My semester from hell is finally over! Now I can continue with this fic. Sorry for the previous cliffhanger jaja. I hope you all like this chapter, and in case you haven't seen it, I recently commissioned the wonderful meixins to draw a scene from the end of chapter 2! Please go check it out here: twitter meixins/status/1446298764600172546 . It's so amazing and Mei deserves all the love!
Bernadetta gulped at the sight of the corpse. The man's face was gaunt, and she could see the remnants of a large vein that had been opened to kill him. As she stepped closer, a foul smell entered her nose, filling her senses with the feeling of rotting flesh and sour blood. "He's really dead, isn't he?" She whispered.
Yuri took a deep breath. "Yeah." Yuri put away his knife and kneeled down next to the body. "Judging by the temperature of the blood and how it's somewhat dried onto the clothes in the closet, I'd say he was killed a few hours ago."
Bernadetta stepped forward and took a closer look at the closet. The inside had been stuffed with rolled-up robes, all of them pressed to the inner edges of the closet that would've leaked out the body's smell. "Someone did not want us knowing he was dead," Bernadetta said. Her heart was beating louder and louder every second, but she forced her trembling hands to turn into fists. "It has to be the person who came in here this morning!"
"Or it could've been me," Yuri said, standing up to look Bernadetta in the eye.
"Yuri! Now's not the time for jokes! The guard on the street said no one else has been in here!"
"You never know, Bernadetta," Yuri said with a shrug. "I might've—"
A heavy thud echoed around the room.
Yuri and Bernadetta both immediately turned. The noise had come from the room next door. No more sound traveled through the wall, but Bernadetta knew what she'd heard.
"Stay behind me," Yuri whispered. Bernadetta nodded and followed him as he stalked back towards the bedroom door. He slid his silver sword from his belt, and Bernadetta kept a hand on the clasp that held up her cloak.
With the lithe steps of an experienced thief, Yuri deftly made his way down the only hallway on the house's second floor. Like the rest of the house, the hallway was mostly bare, with only a portrait of St Cethleann in shining with robes decorating the walls. Yuri crouched down low to the ground, Bernadetta following suit. Before them were three more doors, and that's when Bernadetta realized that they weren't sure which room the intruder was in.
They held their breath. Well, Bernadetta held her breath while Yuri just breathed evenly. Still, they made no sound as they waited for another noise. So they waited, listening to the house's stillness.
A floorboard groaned behind the second-to-last door.
Yuri rushed to the door and yanked it open. He thrust his sword immediately, and the panicked footsteps of the intruder banged against the floorboards. Yuri ran into the room, and Bernadetta unclasped her cloak. Bernadetta yanked her bow off of her shoulders and ran to follow Yuri, pulling out an arrow from the small quiver hanging on her hip.
Bernadetta entered the room with her arrow drawn. Her eyes tracked the scene before her: Yuri twisting and ducking underneath a set of gleaming daggers that flew above his face, a person dressed in a black hood matching Yuri's speed, and the two of them rolling between high stacks of books, scrolls, letters, and tomes. A tall window let harsh rays of light filter in, making the room look like a maze of paper and shadows. The assassin feinted a blow to Yuri's middle and twisted the dagger upwards at the last second. Yuri dodged backward, but the assassin was already slicing the dagger towards Yuri's now-exposed side.
With his free hand, Yuri grabbed a book from one of the tall stacks and parried the knife away. The assassin stumbled, and Yuri took the opportunity to throw the book at the assassin's hood.
The assassin ducked just as the book flew over them. What they did not manage to avoid was the arrow Bernadetta shot into their arm.
"Aaah!" The assassin yelled, and the blade in their left hand dropped to the floor. Yuri, unfazed by it all, sliced forward with his sword. The assassin parried it with their good arm and rolled, scattering the loose papers strewn about the room. Yuri followed, but the assassin kicked out a stack of heavy tomes forwards, forcing Yuri to jump out of the way.
Bernadetta's hands shook as she drew another arrow. She stepped back to give herself more room to aim, but the figure in black appeared before her. Bernadetta didn't know if they were instincts from the war or instincts from her childhood, but something in her reacted. Her fingers let the arrow fly loose, straight into the assassin's chest.
The arrow hit, hard enough to push the assassin back, and then fell harmlessly to the floor, free of blood.
