Archive of Our Own

【 1 】

There were men born to be rulers and there were men born to be subjects. “You are neither,” Father told Hubert. “A von Vestra is the Emperor’s deadliest tool. To become his knife in the dark is our family’s duty and honor. Do you understand, my son? The Empire’s foes will not see you as a boy, but as a weapon. They will scrutinize what you permit them to see and find the cracks in you. If you are compromised, you condemn the Emperor to the same fate.”

Hubert knew this lecture as well as the dagger tucked in his belt. The first time he heard it was when he was five, when he asked why Father did not bring Mother with them to the Imperial Palace. The second time was when he turned seven and was deemed old enough to begin his training as the Imperial retainer in earnest. He did not want to bid goodbye to his single friend from grammar school. Even back then, Father never hesitated to pull Hubert aside to chide him for his indiscretions. The one saving grace was the lectures were always delivered in private, in Father’s ministerial office.

It was a cold and sparse room, containing only black oak furniture and untitled books with blank pages. The double-headed eagle of the Empire hung behind Father’s desk, its blank bronze eyes fixed upon Hubert. The marriage portrait of Father and Mother would not be found here, nor the makeshift book of careful equations Hubert devised on his own, much to Father’s pride. The microscope Mother could fiddle with all afternoon; the chipped coffee cup Father enjoyed his favorite drinks with; the display box of strange insects his grammar school friend created with Hubert before he left for the Palace: all those were left behind for the sake of duty.

Hubert laced his fingers behind his back and said, “Yes, Father.”

“Marquis Vestra,” Father corrected him, and there was a pained softness to his stern face. “You must not fall into the habit of calling me ‘Father’ while we live here.”

“With all due respect—” Here, Hubert paused. “—Marquis Vestra. I could say the same for you.”

“Ha! You are right, Hubert. I must not preach what I cannot practice.”

He should not smile. The smile snuck onto Hubert’s face, nevertheless, for he rarely had the chance to correct Father, and it only grew larger as he received an affectionate ruffling of his hair.

“Our lives belong to the Empire,” Father said. “What do you see when you enter my room? When you look at my person?”

“Very little.”

“Yes. Ideally, nothing. Who you are must be suppressed for the sake of what you are. That is the sacrifice we von Vestras make for our people.”

Hubert’s traitorous eyes cannot help darting down to the floor, as if that would help him escape. He knew what was coming. The reason for this lecture was tied around his arm: a grass-stained handkerchief embroidered with a golden eagle. His fingers and face burned for reasons he could not explain. “Father…” he began, and felt all the weaker for making the same mistake so soon.

Father did not correct him. “You are on good terms with Lady Edelgard. She gave this token to you, did she not?”

“Yes,” Hubert said. In a sudden burst of folly, he added, “A reward for services rendered. Lady Edelgard said I made an excellent knight.”

“Hubert… you are not a knight and you never shall be a knight. That is not what we are.”

Hubert did not trust himself to speak. Father held out his hand.

“The handkerchief, please. I will not ask again.”

It isn’t fair, a little voice inside of Hubert raged. It’s mine, not the family’s! I will keep it well-hidden. No one will ever know about it! A tight fist rose in his throat. Slowly and with great difficulty, he untangled his hands. His fingers felt fat and clumsy as he worked at the handkerchief’s knot. When the whole thing came apart, he dallied by carefully folding it into a neat square. Only then did he relinquish it into Father’s expectant hand.

“This is my most important lesson,” Father said. He spoke not with his Minister’s voice, but with his private voice, the voice he used only when they were truly home, when he was able to sit by Mother’s side in the parlor, speaking of countrysides and science and a life After His Service. “No man is born suited for his duty. We each leave the womb longing for the pleasures of life and the heart. But there are always greater things than ourselves, Hubert.” He slipped the precious handkerchief into his pocket. “For the sake of those things, we must hide away our little pleasures.”

