.
.
Karl was dead. Diva stared at him, her sweet Solomon, as he delivered the news.
"How?" Diva asked. He hesitated only for a moment. Then, "He made a gambit with Saya. He bit her and drank her blood."
"And why should I care?" Diva said. She raised her chin, indignant. "Saya-neesama was the one he wanted and Saya-neesama was the reason he got himself killed. He was dead to me," Diva said, and she turned. But not before she saw Solomon begin to shake.
"He loved you," Solomon said. Diva's shoulders stiffened. No chevalier dared to speak up to her. "Diva! I cannot believe you to be so blind as to not know that. Everything he's done, everything you forced him to become, was because of you."
He stepped closer, holding out his hand.
"That is all that remains of him," Solomon said. "Nothing more."
He placed the crystal in Diva's palm.
She closed her fist, covering it with her hand. The crystal was smooth and hard and felt cool against her palm.
Karl. Her odd little chevalier. The one with the soft brown eyes. The one she had slowly driven mad.
Soundlessly, her mouth moved, closing, then opening again, before everything that was inside her welled up and bubbled over. There was nothing after death. This much she knew. Slowly, she cried until she howled with grief and rage, clawing at her eyes and crushing the lump of crystal in her hand. She sobbed and sobbed until the crystal fractured, a chrysalis shattering, swirling then catching the updraft like dust.