"Ah! They have chest armor!" Bernadetta shouted. Yuri's blade, which had been aimed at the assassin's chest, twisted in mid-air as Yuri redirected the blow. The assassin side-stepped the sword just as it was about to slice into their leg. They jumped, landing in a shadow right next to Bernadetta.
A burning sensation burst in Bernadetta's left arm. "Aaah! Get away from me!" She screamed. Bernadetta dropped the bow and threw her hands out. With every bit of strength in her body, she pushed the figure away. The assassin stumbled into a pile of books, and more papers flew in all directions.
"Aaaaargh!" The assassin screamed once more. Yuri jumped over the pile of books and rushed forward. He brought the sword down in a long arc, and after the assassin rolled to dodge it, Yuri spun his sword to catch the figure in their now-exposed side. The sword caught the figure in the left arm, right below the arrow Bernadetta had shot into it.
"Not so fun when I use your own tricks against you, huh?" Yuri said.
The assassin let out a low growl and gripped their injured arm. The arrow Bernadetta had embedded into it had broken off into two at some point. The assassin turned to face Bernadetta again, but she was already picking up her bow with shaky hands. Her fingers trembled as she drew another arrow, and that's when the figure jumped.
They didn't jump at Bernadetta. They didn't jump at Yuri. They jumped at the ceiling-high window.
The black cloak fluttered as the assassin fell to the ground. Screams rang out from the street, and shards of glass flew outwards. Bernadetta began to run towards the window, but someone beat her to it.
"Yuri!" Bernadetta yelled as her friend jumped out of the broken window. She rushed to the edge of the broken glass and saw Yuri land with a roll, jumping out of it perfectly even as he still held his sword in hand. The crowd around him was rushing around madly, but Bernadetta quickly picked out the black cloak amid the people. The lonely guard had pushed them back with the tip of his lance, but the assassin slipped away. The black hood was trying to weave in and out among the afternoon crowds, preventing the guard from rushing forward again with his spear, but Bernadetta was guessing that everyone had seen them fall out of the window because they were all batting the dark figure away with anything they had on them.
The flying baskets, purses, jackets, and boots gave Yuri enough time to find the assassin. With a snap of his fingers, Yuri fired a Foul Play and switched places with the crowd member closest to the dark hood. Yuri lashed his sword outward. The blade sliced off the edge of the cloak, but instead of counter-attacking, the hooded figure grabbed the arm of a panicking young woman and launched her at Yuri.
Like the Varley guard, Yuri was forced to move out of the way. He sidestepped, but by the time his eyes had narrowed in on the assassin again, they were already moving. The assassin must have realized that they were boxed in, because now they were heading towards a new target.
On the other side of the small street, most of the vendors had abandoned their stalls in the chaos. Only one woman was still there. Corinne stood behind her bright stall, shaking and paralyzed at the sight of the hooded figure rushing towards her.
"No!" Bernadetta yelled. Drawing her bow back, Bernadetta aimed on instinct and let the arrow fly loose. The arrow flew over the crowds and landed on the assassin, but it hit their back, and the arrow bounced off without doing damage.
That's when a familiar sensation came over Bernadetta. It didn't come often, but during the war, she had gotten used to the feeling of her body working on its own. She let herself lean into the movements, let her fingers draw a new arrow faster than her mind could process what she was doing. Even her eyes worked faster, narrowing in on her small running target, and honed in.
The Crest of Indech flashed around her in a blaze of green light. Bernadetta allowed its power to coarse through her, and she let the arrow fly.
The assassin shrieked in pain as Bernadetta's arrow lodged itself deep in their tendon. The figure fell to the ground a couple of paces away from Corrine's stall, and their leg twitched violently. Yuri sprinted up to them and pulled the assassin's remaining dagger free of their hands. He then pressed a knee into their back and pulled both hands behind them, locking them into their current position.
"I've got 'em!" Yuri announced over the assassin's cries of pain. He turned and glared at the guard behind him, and that's when Bernadetta realized that the guard was looking up at her. "Hey, you!" Yuri called out to him. "Stop standing there and come do your job!"
Bernadetta finally remembered to breathe. Her chest shook as she took in the sight before her. The guard ran to help Yuri restrain the assassin, and Bernie saw a small platoon of guards run down the street help. The crowd around them shuffled about. They were all looking up at Bernadetta, and so many people were talking that she could hear their words despite being on the second floor.
