Chapter 37: The End of Love
When Elincia came to, the weakness in her limbs was gone, and her eyesight had been restored completely. She felt like she had awakened from a long, refreshing sleep, and was surprised when she found herself lying on a blanket in the grass, under the open sky outside of Melior, right on the spot where she had fainted.
"It's good to be alive," she said for no particular reason and tried to rise. Her legs were a bit shaky, but not shaky enough to prevent her from standing.
"Elincia! Thank goodness you're awake!" Geoffrey appeared in her field of vision, a small bottle filled with a blue liquid in each of his hands. "I thought you needed more elixirs, but..."
"How long was I out?" she asked
"About ten minutes."
"Only ten minutes?" Elincia could hardly believe his words. "But I'm feeling so much better!"
"There were no healers anywhere near, so I gave you the most powerful healing potion I could find," Geoffrey said. "Are you sure you don't need another?" He raised the two elixir bottles and gave her a questioning look.
"I'm fine now," Elincia said. "What about the enemy?"
"We surrounded them as you commanded," Geoffrey said as he put the bottles down. "It seems that some sort of infighting broke out just after you warped back to us." He looked at Elincia expectantly. "I assume that was your doing?"
"It was," Elincia replied. But I don't want to explain it to you... "Everything worked... just as planned." Saying these words brought her no joy, and she simply wanted to fall asleep again. But the elixir had worked uncannily well, and she felt no weakness at all, so she could not justify lying around while there was still work to be done.
"I'm going to go back," she announced.
"I was afraid you'd say that," Geoffrey sighed. "And while you won't listen to me, I still have to say this: It's too dangerous."
"I don't care. I have to go." I have to see with my own eyes what I've done... and take care of some important matters. The sound of snickering behind her caught Elincia's attention, and she turned around to see her pegasus. "Atlas! So you made it back!"
"Incidentally, he nearly gave me a heart attack when he returned without you," Geoffrey said dryly.
"But I told you to wait patiently for my return, and that's what you did." Elincia nodded in approval. "You've done well."
"We didn't really do anything, other than surrounding an enemy that seems to be lacking any leadership at the moment. Truth be told, some of them even fled before our troops could encircle them all. Something very scary must have happened over there." Again, Geoffrey looked at Elincia with the clear expectation of getting an explanation, but there was no time for that. "Let's just say I sabotaged their leadership," Elincia said evasively. "And now I must find what's left of them and start negotiating." She quickly mounted Atlas and seized his reins. "Ready for another trip?" she asked, and her mount whinnied in response.
"Look, this is insane," Geoffrey said and stepped into Atlas' path to prevent Elincia from departing. "They'll tear you apart after... whatever it is you did to them. You don't even have a sword anymore!"
"Then I will wait long enough for you to send a messenger to the enemy, informing them that you will drown their entire force in boiling pitch if I'm not back after twenty minutes," Elincia commanded. "They will not throw away their lives just so they can kill me out of spite. Unless I'm completely wrong, their spirits should be completely broken."
"At least you're seeing reason," Geoffrey sighed with relief, "although I don't relish the image of you being burned to death with scalding pitch." He ordered a mounted knight to deliver Elincia's message. "It should only take him a few minutes," he told her. "Until then, can you tell me exactly what you did?"
"I suppose I have no excuse now, do I?" Since she had to tell him sooner or later, Elincia decided on 'sooner' and, with brief words, told Geoffrey everything. His expression turned pale when he learned that she had fought a duel with Ike, and positively ashen when he learned what she had done afterwards.
"That's the most insidious thing I've ever heard," he said. His tone was strangely neutral, as if he was merely making an observation, and carried no hints of disapproval. In spite of her plain and obvious guilt, Elincia felt a little bit relieved.
"Poor Ike," Geoffrey said hoarsely. "Do you think he's still...?"
"I can't imagine it," Elincia said and looked in the direction of the enemy, but her view was blocked by a wall of Daein knights forming a circle around them. "Someone must have stopped him by now."
