"No confidence?" she spat the words out as if they were poison. "But this has nothing to do with my duties!"
"It has everything to do with it, love," the Queen said softly. She only ever took such a tone with her daughter. Jellal couldn't help the squeeze in his chest. Jealousy was always a thing he'd tried to avoid. "If people think you're careless with your heart, they assume you'll be careless with their lives."
Jellal swallowed his words but he couldn't stop the sigh from clawing its way free.
"And what do you have to say about this?" The Princess turned to him with an expression that might've ended his life on the spot – if such a thing were possible.
Jellal glanced at the Queen whose face was carefully blank. He didn't need her to speak; he understood her position was dangerous. She would never betray his confidence, even in the presence of her very angry daughter. Such a breach would create an even bigger upset than rumors of a madcap princess who shared her bed with a known assassin.
"I think…" He picked at the silver edges of his cloak. Not too long ago, perhaps even earlier that day, he'd been proud of it. The deep blue fabric lined with silver piping meant a job well done. Now it represented the canyon between Erza and himself. "I think Her Majesty is right. It matters."
"Jellal!" the Princess gasped. "You can't be serious! I can be queen and something else!" Her eyes flit quickly between her mother and Jellal in desperation. Nothing in recent history had hurt him more than this. "I don't need to marry! I can… I can do my job alone just like you!"
"Erza –" the Queen began even softer. Jellal braced himself. She'd only ever expressed concern and mild disapproval when it came to his affair with her daughter. Perhaps in her most private moments she'd hoped it would spurn something more – something bigger. Something revolutionary. However, despite being a sovereign ruler, she was still a servant of her people. The stability of Fiore depended greatly on faith in the monarchy. "We exist on a very fine edge. Peace comes with a steep price. If the people decide we are no longer necessary, there will be revolt." The Queen's eyes landed on Jellal briefly. He understood her meaning in the very marrow of his bones. "We aren't simply royals on a hill. We serve the people because they allow us to do it. Your openly impetuous behavior was one thing when you were thirteen, even seventeen. You're twenty now."
"So what?" the Princess sobbed.
"Revolt means blood in the streets, Erza," Jellal said. From his position beside the window he could see every tier of the seventh hill all the way down to the brass colored domes of the government houses on the sixth hill. "I can't live with myself knowing I contributed to that. My place has never been up here with you. It's not where I belong."
Her expression remained neutral but Jellal could feel the Queen's glare. When he met her eyes he pled silently, Let me go. Please, just let me go. I can't do this.
"You can't marry an assassin, Erza," the Queen finally said. "These are the sacrifices we make."
"What if I don't want to make that sacrifice," the Princess whispered, looking directly at Jellal. "What if I want to be with you instead?"
"You can't," he said with finality. "I'm leaving."
Even the Queen's stoic countenance cracked in surprise.
"Don't you dare, Jellal!" Her fingers curled into angry fists. "You can't take this choice away from me!"
"I'm not without my own choice here, Princess. This concerns me, too."
"The price of my station is too high," she declared indignantly.
"I will pay for both of us," Jellal choked out. "You don't have to cut me off, Your Highness. I'll do that work."
"Where will you go?" the Queen asked in a quiet tone but Jellal had dealt with her long enough to recognize the demand beneath the smooth surface.
"Perhaps I'll take the holy vows and become a priest," he said with the grin that always drew a smirk from the Queen. On this day she only pursed her lips.
"If that's what you wish. I won't stop you."
"Mother!" Erza objected. "Jellal, please!"
Jellal bowed deeply for the Queen and only turned slightly toward the Princess. He couldn't stand to see her beg.
"It has been my pleasure to serve the crown in all capacities." Jellal spun on his heel and fled the room.
He left the palace behind and made only one stop on his way out of the royal city. The cloak that had grown to mean so much to him, he left in a pile of cast offs intended for the destitute outside a temple at the very foot of the fifth hill.
The Orihime shrine was older than the city and had fallen into disrepair. It sat not quite at the bottom of the hill but below the middle. Trees and other shrubbery kept it mostly out of eyesight. The fifth hill had more gardens than the seventh, and many of those were exclusively for prayer or meditation. A torii gate stood at the mouth of the path that led to the shrine. The red paint was faded and peeling. Jellal's fingers brushed over the splintered wood and he almost wished it would pierce his skin so he could delay wandering into the shrine.
"This place is too quiet," Ultear mused. "What if no one's here?"
"Someone is here," Jellal murmured. "Dimaria said Erza was bait. Orga would've left breadcrumbs."
"Weren't you listening at all?" she asked irritably. "Orga isn't in charge of the God Slayers anymore. We don't know what we're dealing with."
Jellal crouched just beyond the gate and ran his fingers over the wild tufts of grass poking between the last remnants of gravel. "Yeah, I was listening."
Ultear sighed. "What do you make of all this? Why is someone after you? Stella might be a governmental mess but it's not like you pose any kind of threat. The closest you've ever come to going back was moping on a mountain for seven years."
"I wasn't moping."
"You were. Anyway, let's just think about this for a moment. Who wants you brought to heel and why?"
