A cry of delighted surprise burst from her lips, carrying a tremor and a trace of hoarseness from surviving disaster that Rigerif herself had not noticed.
The sharp gleam of battle in her Golden Eyes receded swiftly like the tide, revealing the deeper relief beneath, almost overflowing.
Her tense posture, ready at any moment to face another round of attacks, also relaxed involuntarily. Her shoulders drooped slightly, and she finally let out the breath she had been holding.
They were not enemies. They were allies!
The biting wind outside poured Siberia's chill into the carriage, tossing her bangs about. The dull impacts at the door and the noisy music had not ceased, yet those tangible threats now seemed separated by a layer of frosted glass, blurred and distant.
It seemed that as long as this man wearing a monocle and hanging upside down outside the speeding train was here, all danger would vanish.
Rigerif suddenly came back to herself and realized that, without knowing it, she had come to rely on him so deeply.
When had it started? When they had faced enemies together at Murmansk Port? When she had suggested traveling with him aboard the Yamal? Or even earlier?
"Don't worry. It's all right now." Amon spoke with a smile, still in that unhurried tone as though everything were under his control, yet it strangely carried a power that soothed the heart. "Leave the rest to me."
It was a simple sentence, without even a concrete plan of action. Yet as Rigerif listened, the final taut string in her heart quietly loosened.
Fatigue and the lingering numbness surged over her belatedly. Leaning against the cold, slightly warped wall of the carriage, she let out a long breath and muttered, "That scared me to death. I thought they were really