"Is that the count?" A woman whispered.
"No, it couldn't be." Said another.
"But that was the Crest of Indech!" An older man said.
"Does this mean she's finally finished mourning?" A woman asked, but was quickly interrupted by a young man.
"Who knew the Bear of Varley could actually fight!" He yelled, to which several people laughed.
Bernadetta turned away from the window and ran through the house. She could feel the heavy blush on her face, but she forced herself to rush out the townhouse's door. She sprinted her way across the street, the small platoon of guards keeping the townspeople back, and skidded to a stop next to the twitching assassin.
From his position, where he was still restraining the hooded figure, Yuri looked up at Bernie. "You were hiding a bow under your cloak this whole time?" Yuri asked with raised eyebrows, and his mouth pulled itself into a smirk. "Gotta say… I'm impressed."
Bernadetta felt her cheeks get even hotter, so she chose to ignore that comment in favor of turning to the woman behind the stall. "Corrine, are you ok?" she asked.
"Y—Yes, my lady," Corinne said with a little bow. The embroidered green dragon on her dress was somewhat crinkled, but Bernadetta saw no injuries on the older woman. "All thanks to you."
"Did he damage anything?" Bernadetta asked as she looked over Corinne's wares.
"Nothing at all," the woman said. And she was right. Every piece of fabric was in perfect condition, pristine and undisturbed. "You stopped him before he could even breathe on a single piece of cloth."
Bernadetta sighed in relief. "That's good! These cloths are how you earn gold, so I'm happy they're ok, too! And that you're ok. Ah! I don't want to imply that cloths are more important than your life—not at all! I just mean—"
"I know what you mean, my lady." Corinne interrupted Bernadetta's babbling. "And I mean it when I say this: thank you." The woman then bowed towards Bernadetta, low and deep.
"Y—You're welcome," Bernadetta said. Corinne raised herself and smiled, and Bernadetta surprised herself by smiling back.
"Hey, Bernadetta!" Yuri called out. Bernie turned to see Yuri with his arms crossed, glaring at the platoon of guards who were holding up the assassin in iron-tight grips. Their hood had been taken off, and Bernadetta saw the face of a woman with chin-length hair staring at the ground in defeat. "I'm glad you're making friends, but if you don't mind, can you please order your guards to take this woman to the dungeons? They don't seem too keen on taking orders from me."
"Because we don't know who you are!" One of the guards yelled back.
"Y—you can take her away!" Bernadetta said. She immediately felt the eyes of the crowd lay into her, and she quickly corrected herself. "I mean, take her away right now!" There! Nice and commandly!
"General!" A young boy's voice came through the crowd. He was fairly average height, was wearing a traveler's outfitted with light armor, and he looked like he was maybe seventeen. He even had some acne on his forehead! Yuri told the guard blocking him from coming forward to let him in, and Bernadetta approved his command. The boy slipped under the guard's arm and walked up to Yuri, and Bernie quickly saw a small group of similarly dressed people coming up through the crowd.
"Armand, tell the others to search the house top to bottom," Yuri commanded in a quick and clear voice. "There are a bunch of books and papers in a room on the second floor. Have the Varley guards help you with bringing everything to the Varley estate. I'll follow these guys to make sure our little murderer doesn't try to surprise us again."
"Do exactly as he said," Bernadetta ordered her guards, because of course Yuri would have the best plans for these kinds of situations.
"And Armand," Yuri said before leading off with the assassin and a pair of guards. "You make sure no one goes near the count."
"Yessir," the boy said. After a quick glance at Bernadetta, Yuri went ahead with the guards and their prisoner. The boy walked towards Bernadetta and inclined his head. "Name's Armand. I'm a scout for the General."
"N-Nice to meet you!" Bernadetta stretched her hand out. "I'm Bernie!"
Armand looked down at her hand and blinked. Bernadetta's mind started racing, thinking how stupid she was, and why would anyone wanna shake the hand of someone who had to rely on Yuri to organize everyone, and how—
Armand laughed. It was loud, but his voice was light enough that he sounded more like the teenager he looked like. He slapped his head onto Bernadetta's and gave it a strong shake. "Good to meet you, too."