【 2 】

Until he turned fourteen, Hubert was permitted a week’s leave to visit family. It was a privilege he rarely exercised, for his place was within Enbarr. The winding servants’ passages, the austre rooms that rivaled even the church, the energetic din of His Majesty’s family – all of it became second nature to Hubert over the years. He knew the shortest route from the royal quarters to the kitchen, could tell at a glance which bookcases were hidden doors, and could rattle off the backgrounds and names of all the servants under His Majesty’s employ, along with his consorts and their tangled family lines. The longer he spent at the palace, the less his desire to venture beyond it.

It was the day after his tenth birthday. Father summoned him to his office. “Hubert,” he said, “you must return home.”

Hubert stared. “I beg your pardon?”

“I will brook no dissent. There is court business I must attend to as Minister of the Imperial Household and I cannot risk you.”

“Marquis Vestra, my place is here—”

Father rose from behind his desk. Logically, Hubert knew he was not a tall man. But there was a presence to him, a royal arrogance steeled in his voice that commanded attention and respect, and he cracked it now in low and hissing tones, precise in his strikes.

“Do you think yourself capable of protecting yourself and your charges as you are now? You are my successor, but you have a long ways to go before you overtake me. I will not lose you to your own hubris! Do I make myself clear?”

“… I hear and obey, Marquis Vestra.”

Father was desperate. He rarely wielded that voice against Hubert and the strangeness of its use sent the gears in his head spinning. Perhaps there was true danger in the court. In the dead of the night, Hubert sometimes caught sight of the other ministers’ servants, antsy and guilty in their sneaking about.

An assassination plot? But if that were the case, surely the Royal Family would have been discreetly and safely moved. And earlier this afternoon, Hubert had freely watched over Lady Edelgard and her siblings play in the garden with minimal guards. If only he’d known earlier. Even if it were a breach of etiquette, he could have bid a polite goodbye to them.

There was nothing for Hubert to pack, save for his clothes. He followed his father’s example ever since that fateful lecture, and kept only the essentials in his living quarters, taking care to hide his books so that no one could gather what his curriculum was. All these items fitted in a small, plain suitcase that he could wrap his arms around.

Home was on the outskirts of Enbarr, for the von Vestras possessed no land. It was a modest house tucked away in the countryside, where both forest and hills hid it away from any prying eyes. Mother did not greet him at the door. It would have been odd if she had. The moment he shut the door behind him, her airy voice called out: “Come to me, Hubert. I have need of your opinion.”

He obliged.

Mother’s room was in the back of the house, at the furthest point away from human company. She personally oversaw the arrangement of its plain furniture, with the center of the room designated for her workbench. For as long as Hubert could remember, Mother spent most of her days at the battered and burnt table, her hands always lost in a strange device or confounding book. This time, there was a vellum scroll rolled out along the workbench’s length.

The fading daylight fell in veils through the westward-facing lunette windows. None of the setting sun’s color touched her night-black hair and, when she raised her head, Hubert could almost swear her eyes were paler than the moon itself.

Mother sighed and crooked her finger, beckoning him closer. “You cannot read the scroll from there.”

As Father’s heir, Hubert was taught the art of reading faces and bodies. A twitch could betray one’s intentions, the way one held their hands spoke volumes to their thoughts. As he went to her side, he studied Mother’s face, those strange pupils, her dark-stained hands from back-to-back magical experimentation. He could glean nothing.

“Your father was much more subtle when analyzing others,” Mother said. She finally looked him in the eyes. “If you want to know what I am thinking, you may ask. Though I would think it is quite obvious what I want.”

Embarrassed at being caught, Hubert shook his head. “I don’t want you to tell me. I must be able to figure it out myself.”

“You have a good work ethic. However, your father isn’t here to test you, and I have no interest in espionage. The scroll, Hubert.” And she tapped a blackened finger on a particularly dense equation.

The priests of the Church often spoke of motherhood, be it the Goddess’ or mortals. Of warm hearths and kitchens, of lullabies sung to ensure pleasant dreams, of gentle kisses upon the head and soft hands to wipe away one’s tears. But it was always Father who decorated their hearths with jars of herbs from his hometown, who hung his wedding portrait in the sitting room, who walked the house to see what pieces of themselves could be displayed.

