What Happened Then

Silence. Only the Falls, the wind, the distant murmur of people below. 

It was nice to lean on Kael’s shoulder. Muscles tough as a bull but skin unscarred by war.

"I’ve been thinking lately. These past few years? I… must have wanted some escape." Her voice was thin. "Through you."

Kael finally shifted, but he didn’t speak.

"I must have thought that one year was too long to show my face after throwing her in there and planning my little game of kingmaker. Which I lost, evidently." She exhaled sharply. "One year became two. Then three. Then four."

The next breath felt like knives in her ribs.

"Maybe… maybe someone did try and kill me, Kael."

His posture tensed.

She felt it, even if she wasn’t looking. "But I can’t see what happened to me any other way. I think Pauline was right."

She didn’t know why she said that part.

Maybe because it was true.

Maybe because, for all that she had fought, she had been running just as much.

He finally found the courage to speak. "I am… so sorry. For what I did, what I didn’t do."

“Kael, you were too young—”

“Please, Elisa. Let me get through this.”

His fingers picked at the grass beneath them, tearing it apart blade by blade.

"I heard what happened on the ground that night. The Invasion."

His voice was measured, but she could hear the weight in it.

"Demons came in expecting the same level of violence inflicted onto them. It inflicted in their actions. And it’s not that I didn’t know. I guess I was avoiding that reality. Didn’t raise it with my parents even once. It went unquestioned. Unquestioned for years."

He tossed the bundle of grass into the abyss below, watching it disappear into nothing.

"Elisa… my parents and I had a similarly difficult relationship. I can’t say this at the risk of sounding insincere, but I am being serious when I say I know what this feels like."

His delicate fingers slid onto her palm, tentative, careful—seeking relief between her calloused hands.

She didn’t pull away.

"As for today, I’m… sorry this didn’t go the way you wanted it to go." A pause. Then, hesitantly—"Maybe… maybe we can talk to… uh…"

"Cassie?"

Kael nodded. "Yes, maybe we can arrange for her to be on outdoor palliative—"

"They won’t allow it."

Kael’s brows furrowed. "What do you mean? Who’s ‘they’?"

"Other people from my village."

Kael’s expression darkened.

Elisa shook her head, letting the words tumble out.

"It’s not that they want to torture her! Despite her allegiances—or lack thereof—she was the model Highcliff matron of old. Unparalleled magickal prowess. To kill her would be a great loss. Nobody wanted her to die. So they put her here so that maybe one day she can regain her senses. Her soul."

Her fingers clenched. "Highcliff and contradiction. That’s us. Both married and rutting while dignity sits alone in a cuckold chair.”

Kael’s lips parted slightly, but he let her continue.

"Love it when we’re assholes to people who appear ‘passive.’ And now?" She let out a bitter laugh. "Now they can’t stand to bear what they’ve done, so they keep her here, say there’s a cure coming, then run out when it’s time to pay dividends."

Kael moved without hesitation.

His arms wrapped around her, pulling her against the solid weight of him, his breath warm against her hair.

He didn’t say anything at first.

Let her breathe through it.

Elisa sniffed, wiping at her face. "Cassie’s going to be in so much shit for letting me be in the same room with her."

The words hung between them, heavy and unspoken.

Neither of them had the energy to unpack that just yet.

So instead, Kael reached for her hand, squeezing it once.

"Then let’s go take our minds off things."

Elisa blinked.

Kael’s lips quirked, before he realized what he said.

"I mean let’s go apologize to Pauline."

\\\\\\\\\\

ELSEWHERE... SOMEONE PLOTS.

The Blac’hil estate was never truly quiet.

Even in the dead of night, something always moved—shadows stretching where they shouldn't, whispers curling through the halls. And while ghosts were real, they were usually employed. Usually as security management, and forced to wear uniform so they couldn’t blend in.

This estate held many secrets, and the pseudo-Spectres were the worst kind.

No true consciousness or cohesive thought, simply malice distilled into singular corporeal form. Former humans haunted this place all the time. And they loved to pick a fight with the foreigners.

The kobold’s tail twitched as he tiptoed down the hallway.

He’d been making his usual rounds after his part-admin part-carpentry work, with the extra rations in the kitchen being totally necessary to his greater health, when he’d noticed the absence of chatter in one particular hallway—the guest rooms.

The guards outside Pauline’s room. Stiff. Unmoving.

At first, Maxxie assumed they were just doing their job properly for once—no more debates on which Wrathball team was better than the other.

But then—he saw it.

The way their breaths barely stirred the air. Their eyes didn’t shift and didn’t react to his presence.

Maxxie’s scales prickled.

"Uh… guys?"

No response.

He waved a clawed hand in front of one of their faces.

Still nothing.

Maxxie’s ears flattened.

"Okay, so definitely poison then."

His gaze flicked to the door.

Pauline’s door.

Locked.

Of course it was.

Maxxie immediately searched the guards.

Pockets. Waistbands. Armor clasps.

Nothing. No key.

Oh, crumbs.

This was bad.

This was very bad.

"HELP! HEY! HEY! WE GOT A PROBLEM HERE!"

The halls erupted in noise, footsteps thundering toward him, soldiers bursting into view.

Maxxie pointed frantically towards the cavalry. "They’re alive, but they ain’t moving, and the key is missing, and—and—"

"Stand aside!" one of the soldiers barked.

A brutal kick to the door.

Then another.

The wood groaned, cracked—then splintered inward.

Maxxie held his breath.

The soldiers rushed in, weapons drawn.

And then—

Silence.

Maxxie peered inside.

Pauline was gone.

The key?

Sitting neatly on the table. No signs of a break-in. No signs of forced escape.

The balcony doors… Had been opened from the inside.

Maxxie’s ears drooped.

"Oh, crumbs…!"

\\\\\\\\\

ELSEWHERE...

Everything burned!

It hurt to stand, let alone walk. Stupid Amalgamation interrupted her fall before she could deploy her wings. Demon magic was strong but not strong enough to repair bones at the molecular level.

But for now, Pauline was out of there. Definitely out of the handcuffs that were frankly juvenile to pick her way out of. With a bit of magic anything was possible. But nothing as juvenile as that message—she cannot believe Elisa thought that was enough to persuade her to stay.

They should have killed her when they could. Went through all the trouble of healing her, and for what? To let her guard down? Nay, their kindness is facsimile. Her mind was clear.

It’s just… her mission got a lot more complicated.

She sucked the air in like she could trap it in her lungs forever.

Finally breathing in the crisp Highcliffian air she had been aching for days now. Oh, yes. She acted the part of unconscious cripple for quite a while before her grand escape. Included pissing in that absurd auto-latrine for days on end.

People mostly left her alone, the staff and the like.

No doubt, the Count and staff were much too busy with external obligations to be bothered be babysitting someone like her. Any proficient magicka user might have detected her lifeforce by now.

It’s the small blessings.

The medical treatment was nice and all, but it was clearly in exchange for getting more information out of her. Probably Elisa’s idea, she was smart like that.

Elisa…

She collected herself by a tree trunk.

She didn’t mean all the things she said. She was just… overwhelmed.

She has seen where this all leads if she spilled—their entire culture, repurposed so that it fit the demonkin agenda. And it killed to see the same thing happening to her.

But what she never ever planned to do was kill off demonkin from another nation.

She was going to get some answers out of Daniel. Nothing happens without him knowing about it, even the rumors. Any splinter groups that might have formed, etcetera, he would know.

Who knows what had happened since she lost consciousness?