Before Geoffrey could comment on that, the messenger returned and reported that the enemy was in no condition to fight back anymore. He also said that they would receive Elincia without hostile intent and were ready to negotiate.
"Then I'll be going," Elincia said. "You stay here, Geoffrey. If you don't hear from me after twenty minutes, consider me dead and drown them in pitch."
"Yes, Your Majesty," Geoffrey replied, and Elincia was amazed that he did not protest against her orders, for they meant that he would be killing her, too, in the unlikely event that she would be taken hostage.
He didn't protest against what I did to Ike, either, other than calling it insidious, which of course it was. I think I finally dragged him down to my level... now should I be proud of that or ashamed?
Elincia raised her arm and waved a short farewell at her partner in evil, then had Atlas take off and flew above the blockade. When she beheld the enemy armies, they looked mostly unchanged from her first overflight before the duel... except for the small elite unit that had once been the Greil Mercenaries.
They were still there, of course – several thousand men did not just vanish – but the circle wherein Elincia and Ike had fought was littered with dead bodies. A massacre had taken place there, and although it paled in comparison to the massacre at Flaguerre, it surpassed it in horror for a reason other than the number of victims: The perpetrator had been a single man, driven to madness by a power beyond human imagining, slaughtering his own friends and comrades against his will. Elincia could only hope that he had at least been unaware of what he had been doing – the alternative was unthinkable in its dreadful implications.
But among all the death, there was life, too, even if it only consisted of healers trying to save those who could be saved. Elincia counted five white-robed clerics when she landed in the corpse-littered circle (Atlas somehow managed not to step on any dead bodies), searching for survivors to use their staves on. But it appeared that their search was mostly fruitless, because only two of them were actually kneeling on the ground and trying to heal those who had survived Ike's rampage.
Was it truly Ike who did all this? Elincia asked herself while trying to estimate the number of the dead – they had to be more than a hundred! She saw General Levail, dead from a gruesome head wound, his helmet split apart and his lance broken in two. A small distance from him lay Tibarn who had died in hawk form, his throat slashed open and one of his wings cut off. Skrimir was lying on his back right next to him, untransformed and unconscious, bleeding heavily from a cut on his temple. It looked like Ike had knocked him out with a glancing blow before he had had a chance to fight back – which, ironically enough, might have saved his life. A nervous cleric was kneeling in the blood-soaked soil next to the Lion King and tried to slow the flow of blood with a healing staff, but his hands were trembling so much that he failed repeatedly to cast the spell properly. The sight of his commander going into a murderous rampage had shaken him to the core.
He probably has no idea why Ike did what he did, Elincia thought. And the shaken cleric was not the only one: Most of the other mercenaries were talking to each other in hushed, confused whispers, trying to make sense of a scene that defied all reason. The terrible power of Lehran's Medallion had only been known to a selected few, and those few had probably not even realized that Elincia had put it into Ike's hands when he had reached out to her.
But the Greil Mercenaries were no fools, and ignorance of the details did not prevent them from knowing who was to blame for their leader's sudden insanity. He had gone mad right after taking the hand of Elincia, who had proceeded to vanish into thin air, conveniently escaping the ensuing killing spree. Fingers were pointed and curses were yelled at the evil queen who had somehow bewitched the company's leader, but nobody dared to attack her: Discipline, superstition and the knowledge that they would all die quick, but painful deaths if Elincia did not emerge from the circle again kept them in line and their anger impotent.
"Your gall is pretty impressive," a hoarse voice demanded Elincia's attention. She turned around and saw Ranulf standing next to Skrimir, his hands clenched to fists and his face red with anger. "Did you come here to gloat? Or to pretend you're sorry?"
"Actually, neither," Elincia replied calmly. She had never seen the easy-going laguz shaking with rage before, but she had to admit that he had every right to be angry. "I came here for several reasons. Such as getting a picture of what I have done." Out of the corners of her eyes, she saw that the nervous cleric attending to Skrimir had still not gotten his healing spell right. "And perhaps lend a helping hand," she added, gently took the healing staff out of the young man's hand and used it to close Skrimir's wounds, which was as shallow as she had suspected – the impact of Ike's sword, not loss of blood was responsible for his unconsciousness.