Jellal's thoughts were a tangle. He'd always assumed the entirety of his family dead. Not once in the last twenty years had he thought otherwise. He didn't follow the news of goings on in Stella but he knew the monarchy was in shambles. Every branch of his family had been razed down to the level of baron. There hadn't been anyone with any degree of competency left to step into his father's shoes as king. Since then the remaining senate and ministries had struggled to form a working government. Even two decades later the country hadn't recovered from the seemingly senseless purge of royal blood.
Of course, his memories were that of a seven year old. He hadn't been old enough to truly understand the complexities of politics. There weren't sensational stories surrounding his disappearance, though – not anymore. Jellal had been operating under the notion that if he was known to be missing and not dead, whoever ordered the purge would've come after him. Now? Nothing made sense.
He sighed deeply and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't have a clue. I never bothered to dig too deep into how I wound up here."
"I don't suppose it matters. Whoever is behind all this has a twenty year head start anyway."
Jellal stood and gazed up at the sky. Through the trees he could see the sun inching just past mid-day. He'd have liked very much to have darkness on his side but the momentum of the day needed to be harnessed.
"Come on," he said under his breath. "Let's see what we can see. We'll stay together for now."
Ultear followed him up the overgrown path toward the shrine. Once the broken roof came into view, Jellal veered off the path and carefully moved through the grass. From the outside the shrine looked utterly abandoned but Ultear had an excellent eye for details. She brushed his arm and pointed toward a section of grass near the east wall of the shrine. This particular patch of grass stood out because it had very clearly been cut away to reveal an excavation tunnel that burrowed beneath the shrine. Black clove cigarette butts collected in a small pile near the hole and Ultear sneered in disgust.
Jellal glanced at her once before crouching down and scowling into the tunnel.
"I hate nature related activities," Ultear muttered. "It's always so dirty."
"Says the woman who enjoys her murder work."
"Pardon me?" she snapped. "My profession as an assassin isn't filthy. The only time I am ever exposed to this kind of mess is when I tag along with you."
"Nothing's forcing you to stay."
"Nothing except my pesky code of honor and self respect."
Jellal snorted and accepted the situation. "It doesn't look like this can be avoided. Come along or skulk back home."
The hole was wide enough that both he and Ultear could've hopped into it side by side. Jellal's boots hit the bottom and a puddle of something sloshed. Ultear landed gracefully beside him and the sound she made was something quite beyond aggravation. Even in the low light he could see her glare.
Beyond the damp soil, there was a well-used tunnel that looked to have been blasted into from the excavation hole. Lacrima lanterns were mounted into the wall and reminded him very much of the twisting bowls of Fairy Tail. Jellal touched the broken concrete wall and peered into the tunnel. It stretched endlessly in both directions.
"Looks like this hole is a forced entry point."
"I don't like thinking about what's beneath the surface of this city," Ultear whispered.
"I thought you enjoyed intrigue," Jellal said stepping through the pile of concrete rubble and into the tunnel.
"I enjoy it when I've got a knife pointed at its soft belly." She sighed and examined both ends of the tunnel. "Which way, Your Highness?"
Jellal let the title roll off his back. She was only poking at him because she didn't like being trapped underground – and she was still seething over the loss of all her pretty things.
"The temple faces the river so if we go left, we'll curve around the hill. Right will just lead us back down to The Troughs and eventually the canals."
"You think they'd take the Princess further in or out?"
"In," he said firmly. "If she's truly just bait, they have no reason to try and remove her from the city." Jellal turned to head left but Ultear's hand shot out and grabbed the edge of his cloak.
"I think we should go right."
"Why?"
"Think about it. If the Princess is bait, they don't have a reason to remove her but they'll certainly not want to be trapped inside a hill covered in shrines and temples. They'll want to either assassinate you or nab you. Either way, they need a quick exit. They obviously know you have a connection to the Queen and report back to her."
Jellal hated questioning his instincts. He hated the abstract. But he hated the idea of separating from Ultear even more.
"Alright. We'll follow south and backtrack when we reach The Troughs."
Their boots echoed softly on the packed dirt ground for what felt like an eternity. The tunnel twisted and turned them around so many times, Jellal thought they'd gotten lost. But how? The tunnel was one long stretch of concrete and dirt with no offshoots and no doors. When the sound of running water could be heard, Jellal grabbed Ultear's wrist.
"You said we'd hit The Troughs," she whispered. "Why do we hear the river?"
"Haven't you noticed that we've doubled back?"
"Impossible. You're just feeling claustrophobic."
"I don't think so." Jellal's curiosity surged and he marched forward with Ultear trailing behind.
The tunnel ended abruptly with a sharp drop off above what looked to be one of the city's many canals. An iron grate hung down over the opening halfway. Across the canal the tunnel continued but there wasn't even a footbridge to assist them.
Jellal groaned frustratedly and approached the grate.
"What now?" Ultear asked, scuffing the soles of her boots in the loose dirt near the tunnel wall. "Should we turn around and interrogate Dimaria some more? She obviously lied."
"I don't know," Jellal said, grasping the iron bars and leaning against the grate. "I don't think she lied." On impulse he ducked under the grate and peered over the edge.
When his body was shoved backward, his head cracked against the grate. His knees gave out and his eyes rolled upward to try and make sense of what had just happened. Ultear's shouts echoed in the tunnel and he felt her grasping at his cloak from between the bars.
A blur of scarlet swam before him and a familiar pair of honey brown eyes became all he could see.
