“Tia!”
Guided by a demon, Naiad flew straight into a small storage hut.
“You—!”
Inside stood Tia, the Empress of Ezer and Naiad’s forr close friend, her golden hair and blue eyes exactly as she rembered.
“Naiad.” Tia saw her as well, but her expression barely shifted, “I thought you were out of sight… you must have been sowhere else.”
“Wait—aren’t you even surprised?”
“I already knew you were by Clay’s side. No reason to be startled.”
Naiad’s expression turned incredulous, “Even so, that’s a hell of a reaction.”
“I don’t have the luxury to be happy right now.” Tia sat on a nearby wooden crate with a sigh, “If this isn’t important, can we talk later?”
“Oh, for—!” Naiad snapped, “Whether those elves behind you have been feeding you information about or not, I don’t care. But don’t talk to like that. Not now, with Clay in this state.”
“It’s because Clay is in this state that I can’t talk to you.” Tia’s gaze fixed on her, “You know why he changed.”
“…”
Naiad faltered, then lifted her head again, her eyes sharpening.
“Then why did you do it?”
Her long-buried resentnt finally spilled out.
“Why did you abandon Clay?”
“It wasn’t because I wanted to. The circumstances—”
“That’s not an excuse.”
Clay had been the backbone of the Hero’s Party—not just in terms of strength, but as soone they could all place absolute trust in.
Though Tia, as an empress, couldn’t directly join the party, she had been a vital pillar, supporting them with both resources and counsel.
“What was Clay to you?”
Tia, too, had relied on him—leaned on him for comfort in the hardships of the throne.
“Clay was—”
Naiad bit her tongue, clenching her jaw.
“Whatever he was, your mistake can’t be undone.”
“I know.”
“Circumstances be damned, you should have done what you could. Clay didn’t need your help—he just wanted you to believe in him.”
But none of them, Tia included, had given him that belief.
“Do you have any idea what it felt like for him to walk up onto that execution platform? You should never have co here.”
Emotion welled up, and Naiad found herself lashing out harder than she’d intended.
“You couldn’t even do the bare minimum. Everyone knows you had much to protect—but this was Clay. If anyone deserved it—”
“Yes. You’re right, Naiad.” Tia’s eyes brimd with sorrow, “I didn’t do anything.”
“Then why—”
“And that’s exactly what Clay will think.”
Then, she said sothing that made Naiad freeze.
“In truth… I did go to see him. Before he was taken to the execution platform.”
“What?”
“More precisely, I t him in his cell.”
To make that eting happen, Tia had bribed more people than she could count—
“The prison guard who handled his als, another to stall the shift change, a high-ranking mage to disable the magical alarms, even a priest with ties to Ezer. And more besides.”
It had taken everything to arrange even a few monts alone with him.
“And I did et him, for a very short ti.”
Tia lowered her gaze.
“But Clay was already broken then. He wasn’t in any state to hear . The torture had worn him down.”
“No… Clay always thought no one ca for him. And yes, he was weakened—but if, right before his death, he still wished for your belief, your story doesn’t add up.”
“It shouldn’t add up.” Tia exhaled softly, “Before I left, I gave him the key to his shackles. Left the cell door ajar. Told him the escape route I’d arranged. Even so, I knew he wouldn’t make it out. It was… a last, desperate straw I couldn’t stop myself from offering.”
The odds were nearly nonexistent. And even if he refused, it would’ve been no surprise—he had t her only with fury.
“The strange thing is… Clay doesn’t rember any of it.”
From the conversations they’d had since, it was clear he had no recollection of their eting at all.
“And yet… his mind seed a little more intact afterward than when I saw him. Darkened at death, yes, but not as utterly destroyed as when I found him.”
“What are you saying?” Naiad’s brow furrowed, “Wait—you an—”
“I don’t think the brand the priests carved into him was an ordinary one.”
Her voice was quiet, deliberate.
“It was a divine punishnt sigil—one ant to erase a portion of mory after a set ti.”
“Hold on.” Naiad stopped her, “Clay still rembers being tortured. If mories were erased, wouldn’t he notice gaps?”