Mother never did any decorating, nor did she sing. One time, when he was little, Hubert badly skinned his knee while running in the yard. She found him gritting his teeth, fighting back tears. Without a word, she guided him to his feet and sat him on a log stump. “Wait,” Mother told him, and disappeared into the house. She came back with bandages and a bottle of alcohol, knelt in the mud, and listed off the steps for tending to a wound as she cleaned him up. “This is the first time you’ve experienced pain like this,” she said. “It will be less of a shock next time. Come inside.”

And that was that. Mother never spoke to Hubert unless there was a need – a chore to be done, lessons to teach, an experiment to observe. If Father was home, she sometimes slept through the day and awoke at night, leaving him to handle the housework. The other mothers didn’t like any of this very much, and Hubert often heard their opinions in front of the grammar school.

A cold woman, that one.

Her poor husband and child. The boy breaks my heart. You can see how her neglect’s hurt him so.

I heard she bewitched Marquis Vestra with a love potion. A woman like that is after power, mark my words.

She says she’s from Rusalka, but I’ve a cousin who lives there, and none of the women are like the Marchioness. If you ask me, she’s a sorceress from Morfis.

Rumors, that’s all they were, for Hubert knew Father wouldn’t be compromised so easily and that Mother couldn’t care less about high society. They could not understand that, when Hubert leaned down to inspect the scribbled sigils Mother showed him, it was a sign of care. She could solve this on her own. She didn’t need him, but she wanted him to see. And wasn’t knowledge better than kisses or hugs, far more potent than any simpering word?

Beneath his fingers, the vellum paper felt like the smooth surface of an iced lake, the ink its ridges. Hubert mouthed the unfamiliar incantation, feeling out each new syllable on his tongue until it was just right, satisfaction welling up in his chest as the pieces began to click.

Mother watched him with her unreadable face. “What is the spell’s purpose?”

“I think,” Hubert began, but she tapped him lightly on the nose.

“You are too clever for ‘I think.’ Never undermine yourself. You know or don’t know. If you don’t, stay quiet for a while longer.”

“It is a spell to warp a person away.” Hubert looked into in her moon-pale eyes. “You wrote this.”

Mother nodded. “This scroll is too cumbersome for you to feasibly use. I will properly prepare it before you leave this week.”

And there it was: a flicker of motion – dark fingertips fluttering to a stray strand of hair – a flash of nervousness betrayed before it was swallowed by her blankness. Hubert didn’t know what to make of it. Unbidden, Father’s desperate outburst floated to mind.

“Mother?”

“Yes, Hubert?”

“Thank you for the birthday gift. When Father returns, I will demonstrate it for him.”

It was the right thing to say. By the sun’s final light, Hubert saw her pale fingers go limp, the strings of tension cut.

“You are only saying so to please me. Do not bother. Keep the spell on your person. I will be satisfied with that much.”

Let what I’ve given you keep you safe.

Mother delivered on her promise. With a novice’s clumsiness, she sewed the perfected spell into the inner cuff of Hubert’s jacket, the uneven knots of each sigil a fond irritant against his wrist. Invisible, but always present.

【 3 】

When the soldiers at last captured Hubert, they dragged him not to his father’s office but to the dungeons. They see me a criminal, he thought. Me! Fury shot through him and he struggled against the arms locked beneath his armpits, the wild and wasteful movements of animal instinct.

“Goddess help me… settle down, brat!”

“How the hell is he still fighting…”

They threw him into the cell. Hubert, dizzy from lack of food and sleep, didn’t have the strength to resist inertia. His body crumpled to the chilled floor and curled up on itself – reflex, a pitiable and exhausted attempt at defense. No, he couldn’t afford that, he needed to get up, he needed to find Edelgard, he needed to draw these traitors close enough to these bars so his fingers could press the soft weaknesses of their throats and—

 A man’s voice interrupted: “What do you think you’re doing?”

There was no mistaking it. That voice belonged to Marquis Vestra. Hubert willed himself to remain very, very still.

