With a speed none of them had ever seen from the aging Pope before Pope Lotario dropped to the ground.
His forehead slamd against the floor as he prostrated himself without the slightest hesitation.
"I...I misspoke!"
His voice shook violently as the words spilled out in panic.
"They are yours of course they are yours! Not just them... all of us. This entire kingdom exists to serve you, Your Grace."
His voice was hurried, desperate filled with naked appeasent. Yet. The woman didn’t so much as blink.
Not a twitch. Not the slightest change in expression. His desperate oath...ant nothing. She simply looked down at them with those cold, icy eyes and asked, her voice calm, commanding, and utterly devoid of emotion,
"How did it happen?"
A brief pause. Then...
"...And who were the casualties?"
In truth. She already knew. Even unconsciously, she had always kept tabs on the entire group. And for soone like her, it wasn’t even remotely difficult. Even from hundreds of kilotres away, they were still well within her passive range.
The only reason she had co here in the first place...Was because she had noticed the absence of two individuals.
Two highly promising individuals. Two she had been paying special attention to. At first, she hadn’t thought much of it. A temporary separation. Maybe a delay. Nothing unusual. But after a week of their absence...She had already ford her own conclusion. She knew what had most likely happened.
Even so. She still asked. Because assumptions were not facts. And she wanted confirmation. She wanted to know exactly what had happened. Knowing the gravity of the situation. And knowing that even the slightest lie would only hasten his death. Pope Lotario didn’t dare delay.
With cold sweat dripping from his face and his body trembling uncontrollably. He began frantically telling her the truth of what had happened.
"Your Grace..."
Pope Lotario’s voice trembled as he kept his forehead pressed firmly against the floor.
"Even I do not know all the details. William here was responsible for the operation. He was in the middle of explaining everything to ."
His voice grew even more hurried.
"I am certain... he can explain to both of us exactly what happened."
William, who had just been shalessly thrown under the bus, shot the Pope a brief side glance. After all. He had already explained everything. Every detail of the incident. And they both knew it.
Yet. He said nothing. Partly because of his honour. He was not the kind of man who ran from responsibility. And partly because, Pope or not He had been there. He had seen everything with his own eyes. No one in this room was more qualified to explain what had happened than him. But above all else He felt guilty. Deeply guilty because in his presence. Two children had died. Their talent, their status, their importance...
None of that mattered. At the end of the day. They were children. And they had died on his watch. That fact weighed on him more heavily than anything else.
Taking a slow breath, William straightened himself. Then, with a direct and calm gaze. He looked toward the woman. And began explaining the events in exact detail.
"We allowed them to explore the dungeon while keeping a close watch on them."
William’s voice was steady.
Controlled.
But beneath that calm exterior, the guilt in his eyes was impossible to hide.
"I stayed behind to look after the children who were exhausted and sent my knights ahead with the vanguard group."
He paused for only a mont before continuing. And then, he told her everything. Every single detail. He explained how the children had been caught in a trap. How, without warning, their presence had suddenly vanished from his senses.
How the mont he realized sothing was wrong, he imdiately abandoned everything and went after them himself. How, not knowing where they had been sent, he searched desperately through the dungeon.
Floor after floor. Corridor after corridor. Scanning every inch. Refusing to stop. Refusing to believe the worst.
Until, slowly. A horrifying realization began to sink in. And when he finally found them...
William’s voice faltered for the first ti. His fists clenched. He continued.
"...I was too late."
The words ca out almost as a whisper.
As though speaking to them aloud made the mory even more unbearable.
"When I finally reached them..."
William’s voice grew heavier, true pain seeping through his carefully maintained composure.
"It was too late. Kelly and Kei... both fell from that cliff."
His fists tightened, his jaw clenched. He bowed his head in sha.
"I don’t think they" He never finished. He didn’t need to. Everyone in the room understood what he ant, and more than that, they could feel it...the sha, the guilt, the crushing weight of failure.
Yet the woman didn’t so much as flinch. She simply looked at him, her icy blue eyes growing colder with every passing second.
"...So," she said in a calm, asured voice. "You an to tell that two promising seeds were lost... and they died on your watch."
A brief silence followed before her gaze sharpened.
"Then pray tell... why are you still here?"
Before anyone could react before any of them could even process her words William vanished. No... vanished wasn’t the right word. He disintegrated. His body broke apart into particles so fine that, for a brief mont, it looked as though he had dissolved into a crimson mist. Where he had been kneeling, only a fog of blood remained.
The speed was so absurdly fast that even the blood itself seed unable to comprehend what had happened. The room remained frozen in complete silence, as though reality itself needed ti to catch up. Then, after what felt like an eternity, Pope Lotario and Joan finally processed what stood before them. Where William had once been... there was now only a spreading puddle of blood.
And most of it was on the Pope. He had been standing closest. From head to toe, Pope Lotario was drenched in the blood of the companion who had stood beside him for decades... a man who, only a mont ago, had still been alive. Now, he was simply gone. As the reality of what had happened finally sank in, Lotario took a shaky breath only to instantly regret it as so of the blood he had mistakenly inhaled touched the back of his throat. His stomach churned violently. He wanted to vomit. He wanted to scream. He wanted to curse the woman standing before him for murdering his friend. But the mont he looked at her again, every ounce of strength left his body. A violent tremor ran through him, and in that mont, Pope Lotario understood one absolute truth. One wrong word... and he would be next. So, without a single complaint, he lowered his gaze and stared silently at the floor.
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