She added on with a voice that barely qualified as alive.

"Please. You shouldn’t make enemies of them just because of a worthless person like me."

I looked down at her.

"Worthless?" Something tightened behind my ribs. "What are you even saying?"

I bent down. One knee pressing into the dirt. My hand extended toward the piece of dried meat she was still clinging to with everything her body had left.

She saw my gesture. Understood it. But her fingers refused to let go. Her grip tightened even further around it. Like the meat was stitched to her palms.

But I didn’t pull back. Didn’t rush her. Just kept my hand there. Open. Patient.

Eventually the resistance left her fingers. Trembling. Defeated. She placed the piece into my palm like she was handing over the last thing she owned in this world.

Because she probably was.

I brought it closer. Scanned it. Dusted the dirt off its surface with my thumb. Then spoke without looking up.

"I’m not a fool who can’t see what’s going on here. And I am not someone who can’t tell the difference between a thief and a warrior."

Confused stares from every direction. But my eyes were still on the meat. On the finger marks dug into its surface from how desperately she had held on.

Then I turned my gaze to the woman kneeling before me.

"You failed to act like a real thief, miss."

She blinked through the hollowness.

"Because a thief would never protect stolen goods the way you did. They would never position their body as a shield around the food instead of shielding themselves. That’s not how a thief’s instinct works. A thief is always processing the exit. Their eyes constantly scanning for the slightest opening to run."

I shook my head.

"But you? You didn’t scan anything. You didn’t run. You didn’t even try."

I turned the meat over in my hand.

"And here is the wider picture. You had the food in your grip. Looking at how starved you are, any thief would have shoved it down their throat the second they got their hands on it. Not protect it. Not guard it. Eat it."

My eyes traced the hollows beneath her cheekbones. Sunken past the point of skipped meals. Past the point of days without food. This was weeks.

"Judging by your face, you haven’t eaten in what? A week? More? Those cheeks are hollowed far past the point of missing a few meals. And yet here you are. Refusing to let this go. But also refusing to eat it."

I placed the meat back into her hands. "All because it was never yours to begin with."

Her fingers closed around it instantly. Instinctively.

"Someone is waiting for you at home, aren’t they? Someone who needs this more than you do. Someone whose stomach matters more to you than your own survival. And for that person, you chose your desperation over your dignity."

Her bloodshot eyes trembled but produced nothing.

"I also noticed something else. Despite everything that happened here today. The slap. The crowd. The chants demanding your punishment. You didn’t shed a single tear."

I studied those dried, cracked eyes.

"And looking at how red and raw they are, I can tell it’s not because you’re strong enough to hold them back. It’s because you don’t have any left. You’ve cried every single moment until you dried yourself hollow."

She was shaking now. Silently.

"And every single thing about you tells how much you’ve grieved to end up in this condition. How far you’ve fallen. How much you’ve lost. And after all of it you’re still here. Standing with a resolve that great warriors would lack."

I put my hand on the meat resting in her palms.

"You didn’t care about your pride. Didn’t spare a single thought for yourself. Took their curses. Their beatings. Without protest. Without begging for sympathy. Not a single word."

My voice softened.

"I could see it in your eyes when I arrived. You were ready for whatever punishment they had planned. You had already accepted it. Because in your mind, once it was over, you could finally go home. With the meat you protected more than your own body."

I held her gaze.

"So don’t make yourself small in your own eyes. To the person you’re enduring all of this for, you are nothing less than a god."

The words took time to settle. Over the crowd. Over her. Over me. I could see the pressure building behind her bloodshot eyes. Every muscle in her face fighting to produce what her body had already spent.

But no tears came. Even now.

"So who is it?" I asked quietly. "Who is waiting for you? Your husband? Parents? A sibling?"

Nothing.

"A child?"

She twitched and that was enough.

"Your child then."

And after everything. After the crowd. After the beating. After the chants and the humiliation and the stolen meat and the dried-out eyes that couldn’t cry anymore.

She finally broke.

"Yes." Her voice crumbled like wet paper. "I did it for my child. And I will do it again. And again. If that’s what it takes to see her face for a little longer."

Then sorrow swallowed the brief courage. "But still... there is no denying how pathetic I am. How useless I..."

She never finished.

My arms wrapped around her before my brain gave the order. Her face pressed into my shoulder. My hand found the back of her head and held it gently.

The hug was instinctive. Something deeper than logic or strategy driving my body.

"No." My voice was barely above a whisper. "You are the strongest. Just like every mother who goes against the whole world when it comes to their child. And just like someone I personally know."

Helena.

My mother. The woman who swallowed every cruelty the world forced down her throat. Who smiled through agony. Who endured years of suffering without breaking because one person needed her to keep standing.

Tears started forming in my eyes. Uninvited.

"You are wearing the same shoes as some of the greatest warriors I’ve ever known. And just like a lady I know personally."

My voice cracked but I pushed through it.

"She took every pain head on for her child. Without showing a single shred of weakness to the world that tortured her. But unlike you, she never broke from it. She had hope. She knew that one day this hellish phase would change."

I pulled back slightly.

"And in response, her child ripped his mother’s rightful victory straight from the hands of time itself. Because in his eyes... what good is an era if it doesn’t belong entirely to her?"

Something flickered in her expression. A spark of encouragement trying to catch fire.

But then reality crashed back in. Her face fell even deeper than before.

"For everyone, life is different." Her whisper was hollow. "And for me and my child, god has already written our end. For the sins we must have committed."

I separated her from me. Held her at arm’s length. Looked directly into those empty eyes.

"This is bullshit."

She flinched.

"How dare you think some god sitting above the clouds is controlling your life? How can you believe someone else has the right to write your story?" My grip tightened on her shoulders. "There is nothing called fate. Destiny is just a chain the weak put on themselves to make their surrender feel poetic."

My voice dropped lower.

"If the heavens have already decreed that you must suffer for sins you never committed, then I can assure you at that very moment the heavens will fall. Because there would be many warriors just like me who would take great pleasure in breaking those pens and their hands."

She was sobbing now. Without tears. Her body going through the motions of crying while producing nothing.

"But my daughter..." Her voice cracked into fragments. "She won’t make it."

A pause that lasted too long.

"My daughter is suffering from the purple vein disease. And for its treatment, we need a lot of money."

I laughed. Soft. Just to mock her. "So you’re saying money is the problem?"

She clenched her fists against her knees.

"We tried everything. We lived in a village far from here. When the disease was discovered, we learned the treatment existed but the cost was something we could never afford in our lifetime. So we moved here. For jobs. For opportunities."

Her voice was barely holding together.

"Her father and I looked for work everywhere. Tried everything we could. But then we realized the cost was still far beyond anything these jobs could ever reach. And her sickness was worsening. Every single day she was getting worse."

She swallowed.

"But then an opportunity appeared. An announcement was made. Whoever kills a demon in the neighbouring village will receive a sum large enough to cover almost everything we needed."

Her hands were shaking.

"And knowing that, my husband, without thinking, without realizing the danger, without questioning why he was the only person in the entire town willing to take it, he volunteered."

Her voice broke completely.

"Despite everything I threw at him. Every argument. Every plea. He just kept convincing me he could do it. He even said that all his life he had cut down thousands of trees. And cutting down a demon’s head would be no different."

She pressed her fists against her eyes. Dry. Burning.

"I knew how foolish it was. He knew too. But he stubbornly refused my pleas. And one morning he just left without saying. Went for his very first hunt."

A long, suffocating silence.

"A demon hunt."

Her body curled inward.

"It’s been more than a month since he went."