An hour or two had passed, and Bernadetta was left in awe at how fast Yuri's people worked. With them and the guards combined, everything that had been packed into the room had been marched over to the Varley Estate. Boxes and boxes of tomes and papers were prepared, and Bernadetta, remembering Jeanne's strictness with the House's security, sent a message with one of Yuri's fighters to tell Jeanne that, "The hedgehog named Adrienne wants to enter the library." Armand had to stop his teammates from laughing, and it took over half an hour for Bernie to stop hiding her face in her hands, but a scout had quickly returned to tell her and Armand that everything had been successfully transported.
As for Bernie, she and Armand were sitting in one of the many break rooms within the Varley tunnels. Bernadetta quickly realized that there were too many people for her to make it back home without panicking, so she half-dragged, half-pushed Armand all the way into the tunnels. Yuri was still watching the guards settle the assassin, and Armand had been recounting stories of their group's past couple of weeks. Bernie thought that he wouldn't want to talk to her after she was safe in the tunnels, but she quickly saw that he really, really liked to talk. And with the stories he was telling about Yuri, she was more than happy to listen.
"He really did that?" Bernadetta asked between the laughs she was trying to cover beneath her hands.
"Swear on the Goddess!" Armand said, and that made Bernie giggle even harder. "I thought he was gonna knock him out right there, but no! Man, you should've seen the look on his face when the tavern-keeper told him to get out. He didn't even get to finish his ale!"
Bernadetta laughed again, but as her laughter petered off, a more somber air fell around them. Even Armand stopped speaking. "So, is everything else ok?" Bernadetta asked. "Was there anyone else in the house?"
"No, there was no one… Bernie." Armand chuckled to himself as he used the nickname. He leaned his elbows onto the wooden table that separated them and spread out his hands. "We searched top to bottom and only found traces of the one assassin."
"Are you sure?" Bernadetta squirmed in her seat. "Because if there's anyone else, they could hurt more people! Then they would attack the people, they might try to get revenge, and they—they might—"
"Hey, no need to worry about it," Armand said. "I swear on the Goddess, I don't think there's anyone else in there."
"Oh, ok." Bernie ducked her head and sent him a small smile. "Um, thank you!"
"And before I forget, I think these are yours." Armand reached down into a pack one of Yuri's fighters had left before running off to finish packing away the books. He set them on the table, and Bernadetta realized that she was looking at a set of brown packages and a dark purple cloak.
Bernadetta gasped. "Thank you so much!" She said as she took it in. Both packages she'd bought from Corinne were there, and Yuri's fighter had even tried to fold her cloak properly! Part of it was still getting crinkled, but it's the thought that counts, right? "I can't believe I forgot about them."
"No worries, Bernie." Armand's mouth quirked upward. "I figured we may as well do some extra searching of our own, and one of our scouts found these lying around."
"Did you find anything else?" Bernie asked.
Armand shook his head. "The books and scrolls the assassin was looking over. Nothing suspicious has turned up yet, and if the girl's been looking at them since sunrise, who knows how long it would take for us to find it."
"That makes sense." Bernie's eyes landed on her clothes again, and she gasped. "Oh, but thank you!" She reached out to grab her things back. "That really helps a lo—aah!"
A blistering pain shot across her upper arm. Armand jumped out of his seat at Bernie's shout, and Bernie looked over at her left arm. A long but shallow cut gleamed atop Bernadetta's extended arm. It had pierced Bernadetta's thick purple coat, and only now was she realized that the little patch that surrounded the cut was a darker shade of purple than the rest of the coat. Bernadetta twisted her arm to get a better look at it but squeaked when a drop of her blood fell down her arm.
"Oh no!" Bernadetta cried as the blood sunk into her purple garment. "My cloak!"
"Your arm!" Armand sprinted out of the break room and into the tunnels' hallway. "General!" He shouted.
"No! I—It's ok!" Bernie yelled after him. "I'm fine! Really!"
Her screaming at him was useless, of course, because Yuri came running into the room in less than a minute. His eyes immediately focused on Bernadetta's arm, and he came forward to grip it gently with both hands. "How didn't you notice this sooner?" He asked.
"I—I don't know!" Bernie said.
