They finally stopped near a wood when night had fallen for a few hours. Elrohir prepared a fire while Elwen went hunting with Elladan.
They could only catch a rabbit and a kind of bird that seemed very fat. When they returned, Elrohir was finishing setting up camp, checking that the horses were tied up.
The meal was quite lively, Elwen regained her good humor as she laughed with the twins.
- "I'm sorry Elwen, but no village is on our way, the detour would delay us too much, we'll have to do like that for a few weeks… Elladan whispered as they finished eating.
- Don't apologize, I'm the only one to blame. I will walk when your horses can no longer support my weight" she whispered simply.
The twins smiled at him before settIng up guard duty, huffing that the place wasn't safe. If these tricks would demoralize some, It delighted Elwen on the contrary. It gave her an excuse to stay awake, delaying falling asleep.
She took the last lap, the moment before dawn being the hardest. She lay down, her eyes fixed on the stars. It was one of the last things keeping him from having the worst nightmares. She tried not to think of Elenwë who was waiting for her at the gates of the dream and concentrated on Elrohir's breathing.
She fell asleep after two hours of staring at the sky while trying to clear her mind. She was afraid to see Elenwë again. She didn't know If she would bear to see her again, with the words she dreaded so much In her mouth, she didn't know If she would be able to stand up under all those reproachful looks that only told her one thing, what frightened him the most, the truth.
Elwen was dreaming. A strange memory came from Before. Before It all begins. Before being afraid of her dreams, afraid of herself and this past that wouldn't let go of her. It was the story that Mistrid had always kept hidden, buried deep inside her. Elwen didn't know how this memory that didn't belong to her could have reached her. But the simple fact of seeing this woman who had been lIke a surrogate mother and even a first friend fills her with joy.
Mistrid came from another merchant house. A father and his three sons headed the household.
They were beautiful, rich, kind, and perfect. So perfect, so desirable. Mistrid had been ashamed to admit it but, like all the others, she had fallen under their spell, an Irresistibly powerful spell.
Months she had spent Inventing another body, a perfect body curled up in the arms of the eldest. In her other life, she was the most beautiful, and the most Intelligent, and Césaire, the eldest of the siblings, spent his days thinking about her. But it was only a dream, an Illusion that ended up devouring her from the inside. Consumed by an Impossible dream, she was nothing more than an empty, hollow, and uninteresting being
Mistrid never knew when she had ceased to be, where she had become the ghost that prevented her from seeing what was happening.
Things were changing around her.
More and more girls never came back, they suddenly disappeared, without a trace. Now people were running from La Ganche, they were avoiding it, and when they passed It, they lowered their heads and looked away.
Everyone knew that something was going on In this house, something no one dared to name, it was so terrible. Mistrid, insensitive to rumors, and Impervious to warnings, was one of the only ones to stay. And It wasn't until months later that she realized the others were gone. The large empty house was silent, with the occasional scream.
4
Mistrid slowly began to open her eyes to what was happening. Never again In the corridors did she see the father, the head of the house. He had been very nice to her and the girls often went to see him for consolation. He was the father many never had.
Maybe he had left like all the others?
He had gone well, to a place where no one knows what Is, a place where no one could follow him, a place from which one never returns. Mistrid refused to believe it, preferring a lie to the horrible reality that he greeted her every morning.
One night It was her turn. A hand grabbed her arm and dragged her into a bedroom.
That night, It was her cries that echoed through the hallways. That night, Césaire shattered it like one broken glass, with a single blow that destroyed it.
From that date, Mistrid only lived for one thing, to kill the man who had broken her, the man she had once loved madly. At night, she dreamed that she was chasing him, and when she caught him, his violence almost terrified her. She had never wanted anyone dead, but right now that was what she wanted most In the world: to gut the man who had hurt her so much.
She knew how to hurt and break people, and that was why no man had wanted her before: she terrified them. But soon harming her In a dream became an obsession and that is no longer enough…
She wanted to make him pay, make him pay for all the girls he destroyed.
Make her pay for this child she would carry for nine months, a child she didn't want, that she was afraid to hate.
One night she got up quietly and went to the kitchen. There she took a large knife and went up to Césaire's room. A hatred so powerful pushed her to do this that even today, she had no remorse. She lit the candles, approached the man, and stuck her knife Into his chest. Once. Twice. Thrice.
By the candlelight, she could see the look Cesaire was giving her, a look filled with fear.
Césaire was afraid of being judged for the crimes he had done, in a place where no one knows what awaits him.
As he was about to sink, Mistrid, who until then had watched him without moving, bleeding out, approached and whispered In his ear:
- "There is no justice in this world fair enough to punish you for what you have done, but remember one thing: you always pay for your crimes sooner or later. Because hatred will carry all your victims for one purpose: to find your corpse to spit on it. »
She left without looking back and closed the door with a slam.
The next day, everywhere It was already rumored that Césaire was dead. No one tried to find out who had committed the crime. Many knew deep down that this once-sweet little woman had killed him. In her look you could feel that something had changed, you could feel that she wasn't as nice as before.
Her son Zack was born In the spring. He had his father's eyes, bright blue eyes. Mistrid tried somehow to see her son there and not her executioner, but each day was a little harder. Growing up he became a strange child, he did not speak and spent his days picking flowers and catching grasshoppers. The other children thought he was weird, he never laughed, he was so naïve and he cried for nothing.