“A divine punishnt brand is so hard to perform perfectly that it rarely works fully. When it’s incomplete, the mind doesn’t lose everything—just certain parts.”
“What?”
Why place an incomplete mory-erasing brand on soone dood to die anyway? Naiad’s mouth went dry.
“So the conversation with you… might have been among the mories erased?”
“Most likely.” Tia’s voice was steady, “My guess is that only mories during the worst of his suffering were taken. Our conversation happened in that period.”
“But why…”
Even hearing her explanation, Naiad couldn’t make sense of it. Erasing only the worst pain, incompletely—what purpose could it serve?
“Maybe they wanted to make sure he didn’t die before the execution?”
It was the only plausible reason Naiad could think of. But Tia only pressed her lips together.
“I don’t know. Either way, I still abandoned him. If I’d acted sooner, maybe things would be different. Even if he’s forgotten, he didn’t forgive . The result is the sa.”
“It’s not the sa.” Naiad’s voice hardened, “Clay had sothing stolen from him.”
That mory might have been sothing he needed, however terrible it was.
“Even if we can’t return his pain to him, we need to know who and why.”
“Who is obvious.”
Tia’s eyes were cold.
“The Emperor of Krata. Without Lutan, the priests could never have done it.”
“Lutan…! What is that bastard? Did he experint on the Hero at the end? What was he trying to do?!”
Naiad’s fists clenched as she shouted. And as she ground her teeth, her eyes fixed sharply on Tia.
“Tia.”
Tia had made her choice as an empress—a decision that, from her position, would protect the lives of many.
It was a choice that had inevitably earned Clay’s resentnt. She couldn’t have both sides; one had to be sacrificed.
But Tia hadn’t held to that choice completely. Despite the risk of triggering catastrophic backlash if she were discovered, she had still sought Clay out… and had succeeded in making contact.
That much could be taken into account. But only that much.
“The Clay of the past… if you were the one in his place, he wouldn’t have hesitated to make the world his enemy.”
The problem was that the depth of feeling between them had never been the sa.
“You put Clay’s life on a scale and weighed it. That can’t be undone.”
Naiad stepped closer, Tia lowering her head without offering any defense.
“Even so…”
That weighing hadn’t been aningless.
“Even if Clay never forgives you, if your regret is real, then do whatever you can—everything you can.”
If there had been so plot against Clay, then in this war, too, there could be traps lying in wait.
“If you’ve decided to see it through to the end, I an.”
When Tia raised her head, she t the sharp gaze Naiad leveled at her.
“Understand?”
It was a reprimand. All Tia could do was nod. That was the only thing she could do right now.
“I’ll keep what you told from Clay for now.”
If he had no mory of it, telling him now would only make him distrust her even more. It might even sound like a fabrication.
“I’ll look into what you’ve said and decide whether to tell him or not. Until then, stay quiet.”
Tia nodded again at Naiad’s words.
“Then I’m going.”
As Naiad turned to leave, Tia spoke.
“Naiad.”
“?”
“…Thank you.”
Her voice was quiet.
“For listening to .”
“I listened because I needed to.”
Naiad let out a long breath.
“So I could put my own thoughts in order.”
Then she flew toward the warehouse exit.
“I’m going.”
Leaving only those words, Naiad stepped out into the open air.
Tia just stood there, staring in the direction she’d gone.
♧
Whiiish—
Where now only the wind howled, Yuru sat unmoving.
“Ha.”
Her chin rested on an arm draped across her knees, her sigh breaking the stillness.
“When I think about it again, it’s just… empty, isn’t it?”
Serving as her makeshift chair was none other than Talosa, master of the Red Tower.
“No answer, huh?”
Talosa’s face was frozen mid-scream, her life long since ended. And she wasn’t alone—scattered around Yuru lay the bodies of other mages, all of them having rushed at her only to et the sa fate.
“I honestly thought you’d at least be able to take one of my arms.”
The power she now wielded was sothing even she could no longer asure.
“Well… I guess it’s about ti I went.”
She stood, stretching, eyes gleaming.
“Shall I?”
To where Clay was.
(End of Chapter)
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