“Sir, the boy nearly killed one of our—”

“This ‘boy’ is my successor and your superior. You dare manhandle him behind my back?”

The soldiers mumbled their dissent.

“I will take over from here. Leave my sight.”

The fading of armored footsteps signalled their obedience. There was the rustling whisper of cloth. “Hubert… Goddess above, are you all right?” Marquis Vestra’s voice sounded closer to the ground. Ah, so he was kneeling to get a better look.

“Edelgard’s been abducted,” Hubert said. If he sounded weak, it was surely to lure his father into a false sense of security, not the hunger in his belly or the despair of his soul.

There was a telling moment of silence. “You are mistaken,” Marquis Vestra answered. “It was… an arrangement, not an abduction. She is safe, I swear it. Things are not as they seem and you have acted most rashly.”

He knows. The confirmation tasted of bile. Hubert almost dared not breathe. The secret meetings in the night. His father’s demand to return home. All of it, schemes within schemes, and Hubert had blindly trusted his machinations to do what was right, for that would justify having lived all his years in boxes within boxes, would justify having sacrificed the Imperial princess’ token of friendship.

Hubert rolled onto his back and closed his eyes. The uneven stones jabbed against his sore body. He was no stranger to these mildewed cells. With only a torchlight, he often watched his father work pain in deliberate, precise movements upon enemies of the Empire. Never did he think he’d be the prisoner, or his father the jailer.

“You are angry with me,” Marquis Vestra said. Hubert did not give him the privilege of an answer. “What we have done will preserve the Empire and protect what is dearest to us. These negotiations have been a long time coming. You will come to understand this.”

All the variables were before him. The usage of ‘we,’ how the marquis spoke of lofty ideals. Oh, if he could only focus his mind, Hubert would see the full web of this wicked scheme. He needn’t even talk. His father would spill little hints because they were tied by blood. So many conclusions floated in his head, begging to be anchored to a cutting observation, but all he could think about was Edelgard shivering alone in the eternal cold of Faerghus.

“Did Mother know?” Hubert asked instead. It was a question aimed to hurt.

“A von Vestra hides himself, Hubert. Which, need I remind you, you have failed to do in the presence of Lady Edelgard, time and time again.” The response was too swift, betraying what was unsaid. Again, the rustling of cloth. “I am truly sorry for how the soldiers treated you. I’ll have them properly disciplined and send a healer to check on you.”

Marquis Vestra left, and Hubert was truly alone. He cracked open his eyes.

Ghastly torchlight cast trembling shadows over the damp stone, reminding Hubert of the Enbarr catacombs. Mother had taken him while his father was away on business. He never forgot how the ceiling dipped low like the belly of a stony beast, how the narrow and winding hallways closed in from both sides, tight as a snake. He’d never been so afraid before because he’d never felt so trapped.

There is enough room, Hubert told himself, firm and logical as Mother would. Marquis Vestra will order your release in the morning. This is a mild punishment. Still, his hands shook.

One of the earliest lessons his father taught him was to never surrender. “You must exhaust all options,” he had told him, “and should they threaten to use you for your knowledge and secrets, you must deny them.”

Hubert didn’t need to ask what it meant to deny them. His life belonged to the Crown. If he became a hindrance or failed to serve, he should offer himself without hesitation. He’d read enough stories, watched his father work long enough to know Hubert von Vestra didn’t belong to himself. It would’ve been better if Faerghus knights had captured him. They would’ve been blind to the spells hidden in his cufflinks, the dagger veiled by his belt. Instead, it was the marquis— it was Father— and they took everything away from him.

Useless. He wasn’t smart enough to warn Edelgard in time, wasn’t strong enough or clever enough to outlast his pursuers. What good was his life if he couldn’t protect his only friend?

Only the stones heard his muffled weeping.

【 4 】

On the weekend before Hubert’s departure to the Officer’s Academy, he received an unusual visitor. One of the servants approached him discreetly after the afternoon meeting and whispered, “Lord Hubert, Lady Vestra is in the Minister’s office.”