"Rhetorical question. It was probably your adrenaline carrying you through it." Yuri's eyes scanned the wound. He gently probed it with one finger, and even though it made Bernadetta hiss, it didn't hurt nearly as much as she was expecting. "The wound isn't too deep. Your coat is thick, and you haven't moved much since the fight, so the material must've been absorbing most of the blood. Stay still."
With Bernadetta still sitting, Yuri leaned down and lifted a single hand above the wound. A quiet prayer left his lips, and a shining yellow-white light enveloped his extended hand. Bernadetta felt the magic right away. It was like a warm touch was extending itself through her wound, winding and weaving its way through her skin, slowly stitching its way back together. The pain disappeared, too. The burning sensation was gone, and all that was left was the warm feeling that coursed through her arm.
"I'm half-tempted to kill Armand for not noticing this," Yuri muttered under his breath. His other hand held onto Bernadetta's arm, keeping it steady even though Bernie could've held it up on her own.
And it was right there when a thought crossed her mind. "Why didn't you help yourself?" Bernadetta asked.
"What are you talking about? You were the one who got hurt."
"I mean earlier! When I—When I—"
"Slammed a door onto my fingers?" Yuri asked as he met her eyes.
"Eep!"
"Relax, I'm not mad. I kind of earned that one for sticking my hand there." The smirk that had formed on Yuri's face disappeared as fast as it had come. "How much do you know about Faith magic?"
Bernadetta's shoulders sagged. "Not a lot. My mother practiced it, and she tried to teach me, but… I wasn't very good at it."
"It takes a lot of practice, that's for certain." As his spell continued doing its work, Yuri continued talking. "The principle of Faith magic is being able to do something for others, to use your talents to heal and protect. There's a lot of focus on learning how to use the Goddess's power to serve, and that's where the philosophy can kind of screw you over."
"What do you mean?" Bernadetta asked.
"It means that, for the most part, you can only heal other people." Yuri shrugged and turned his eyes back to Bernadetta's arm. "If the whole thing depends on the principle of helping others, then using that power to heal yourself first kind of goes against that principle. There are some advanced healing spells that let you heal yourself while curing others, but I don't have the knack for it. I know Mercedes can cure herself when she heals others, but that's a unique gift I haven't seen in anyone else; not even in Marianne, and she might be even more devoted to the Goddess than Mercedes is."
With a final whispered prayer, Yuri let the magic fade from his hand. The light dissipated, and Bernadetta turned over her arm. The cut was fully healed, and if it weren't for the tear in her coat and the slight smell of blood, Bernadetta wouldn't have known that she'd been injured. "Thank you," she said.
Yuri sighed and perched himself at the edge of the table. "You sure it's wise to trust a suspect for a literal murder with healing your arm? Really, Bernadetta. I know you like me, but I also know your self-preservation instincts well enough to know that this is odd, even for you."
Bernadetta shot up out of her seat and stared up at him. "Yuri! I'm too worried for jokes!"
Yuri crossed his arms and shrugged. "I could've unlocked the poor idiot's door."
"You tried to open the door before using your lockpicks," Bernadetta said. "If you had already been there, you would've used the lockpicks right away!"
"I could've climbed in through his window."
"There was no broken glass."
"Snuck in through a window."
"You didn't have blood on your clothes before we went there!"
"I could've gone to change before going to you."
"It would've taken too much time."
"I'm fast."
"And I don't wanna talk about this anymore!" Bernadetta said. She squeezed her hands into fists and contemplated hitting him with them. She knew she likely wouldn't hurt him, but at least it would be something! "It wasn't you, so stop saying these things!"
"Bernadetta." Yuri's voice was low. Though his usual cocky tone was still there, any hint of sarcasm was now gone. "You really shouldn't trust me this much. I told you about how I'd met him. That should've made me the prime suspect. Or at least a suspect."
"I don't care." Bernadetta's body started swaying from side to side. "You don't kill people unless it's for a good reason."
"Him insulting you and your mother isn't reason enough?" Yuri asked.
"That's what he said?"
Yuri said nothing. He just angled his head and gave her a steady look, his bangs falling ever so slightly to frame his hair in a halo of purple. He was waiting for her to answer, that much she knew. Maybe he was waiting for her to yell at him again, to say something he could shrug off with his silver tongue, but Bernadetta had other plans.
"No," she said with a smile. "It's not reason enough. Because you already got your revenge on him by stealing all his gold."