"Do you think this is going to change anything?" Ranulf yelled at Elincia as she turned back to him. "Do you think I'm going to say 'thank you'? Do you think Skrimir will say it?"
"I expect he will try to tear me to pieces when he wakes up," Elincia said. "And I expect you to restrain him if that happens."
"I'd be of a mind to help him," Ranulf growled, but Elincia did not fear his anger. Even now, he was too rational to do something that would sentence every single one of his trapped soldiers to death. "So now you got a picture," he added with an angry wave of his hand. "Do you like what you see?"
"Where is he?" Elincia asked without responding to Ranulf's question.
"Where is who?"
"Ike, of course."
"What, you want to spit on his corpse? Or perhaps say a teary-eyed farewell?" Ranulf snorted, turned his back to Elincia and knelt down next to Skrimir. "Go find him yourself."
"Very well." Elincia stepped away from the two Gallians and overlooked the site of the massacre. Finding Ike could not be very difficult, seeing as she just had to follow the trail of corpses he had left in his wake. She noticed that most of the low-ranking mercenaries near the center of the circle had died with their weapons in their hands; like Tibarn and Levail, they must have tried to stop Ike even if it meant killing him. But when Elincia came upon the corpses of the senior members of the company, she noted that most of them had died without even trying to defend themselves. Mia, Rhys, Titania, Mist... they all lay on the ground with their hands empty, their bodies stabbed and slashed and their faces contorted in horror – not at their own impending death, but at the fact that death came at the hands of the person they trusted most.
They were mercenaries about to fight in a war, Elincia told herself as she walked past their corpses. They must all have been prepared for death – how they died makes no difference. It was a callous lie that she did not believe herself, but it was enough to make her go on and keep her from breaking down and apologizing to the dead who could no longer hear her. Then, after a few more steps, Elincia finally found Ike.
He was dead, that much was obvious at first glance: An arrow to the back of his neck had killed him, and he had toppled over like a felled tree, landing right next to the corpse of Soren. The young mage must have been the final victim of his commander's killing spree, for Alondite was still buried in his chest. His face was as pale in death as it had been in life, his mouth open in a desperate plea that had gone unheeded, and his red eyes were filled with such absolute terror that Elincia had to look away. Both of his hands were clasped around Ike's left fist, proof that he had been trying to take Lehran's Medallion away from him. But his final act of service had been a failure, and Elincia could not help but note that Soren might have survived if only he had run away instead of trying to save someone who was already lost.
Not one of the surviving mercenaries had approached Ike, perhaps out of fear that whatever magic had driven him insane might affect them as well if they got too close to him. But though they dared not come near their fallen commander, they were still watching him, and when Elincia knelt down next to Ike, she felt the hateful gazes of hundreds of men pierce her. But looks could not kill, and so she was able to retrieve Lehran's Medallion unhindered from Ike's left hand. His fingers were still clenched around it, and it seemed that even in death, he did not want to surrender the item that had destroyed his life. Elincia had to pry his fingers open one at a time before she could take the medallion back, protected from its baleful influence by the gloves she wore – unlike Ike's half-gloves, they did not expose her fingertips.
Like father, like son, she thought as she looked at Ike's corpse again. Except that the father touched the medallion by accident, while the son was deceived and betrayed.
Although she knew that thoughts like this could only lead to despair, Elincia wondered how Ike had felt at the moment of death. Had the madness induced by the medallion released him in the end, or had it maintained its grip on him relentlessly until the spark of life had fled him? Turning Ike's body on his back to see his face would probably have answered that question, but Elincia was afraid to find out, afraid that his face, too, had become twisted and contorted with horror. She would rather remember the expression he had worn when he had offered her his hand – one of deep sadness and concern, but also of hope that the Elincia he had known was not gone forever.
But he was wrong. The old Elincia would never have done this to him.