Over the years, he’d perfected the art of the mask. Not a single errant muscle was permitted to even twitch without conscious thought. But this news was enough to jolt him. Hubert knew his eyes had widened – a cursed tell to his surprise, which he promptly deflected with a long sigh. “She shouldn’t be in there to begin with. Who let her in?”

“Lady Vestra carried orders from the Mini—”

“Forged, no doubt. I am astonished by such lacking judgment. For what reason would my father send his homebody wife to the palace?” Hubert paused to let the sharp words seep in and marinate in fear. “She wishes to see me, I suppose?”

“Yes,” the servant squeaked.

“Hm. Well, I suppose someone has to clean up the mess you’ve made. Expect another little chat once I’ve finished.”

Once, the marquis’ office was an austre example to Hubert. Nowadays he despised the very sight of it. It remained a sparse room relative to the other pompous ministers, such as Duke von Aegir, but he could pick out the subtle signs of his father’s growing softness. The medals lined above the bookcase, for deeds that had hitherto gone unrecognized. The little expensive music box, received as a gift from some simpering noble, no doubt as thanks for a favor. A charm woven by Mother, the intricate knots formed by the reeds long since yellowed. So many small things laid out in the open, so many cracks from which information freely dribbled out of, speaking to how low Marquis Vestra had fallen.

Mother, draped in a black shawl, looked more a ghost than a woman. She stood by the bookcase, head bowed over an open book. Hubert knew she wasn’t reading, for she wasn’t humming one of her strange, atonal melodies.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Lady Vestra. What a surprise it is to see you. May I ask as to why you’ve paid this little visit?”

“They said you were in a meeting.” Mother shut the book and shelved it. Her hands were clad in white gloves, an unusual choice for her, for she never cared what people thought of the magical stains etched into her skin. “You are at an age when one would enjoy their youth, yet you’ve been keeping busy.”

“Naturally,” Hubert said dryly. “I am Lady Edelgard’s retainer. It’s not like you to care for small talk. What is it that you want?”

To an outsider, such words would seem a challenge, disrespect spat at the feet of his mother. But he knew her, as she knew him. She hated foppery and frivolity as much as he did, for how they obfuscated meaning. Mother knited her fingers together. Another bizarre detail.

“Your father intends to relinquish his title to you once your service ends.”

This came as no surprise to Hubert. It was uncommon for a minister to retire so early, for doing so would be to give up immense power and influence. Though, in the marquis’ case, the writing had been on the wall for years. The man was chafing at the weight of his duties and sought an escape.

Hubert said nothing. Silence provoked nervousness, and nervousness made words flow.

“His path need not be yours,” she said.

Did he hear her correctly? Hubert raised his eyebrows. “What are you implying?”

“I do not imply. I am telling you, Hubert. I have given it much thought. Your father has long urged me to share my work with the Empire. I thought it a stupid idea at the time – I still do, truthfully – but my stance over the years has changed a bit. Work with me as an engineer.”

So this was the root of her strange behavior: an equally strange request, marked by how tightly her hands were pressed together. Hubert laughed, a short and ugly sound. “Mother dearest,” he said, “do you ever think of anything beside your pretty little projects? Are you aware of what you’re asking of me?”

Mother’s pale moon eyes gave nothing away as she stared right at him. Still, he fancied her hands shook with the slightest of tremors.

“Your father feels the times are changing—”

“Ah, so this is his idea. I thought it strange you’d put yourself out there. Now I understand. What was it he promised? A new organization, perhaps? A bigger lab for you to play in?”

“I see. You still hate him.”

“I? Bearing ill-will towards my own father, the progenitor of mine own flesh and blood? Perish the thought, Mother. What did he show you to entice you? Did he, perhaps, dazzle you with miraculous weapons found nowhere else in Fodlan?”

Mother spoke slow and pronounced. “If you intend to hurt me, Hubert, you will have to be much, much crueler.”