"Who—" Yuri's mouth dropped open, and Bernadetta giggled at the look on his face. His eyes went through ten different emotions, from disbelief to confusion to resignation, and he finally ended it with an annoyed sigh. "I'm gonna have Armand muck out stables for a week for telling you that," he said as he rubbed his face with a gloved hand.
Bernadetta took a step forward and stood right in front of him. "Yuri, I told you. I don't care who you were. I care about who you are now. And I think you're too good to kill someone for me unless they hurt me."
Yuri pulled his hand away from his face. Bernadetta repressed the urge to fidget with the hem of her jacket. She waited for him to answer, and was caught off guard when Yuri let out a little chuckle. "Or unless you hire me. I am pretty good with a blade."
"Yuri!" Bernadetta bounced on the tip of her toes in frustration. "I want you as my friend! Not as my personal assassin."
"Why not both?" Yuri asked. Bernadetta pouted, but that just made him laugh even harder! "Well, a man can dream."
"My lady." Bernadetta spun around at the voice of a guard. Sure enough, one of the head guards, distinguished by a silver Crest of Indech sewn into her epaulets, stood at attention at the doorway. "The healers have stabilized the prisoner. She's waiting for you in the interrogation room, and I think she wants to talk."
"How do you know?" Bernadetta asked. Behind her, Yuri pushed himself off the table.
"She's fidgety." The guard said. "I looked at her weapons. They're good quality, and they're well taken care of. No one other than a professional carries those kinds of weapons, but—"
"Professionals usually don't fidget when they're about to get interrogated." Yuri finished for her. He turned to Bernadetta, and a crafty smile grew on his face. "Shall we go meet our little assassin?"
"Mhm!" Bernadetta said. Since Yuri was the one to bring the killer in, he was the one who led Bernadetta down the long hallway. They turned the corner at the opening that led to the interrogation rooms, and Yuri purposely strode through as if he was the count. After a couple of minutes, they soon found themselves in front of a heavy wooden door manned by two Varley guards, tall and ominous in the low light of the underground. Bernadetta reached for the handle, but her fingers froze right before touching it.
"I can take the lead in the interrogation," Yuri said. Bernadetta whipped around to face him, and if the guards weren't there, she was pretty sure she would have hugged him right then and there.
"Yes!" She said. Her voice echoed through the hallway, and she quickly stammered to correct herself. "I—I mean, yes, that would be great."
With Yuri just behind her, Bernadetta reached out to grab the door's handle once more. Her fingers gripped it tightly, and with a final steadying breath, Bernadetta pushed the door open.
The interrogation room was cramped. A single wooden table sat in the middle of the room, occupying most of the space. The walls were made of rough Varley stone, and the only light came from a single torch that was held up next to the door. On one side of the table were two wooden chairs. They were small and sturdy, but they only left enough space for people to shuffle into them, and not in a comfortable manner. On the other side of the table, her hands and feet chained with heavy shackles, was the assassin. Her cloak had been removed, and Bernadetta could now clearly see the woman's face. She was about Yuri's age, with a short haircut, and she had a long scar that divided her forehead in half. Her fingers fidgeted with the chains that shackled her wrists, and her eyes shifted wildly as she watched Bernadetta shuffle over into her seat.
Hoping it would make her look professional and serious, Bernadetta sat up straight and pressed her hands into her lap. Yuri, on the other hand, leaned forward and set his elbow in the center of the table. "Here's what's gonna happen," he said right away. "I'm gonna lay everything out for you, you're gonna listen, and then you're gonna talk. That sounds good? Good."
The woman shifted in her seat, and before she could even decide if she wanted to speak, Yuri continued talking. "Here are the facts. You snuck into a priest's house, killed him, hid his body in order to delay the reveal of the murder, stayed at the scene of the crime instead of fleeing, fled the scene of the crime when we caught you there, and you nearly injured the innocent pedestrians who were nearby. And to top it all off." The light in Yuri's eyes vanished. "You injured Count Varley herself."
The assassin gasped. She looked over at Bernadetta, and Bernie instinctively angled her left arm away from her.
"Now let's go back a bit," Yuri continued in a light tone that was eerily dissonant with the murderous look in his eyes. "You placed the body in an area that would've initially hidden it, and you set it up so that people wouldn't find it right away due to the smell. But then, you did something I've rarely seen a professional assassin do: you stuck around at the scene of the crime for hours."