Elincia buried her face in her palms and tried to cry. She failed to do so on earlier occasions, and she knew that if she could not shed any tears now, hunched over the body of the man who had protected her life, who had been her life for an entire year, she would never be able to cry again. She tried to force the tears to come by recalling many of the pleasant memories she had shared with Ike, but it amounted to nothing: Her eyes remained dry.
Even Ike cried in the end! He tought that I wanted to die, that I could no longer bear the weight of my sins. He took pity on me, but I didn't deserve any of it, and I turned his pity into betrayal. I let him believe that I was trying to repent my sins through death even as I plotted his ruin!
"You were wrong, Geoffrey," Elincia whispered to herself even as she resisted the temptation of cradling Ike's head in her arms. "I am the most horrible person in the world." She rose to her feet, slowly, deliberately, and threw her head back, staring at the sky. "If there is anyone out there whose evil is greater than mine, let them come before me and prove it!" she shouted. "But there isn't anyone," she whispered when her challenge went unanswered. "Not unless I dig out the rotten corpse of Ashnard with my bare hands."
"Impressive little speech," a raspy, spiteful voice spoke somewhere near Elincia. "Now try it again with less self-pity."
"Who...?" Elincia spun around and saw a man rise from the corpses behind Ike, first to one knee, then, pushing his elbow up from that knee, to full height.
"Yes, who?" Shinon asked, pressing both hands against a blood-gushing stomach wound.. "Who would be the last man standing of the Greil Mercenaries?"
"I still see many others standing," Elincia pointed out. A single glance was enough to tell her that Shinon posed no threat, carrying no weapons and standing only shakily on his feet.
"The rank-and-file don't count," Shinon replied with unconcealed contempt. "Amateurs, all of them, compared to the senior members."
"I didn't notice you were still alive." And I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing.
"Yeah, you walked right by without even noticing me. You probably thought I was just another corpse. How rude."
"You're wounded," Elincia said unnecessarily and pointed at Shinon's bleeding gut wound. "Why aren't there any clerics attending you?"
"There was one, but he said I wasn't going to make it and started praying for my soul." Shinon spat, but it was more blood than saliva. "So I told him to piss off and pray for someone else... like that whelp." He slowly dragged himself the small distance toward his dead commander. "A whelp that turned into a rabid dog... until I put him down." He nodded toward the arrow that had pierced the back of Ike's neck. "Pretty impressive aiming for someone lying in his own blood, eh?"
Shinon has hated Ike ever since he knew him, Elincia remembered. She had no idea why, because she had never asked. Perhaps Shinon himself did not know. "I know this must sound horribly false to you," she said, "but... thank you for releasing him."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Shinon replied. "I wasn't trying to do him a favor... argh!" He dropped to one knee and nearly keeled over to the side. "Damn this pain! I always knew that dying would hurt, but not this much..."
"Is there anything I can do to help?" Elincia asked.
"Yes, saving my life would be nice," Shinon snarled.
"That is beyond my power. But is there anything else you want me to do? Like, delivering a message to someone?"
"Are you kidding?" Shinon spat blood again, showering Elincia in red spittle. "Do you think there's someone out there waiting for me? Me, the nicest guy in the world?"
"I thought there might be," Elincia defended herself. "Everybody can love, you know."
"Bah. Love is for little girls." Shinon grinned contemptuously. "Don't tell me you loved Ikey-boy."
"I... I used to." Elincia had never thought she would admit this to anybody except herself, but it no longer mattered now. "I used to," she said again. "But that was a long time ago."
"Then congratulations are in order," Shinon said. "You're not a little girl anymore." With a snide grin on his face, he broke out into a bloody coughing fit and collapsed.
"Yes." Elincia nodded slowly as she watched the life leave the body of the master marksman. "That's certainly true."
I should not dwell here for longer than necessary, she decided, unless I want Geoffrey to let loose the boiling pitch. And besides, I got what I came for.
Without taking another look at Ike, Elincia walked back to Atlas, passing Ranulf and the still-unconscious Skrimir on the way. "Tell your king to come to my palace before sunset, to negotiate a peace treaty," she said to him, although 'negotiations' were not the best word for what she had in mind. "And tell the same thing to whoever is in charge of Phoenicis now," she added and mounted Atlas. "Your forces will be kept encircled until the treaties have been signed. That is all."
