. The adults turned a blind eye. No one helped me. Not even my parents stopped them.
At first, I would cry or try to argue. However, that only made them more amused, and they would push me around even further.
Eventually, I stopped crying. I stopped making any sound at all.
I stopped using magic, too. Because if I produced fire, it would only prove that I truly was a Criminal Slave.
Deep within my chest, I felt a heat with no purpose quietly sinking down.
◇◇◇
It was an afternoon when I was eight years old.
I was cornered by several children in a forest clearing. Perhaps something had irritated them, for their eyes were sharper than usual. They were clutching stones.
"Hey, it wouldn't really matter if this thing disappeared, would it?"
The boy who said that threw a stone at me. It hit my shoulder. Thinking it looked like fun, the other children began throwing stones as well. A second stone hit my thigh. A third hit my forehead.
My vision was dyed red.
Blood entered my eyes; it was hot and painful, and I couldn't see anything. As I collapsed to my knees, I think I prayed to something—"Help me!" —And then, something answered.
Heat.
A red shadow.
I didn't know if it was in the shape of a person or a beast. I only felt a direct, singular will trying to protect me.
In the next instant, the world exploded into white.
The clothes of the child in front of me were engulfed in flames. Screams. The surrounding trees caught fire. The wind carried the heat, and the forest groaned. The sound of leaves, branches, and trunks burning rained down from all sides. A great, roaring sound.
I was enveloped in the flames as well.
Amidst the pain of my skin burning across my entire body, I felt for certain that the red shadow was holding my very core, cradling me with care.
Before my consciousness faded, the last thing I saw was a sky covered in red and black.
◇◇◇
When I woke, I was bound with ropes.
I saw the hateful gazes of the adult Elves. I smelled the charred forest. Someone's mother was wailing in the distance.
It was then that I realized for the first time what I had done.
Arson and murder. A sentence of twenty-eight years.
The words alone passed right through me. The pain in my body no longer mattered. My heart felt the same.
I thought that everything inside of me had burned away along with that red shadow on that day.
I was handed over to a Human Slave Trader as a Criminal Slave.
A cage. The Slave Trader's eyes. Negotiations over my price. Someone looked at my body, covered in burns, and clicked their tongue.
It didn't matter. None of it mattered.
I thought that I had already died a long time ago.
◇◇◇
—One day, a small Human boy stood before my cage.
Within my hazy vision, his outline looked slightly different from the others. Pure. Beautiful. He was looking at me. That was all I could understand at the time.
Looking at my burnt and festering form, he didn't show disgust, nor did he laugh; he simply wore a quiet, sorrowful expression.
In my dazed mind, I thought:
—Ah, an Angel.
—I am finally going to die.
Looking back, that was the moment I saw Lord Rein for the first time.
◇◇◇
How much time has passed since I saw that boy inside the cage?
Before I knew it, I was on this bed in the Annex, and every day, that person—that Angel—comes to place his hand over my wounds.
The person I thought was an Angel had brought me home, and every day, he sheds his own blood to fix my broken body, piece by piece.
Right now, his thin, pale, trembling hand was layered over my arm.
The green light was still pulsing gently. The edges of the burn scars were turning back into white skin, bit by bit.
—Why go so far as to hurt yourself for someone like me?
"Why...?"
The answer that came back was, "Because I wanted to save you."
I still don't quite understand the meaning of the word "save."
But—the warmth reaching me from where this person's blood touched was something I had never felt once since the day I was called a Criminal Slave.
For the first time, I tried to look at his face properly.
A pale face. Gently lowered eyelashes. An exhausted, yet kind gaze.
I somehow managed to force a raspy voice from my throat.
"—Who... are you?"
The person widened his eyes in surprise, and then, he gave a small smile.
"Rein. Rein Werl. —I suppose I'm your... Master, for the time being."
Rein.
I tucked that name away in the depths of my heart, promising never to forget it.