Hubert certainly could rise to the challenge. He learned a thing or two about cruelty when Lady Edelgard returned with the color drained from her hair and scars on her arms, from the men his father colluded with, from the fanaticism of desperate underlings convinced they’d be rewarded by the crooked nobles they served. What Mother said was true. Such monsters could only be harmed by exact, precise force.

But he could not overlook her laced hands.

“I wonder… are you aware of the price of change?” He looked her in the eyes. “Has Father explained how he came across such strange technology? How much does he share with you, really?”

There was a subtle tensing in the air about her. Good. “We are making this offer so you have no need to involve yourself in bloodshed. Are you truly content with being a lapdog, bound to kill at a word?”

“You should have asked long before Father intervened for ‘my sake,’” Hubert sneered. “If I am a lapdog, then so be it. It is my duty. You, Mother – you and Father alike are concerned with petty, selfish concerns. Day in and day out, you huddle away in the small world you’ve encased yourself in. As for Father, he’s little less than a worm to me.”

“He loved our family,” Mother said. “He loved you above all else, more than even I.”

“If Father is the result of what love transforms a man into, then I scorn love and spit upon it. A ruler who wields his power based upon his sentiments is a weak and pathetic figure. A knife who allows his emotions to dull his edge is even worse. No, Mother, kindly take your offer and scurry back to your workshop. You abhor the public realm, and to act as if you will bear it for my sake is a grave insult.”

For the first time in his life, Hubert robbed her of her words. Mother’s hands pressed against the front of her dress. Her mouth worked, as if she were trying to force the words out. How it twisted and convulsed, a pitiable sight. He would have looked away, were it not for his discipline.

“You think me a hermit,” Mother managed at last. “You are correct. But I have been watching your movements in the court.”

“Have you?” Hubert asked mildly.

“Whatever Lady Edelgard intends to do when she gains power, I care not. It’s—”

“—about Father. Of course it is.”

“And you as well, Hubert.”

There are always greater things than ourselves. Those words still burned in his heart. How ironic, that he’d be the only member of House Vestra to uphold their generational duty. Mother was a lost cause. She was trying to appeal to emotion he could not loose, for all of him belonged to Lady Edelgard’s dream. He ought to make that clear before she further debased herself with this uncharacteristic begging.

“I will be frank, Mother,” Hubert said. “What happens to Marquis Vestra will simply be the consequences of his actions. It is the same for me. You are not one to turn away from reality. You must have seen the trajectory of his ambitions from the start.”

Numbers and equations and facts: these were the words of a language Mother understood, the language she had taught him. Hubert knew she couldn’t deny what he laid before her. She knew it as well.

Mother was quiet for a contemplative moment. Resignation sank into her and she permitted her hands to drop to her side.

“I could not understand you, though you were my own child,” she said. “It was much the same with your father. My realm has always been that of spellwork, not of humans. Those around me and my own family denounced me as an unfeeling thing. I thought myself incapable of love. But your father – even if he did not understand me, he granted me that valuable feeling. And though I wonder if I’ve granted you that same privilege, you too have helped me recognize the love I possessed. Tell me plainly, Hubert. You will kill Marquis Vestra, will you not?”

She deserved no answer. Hubert kept his voice flat and controlled. “Yes. Either that, or he will kill me.”

“You will not change your course.”

“The Empire is larger than our family.”

“I don’t give a damn about the Empire. But you are correct: I loathe the court – perhaps this world entire. What?” Mother added, upon seeing Hubert’s eyes narrow. “Will you have me tried for treason? Will you kill me in the dark for speaking ill of your future ruler? Do so quickly, if you intend to. I do not want my death to be a spectacle.”

“You are speaking unreasonably.”

“I am speaking the truth.” Mother walked to the door. Hubert did not stop her. “Do as you will, Hubert. The stone has been cast. I will wait to see where it falls.”

The door softly clicked behind her, leaving him alone in his father’s office.

【 5 】

“So you’ve come,” Marquis Vestra said. “I must confess, I expected to die in my sleep.”