"I will tell Skrimir what you said," Ranulf said icily. "He will decide what to do then."
"If he is half the king his uncle was, he will swallow his pride and meet with me," Elincia said before ordering the Greil Mercenaries to move out of her way so Atlas could take off. Soon after she was airborne again and on her way back to Geoffrey, with feelings of relief coursing through her. Although the knowledge of what she had done to Ike and his comrades would forever be seared into her mind, at least now they were beyond her ability to harm them any further.
An hour later, Elincia returned to Melior, flanked by Geoffrey and Bertram as she she reached the outskirts of the city. News of her (mostly) bloodless victory had already reached the populace, and she was greeted by throngs of cheering men and women who did not care a whit about the methods Elincia had used: They were happy to have been spared a siege or even the outright destruction of their city, and they expressed their gratitude by shouting the name of her queen at the tops of their lungs.
"For the royals and nobles who are charged with protecting the people, there is no greater sin than to be defeated in war. It is the ultimate betrayal of the people's trust."
Soren had spoken these harsh words to her three years ago, and Elincia had never forgotten them. His words had made her cry at the time, but she had also recognized them as the truth – which meant that the inverse was also true: That by preventing a bloody war that might have brought the people of Crimea to ruin, she had fulfilled her duty and proven herself worthy of the trust placed in her. And although this accomplishment did not outweigh her sins, Elincia felt satisfied by the knowledge that she had not discarded her conscience for nothing. Unlike Ashnard, whose evil had ultimately caused the downfall of his own people, her evil had served to protect them – if she needed any further proof that she was different from the mad king of Daein, then it was this.
"These are your people, Elincia," Geoffrey said as he walked beside her, his voice swelling with pride. "If you're still looking for someone to judge you, I would say they do not find you wanting. An don't they say that the common folk always know best?"
"That might just be true," Elincia said, even though she feared that it was not that easy.
"Don't look so tense," Geoffrey criticised her. "Stop frowning! This isn't the time for reflecting upon your misdeeds." He sighed theatrically and shook his head. "You're still very young for a queen, you know? You can do so much good during your reign that it will outweigh your evil a thousand times over."
"So there's an optimist hiding under all that stoicism of yours," Elincia said with a grin. "I had no idea."
"And I thought you knew me well," Geoffrey smirked. "Oh, look!" he said upon seeing a group of people standing in the middle of the road. "A welcoming committee."
"How thoughtful of them." Elincia looked ahead and recognized the mayor of Melior along with several magistrates as well as representatives of the craftsmen's guilds. "They even have a flower girl," Geoffrey said and pointed at the young girl, perhaps ten years in age, who was walking toward the queen with a large bouquet of red tulips in her hands. "I hope you're not allergic."
"If I turns out I am, I'll just grin and bear it," Elincia joked and smiled at the fair-haired girl who stood in front of her queen without a hint of nervousness. She wore an expensive-looking white dress and a headband of the same color, and carried herself with an air of elegance rarely found in young children. Which is probably why she was chosen for this role.
"Our beloved Queen Elincia," the girl said, her voice slightly monotone as if she was reciting words she had memorized earlier, "the people of Melior welcome you back in your city and celebrate your triumph. Please accept this as a small token of their undying gratitude." She lowered her head, made a single step toward Elincia and raised the bouqet of tulips – only to drop it without any prior sign of nervousness.
"Don't worry about it," Elincia wanted to say, but the sight of a stiletto in the girl's right hand took her breath away. Before she could grasp the full urgency of her situation, the girl lunged forward and thrust her weapon at the queen – who felt a strong arm shove her out of harm's way and into a group of onlookers.
What's going on?
Elincia caught herself quickly, her mind racing to catch up with what had happened. She turned around just in time saw Geoffrey strike the knife out of the young girl's hand, while Bertram stepped forward and clutched her throat with his gauntleted hands. The girl did not struggle against her captor and instead stared at Elincia with an expression of utter frustration.