"Um—What were you looking for in the books?" Bernadetta asked. Her voice came out squeakier than she expected, but she had to say something, right?
Yuri glanced over at her, and if the slight twitch in his mouth told Bernadetta anything, she would've said he almost looked pleased. "You heard the count. She asked you a question, and I think you want to answer it."
The assassin bit her lip, but again, she did not speak.
"T—The punishment for murder is big!" Bernadetta said. "You killed him, and—and then you hurt me! That has a pretty big punishment too, right?" She looked over at Yuri.
"That is correct," he said.
"S—So, if you want us to go easy on you, you better tell us what you're doing here! And if you have anything to do with—"
"Something specific we don't want to give details about just yet," Yuri interrupted. If any other had done it, Bernie would've yelped and run off, but Yuri spoke with no annoyance in his voice. "But it'll go easier for you if you tell us yourself."
The assassin looked away from them. Her chains rattled as she fidgeted with her shackles, and her plain shoes rubbed harshly against the stone floor. But the strangest thing was that it was barely the end of winter, and the underground tunnels were cold, but Bernadetta was pretty sure she saw beads of sweat begin to form on the woman's face.
"You look like a wyvern's choking you, and yet you still stay silent," Yuri said in a purring voice. "What, are you charmed by our good looks? Or is the mean little assassin actually scared of us?"
"I'm not scared of you." The words slipped out of the assassin's mouth, so quiet Bernie wasn't sure she'd heard it correctly until Yuri straightened himself up.
"So… Who are you scared of?" Bernadetta asked. She immediately cringed at how dumb her question sounded, but it was the only thing she could think of.
"I ask for clemency," the assassin said. Her voice was small and quiet, but her words were pronounced clearly. "You can't tell the King about this. If you do, he'll have my head!"
"The King?" Bernadetta's gaze shifted between the assassin's panicked stare and Yuri's neutral eyes. "What does Dimitri have to do with this?"
Yuri pressed both arms on the table and leaned towards the assassin. "If you do want clemency, you'll have to ask that from the King. And you better have a damn good reason to ask."
The only sounds in the room were the woman's shaky breaths.
"Not talking, huh?" Yuri stood up and stretched his arms upwards. "Alright, I guess we'll just come later."
"Oh!" Bernadetta said as Yuri started shuffling himself away from the table. "Yeah! We'll come back later!"
Bernadetta shimmed her way after Yuri, and it was just as they reached the door that the woman spoke again. "Stop," she said. "I know I've… caused harm."
Yuri and Bernadetta turned around. "A man is literally dead and you physically hurt the person you're asking to help you," Yuri said. "I'd say that's an understatement."
"I know." The woman's chest rattled as she spoke. "But please, you need to help me. You're my only option for staying alive!"
Bernadetta bit her bottom lip and thought about the assassin's words. This was a trained murderer, and according to her guard, one who'd probably done this before. If Bernadetta were in that position, where she could defend herself and probably kill anyone, what would she be scared of?
"Are… " Bernadetta said. "Are you afraid of someone you can't kill? I—Is someone trying to kill you?"
The woman nodded. Bernadetta waited for more, but the assassin just stared at her, wide-eyed.
"You still need to give me a better reason!" Bernadetta said. "Or at least say who you work for! I—If you don't, we have no reason to keep talking to you! L—Let's go, Yuri."
Bernadetta turned away to hide the blush that spread across her cheeks. She heard Yuri chuckle beside her, and she ignored him in favor of pulling the door open.
"You wouldn't recognize our name."
Yuri and Bernadetta slowly spun around. The woman stared at her shackled hands as she spoke. "The Emperor's right hand. He… "
"Hubert von Vestra is dead," Yuri said coldly.
"I know." The assassin shook her head. "But he knew about us. He gave us a name of his own. That name… that name you might recognize, and then you will know why I fear the King."
Bernadetta looked up at Yuri. Through his long bangs, he looked down at Bernadetta and gave her a slow nod, and it gave Bernadetta the courage to speak again. "Who do you work for?" She asked.
The assassin raised her head, looked Bernadetta in the eyes, and whispered, "I work for Those Who Slither in the Dark."