A man’s true nature emerged in the face of death. There were those who cowered and begged on their knees, debasing themselves for their lives. There were those who spat venom, rage bright in their eyes, closer to cornered animals than human. The marquis spoke with dignity, with an undertone of sadness. Hubert would have much preferred him to spit in his face.

“I considered the option,” Hubert said.

“You intend to make me suffer, then.”

“No. I intend to offer you something you don’t deserve.”

“Which is?”

“A choice.”

In the dim firelight of the room, Marquis Vestra’s gaunt features were thrown into sharp relief. His cheeks, once hale and hearty, were robbed of their color. Streaks of white shot through his brunette hair. The man Hubert once called ‘Father’ gave him probing look.

“You truly took after your mother,” he said, “in both appearance and temperament.”

Hubert made a brusque gesture. “Sit.”

The order was promptly obeyed. This was the delicate part of any operation. An amateur mistake would be to think the target as subdued. Cooperation could be a cover for subversion, a counterstrike, a calculated attempt to turn the tables. He kept his eyes on the marquis and remained standing.

“You know what you are being tried for,” Hubert said. “Tell me, did you really think you’d escape unscathed? That the Empire would forgive you for conspiring against the throne?”

Marquis Vestra folded his hands in his lap. “You know me better than that, my son.”

“Hold your tongue, traitor.”

“You are not here because of the Empire. You are here because of Lady Edelgard.”

Hubert scowled. “Lady Edelgard is the Empire. And it is to her that we offer our lives to. Was that not what you taught me?”

“I cannot deny it, and I wish I never had taken you under my wing. That I had denied tradition sooner, as my heart had told me.”

“Ha! You speak of hearts now? You are a disgusting, loathesome hypocrite.”

“Hubert, you don’t understand—”

The hidden dagger slipped out with a deft flick of Hubert’s hand. Its cold tip pressed into the marquis’ neck, right over the major artery, and Hubert hissed, “I understand enough. You and your accomplices tortured and eradicated the royal bloodline for your selfish desires. You offer your filthy, bloody hands to me and claim you dirtied them for my sake, hoping to poison me against Her Majesty.”

“You need not serve her—”

“I chose to serve her, Father dearest, for I have loyalty and pride. For I am not a monster who would sacrifice children to claim a false peace.”

Marquis Vestra closed his eyes. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Then kill me, if you find me so reprehensible,” he said, voice thick with emotion. “I will not raise a hand against my own flesh and blood.”

He spoke the truth. Hubert could read it in his body language, knew from years of experience the marquis was truly surrendering.

“You do not deserve the choice I am offering you,” Hubert said and put away his dagger. “Be thankful for that woman.”

Marquis Vestra’s eyes snapped open. For an instant there was a flash of fury, quickly suppressed by years of experience. “You—!”

“—left the marchioness well alone. Your absence in her life will be penance enough. You have two options.” Hubert listed them off on his slender fingers. “The first is poison. The second is a knife. Your death will be reported as a suicide and I shall inherit your title once your death has been confirmed. The newly widowed marchioness will be offered monetary compensation and, should she wish it, a journey home.” His voice grew bitter. “Unlike you, I am not a true monster.”

At last, his words sunk in. The marquis accepted his death. Hubert could see it in those weary green eyes, could hear it in the softness with which he gave his answer. He is the greatest fool of all, Hubert thought, for thinking that the blood we shared would spare him from his crimes.

A vial of the odorless poison was mixed with red wine and poured into a small, crystal cup. Hubert set it before Marquis Vestra, who picked it up by the rim. The air itself seemed to still. Silence held both of them close to its breast and time ceased. Firelight cast shadows upon the decorated walls: the pictures of Mother, the portrait of their small family, the plants gathered from their home’s modest garden, the countless little things that turned his father from the righteous path.

“My son,” Marquis Vestra said, “I wish I could have done more for you.”

He drank the poison.

【 6 】

There were men born to be rulers and there were men born to be subjects; men born to lead and men born to love. Hubert von Vestra was neither, nor would he ever allow himself to become such a man, and would keep the walls of his rooms and heart barren for duty’s sake, for that was the lot of a weapon.