She tried to kill me, Elincia realized somewhat sluggishly. A child of her age!
"Order!" Geoffrey shouted when panic threatened to break out among the masses who had just seen their queen assaulted. "Order!" He peered at Elincia to confirm that she was unharmed and gave her an encouraging nod. "The queen is alive and well, and the.. the malefactor has been arrested! Everything is under control!"
"Your Highness!" The mayor of Melior knelt down before Elincia, his bald head red with shame. "We are... We don't..." He stared at the captured girl, then at his queen, then at the girl again. "We had no idea!" he cried in exasperation. "Who would have thought that a child..."
"Who is she?" Elincia cut him short, utterly uninterested in the man's excuses. "Who is that girl?"
"I... I'm not sure," the mayor stuttered. "She said she was the daughter of a rich merchant, but–"
"You're a fool, old man," the captured girl laughed. Her throat was constricted by Bertram's relentless hold, but he was not choking her: He had learned to kill only when his mistress demanded it. "You really thought I was the daughter of a mere money-lender. How precious!"
"Then let's hear it," Elincia said and gave the girl a piercing glare. "Who are you really?"
"I am the granddaughter of Duke Alm of Kantos, rightful heir to his duchy and avenger of his death," the girl said with overwhelming aristocratic hauteur. From one moment to the next, her youthful features were marred with cold hatred, and her blue eyes had become orbs of blazing fury. "I am his hand that strikes at you from beyond the grave."
She's a relative of Duke Alm? Well, that explains her tone... and didn't he tell me with his last breath that I would follow him soon? Damn me for underestimating him again, even after his death!
"Your devotion to your late grandfather is impressive," Elincia said coldly, "but misguided. You have just thrown away your life, and for what? A failed attempt at revenge." She shook her head. "I suppose gambling with high stakes lies in your family's blood."
"I didn't manage to kill you," the girl said, and an insidious smile came over her. "But at least I got your wretched, fawning knight."
"What?" Elincia stared at the stiletto lying on the street, and saw that it had been bloodied. "Geoffrey, where did she–"
"Don't worry, Your Highness," Geoffrey replied and showed her the back of his right hand – the hand he had used to push her to safety. "It's just a scratch." And indeed, the cut on his hand was short and could not be deep, for it was bleeding very little. "Not even worth mentioning."
"Then why is she so gleeful?" Elincia asked, casting nervous glances at the girl who was grinning like mad. "Is she crazy or–"
The sight of a tiny stream of spittle running out of the corner of Geoffrey's mouth made her blood freeze. She had seen the same thing before – seconds after Duke Alm had eaten his poisonous leaf.
"No," Elincia said helplessly. "No, no, no..."
"What's wrong?" Geoffrey asked. "Is there something in my face?" He wiped away the spittle with his hand and frowned. "Is that why you're.. ugh!" He cringed and doubled over, his eyes turned glassy and his breath became ragged. "P-Poison...?" he rasped incredulously and writhed in pain, losing his balance and keeling over.
"Geoffrey!" Elincia caught him before he hit the ground, terrified by how limp his body was. "Geoffrey, stay with me! I beg of you!"
"Elincia..." He tried to look at her, but he could not focus his eyes properly anymore. "You have to go on... without me," he said, his voice almost inaudible among the onset of screams from the crowd. He reached out with his hands in order to touch Elincia's face, but his arms were shaking too much. Sick with fear and helplessness, Elincia took his hand and pressed it against her cheek, a futile gesture that nonetheless made Geoffrey smile.
"You've come so far," he whispered weakly, his eyes lost in hers. "Don't lose sight of your goal now. Walk the path you've chosen... and do not... look... back..." His breathing stopped, his eyes turned white and his head slumped down on his chest. His body was still warm, but that would not be for long, and although Elincia's heart did not want to accept the truth, her mind could not deny it.
Geoffrey was dead.
And in a certain, cruel way, it made perfect sense.
Elincia had sworn herself never to love him, as punishment for murdering Bastian and the other, greater sins that had followed. And yet she had been breaking that oath day after day, for love could take many different shapes. Even if it was never admitted, or pronounced, or consummated, it still was love. Geoffrey and her had strengthened and comforted one another by staying at each other's side throughout otherwise unbearable hardships... what had that been if not love?
As long as he was at my side, I could never stop loving him, Elincia realized. And so it followed that he had to leave my side forever.
Less than two hours ago, she had thought that she would never cry again, no matter what happened. She had not expected to be proven correct so soon.
I swore to him that I would continue on if he died, and I will not break that vow.
Elincia let go of Geoffrey's hand and rose, overlooking the shocked and angry bystanders. The leader of the Royal Knights had been well-loved by the people, and the crowd was calling for the head of the girl who had murdered him. Bertram was looking expectantly at his mistress, ready to snap her neck if Elincia so much as indicated that such was her wish.
She is only a child, her thoughts and feelings shaped by the family that raised her, Elincia thought. Barely old enough to understand the consequences of her actions, the girl had only wanted to avenge her grandfather whose death she blamed on the queen. She was grinning at Elincia with the malice and glee of a vindictive child who had turned the tables on the cruel adults that plagued her.
I understand her, and I may even pity her, Elincia thought. But that won't be enough to save her. She was feeling no rage or hatred toward the girl, having overcome such harmful emotions for good. But her crime had happened in public and could not be denied... and there was only one possible punishment for her.
"Heed me, scion of Duke Alm," Elincia said formally, her voice unshaken by her loss. "You attempted to murder your queen, and killed her most trusted and faithful servant. That crime cannot be forgiven " The girl said nothing in response, her face twisted in a cruel, gloating smile that Elincia found unnvering. "As the highest judge in the land, I hereby sentence you to death," she concluded, and her verdict was answered with cheers from the crowd. "Do you have a last wish?"
"Bring back my grandfather!" the girl screamed in righteous anger, but Elincia was not impressed. "Gladly," she replied. "As soon as you bring back Geoffrey." When Alm's granddaughter did not respond, Elincia nodded at Bertram. "Kill her," she said, and when Bertram pulled at the girl's arm as if he was going to tear her limb from limb, she quickly added: "Painlessly."
"As you wisssh..."
"A curse on the evil queen, and a curse on House Ridell!" the girl yelled at the top of her lungs, and with a quick movement and a crunching sound, Bertram broke her neck.
"Bury her corpse in the potter's field outside the city," Elincia told the mayor. "Make sure there's no headstone or markings of any kind. I don't want her becoming a martyr for her exiled family."
"Yes, Your Highness," the mayor replied. "I will see to it personally."
And that's that, Elincia thought, the matter of Geoffrey's murder addressed to her satisfaction; the feeling that she was letting go of him too quickly outweighed by the simple fact that there was nothing else she could do. Now I must continue to walk down my chosen path.
"Bertram?"
"Yesss?" The black-clad knight dropped the corpse of Alm's granddaughter like a child dropped a toy that was no longer interesting.
"Carry Geoffrey's body to the palace for me," Elincia said. "Burial services will be held tomorrow." Because there are still so many things that need doing today.
As obedient as ever, Bertram picked up Geoffrey's corpse and resumed his place at his queen's side. "It isss a pity," he said. "I had wanted to ssspar with him..."
So even a monster has emotions...
"I'm so very sorry for your loss, Your Highness," the mayor addressed Elincia, his eyes downcast and his body wet with sweat.."If there's anything we can do–"
"General Geoffrey lived and died for Crimea," Elincia said loudly, addressing not just the mayor, but everyone who could hear her. "Every day of his life, he worked and fought and struggled so that you could live your lives unmolested by the scourge of war. Therefore, if you wish to honor his memory, continue to live your lives as you always have... and tell your sons and daughters about the day when he saved the life of his queen." She looked at Bertram, who was cradling Geoffrey's body in his arms like a child – or at least it looked that way to her. "Let's go."
"Wherever you lead, mistress," Bertram hissed, and together, the two continued on their way to the Royal Palace.