I am still trying to get a proper understanding what is going on with Lily's death. I feel as though I have found out too much in too short time.

I knew that she was killed by someone under her command, but I did not expect that someone to be her husband or husband-to-be. I did consider that they could simply have been flirting, but in that case cheating would not have been applicable. It would just have been a loss of favor.

Going by her expression of being in deep thought, I've determined she suspects her husband, or husband-to-be of having been manipulated to kill her by the woman she had thought he slept with.

She's probably been stuck on her own view of it without mulling it over. Since she's forcefully pushed it from her memory until our argument, she probably hasn't had much time to think about it, or at least had no one to turn to in helping her understand what had happened. She'd never talk with anyone about these things. Probably only the honorable Magdalin... so why did I become the one for her to trust and talk with?

"It would make sense that he had been manipulated."

Lily breaks into my streams of thought with crossed arms. As usual her thoughtful expression makes her look irritated.

"He was never the kind to consider such methods. He was much too forward for such a method too. He was the kind to cut rather than poison."

Seeing as they'd been on the front line this made sense... but... she was poisoned?

"He may have used her as a reference of where to get the poison too which would explain how he got it and why he had to spend time with her that day."

As Lily continues in thought, my thoughts go in another direction. Lily was poisoned in her previous life... and for some reason that reminded me of that poisoning when Lily had been a kid. That would have happened around the time Lily began to change. I still remember that meeting simply because of the shock. If I don't recall wrong, Eric had been acting somewhat odd already back then... I'm pretty sure that the change happened around the time of the poisoning. Would it be odd to consider the poisoning the trigger?

I look up at her and find her blue eyes staring at directly at me. Did I miss something? Lily shifts her weight a bit and watches me with this look of suspicion in her eyes.

"Is something wrong?"

Seems like I hadn't missed anything.

"No........ still, it sounds like he must have spent a while planning to kill you if those things are true."

I end up pausing for a brief moment while Lily stares blankly at me. Had she considered it a crime of passion?

"...still, if you got to talk with him and he answered you I guess the rest of his life must've let him think a lot about his actions..."

I make an assumption here based on Lily's unexpected openness. She wasn't in as foul a mood as you'd expect from someone that just talked with their killer and someone that had betrayed them.

Lily blinks slowly a few times and then stares at me calmly.

"He lived a few hours more at most. Magic was a very rare thing in my former world. Not at all quite common as it is here. As a priest or priestess who can communicate with the gods and make them listen to your prayers, you are an incredibly valuable person. I had reached a point where I'd gotten prayers and had reached a rank as officer, a path which priests usually do not take. I was quite valuable and my lord had forbidden me for killing myself after I... lost everyone..."

She pauses there and lowers her eyes to the floor. Her hand reaches to fiddle with the pendant soothingly. I'm not sure what all of this has to do with how long he lived, but... I am happy he didn't live a long happy life after that. Lily looks down at the pendant as she continues.

"...As such, when I died he failed his duty to protect me... the valuable one... his fiancé. He would have had to commit... He would have had to cut his stomach open for his failure to ensure it didn't harm his family too much... when we talked he mentioned seeing me in the line of the dead ahead of him, so long wouldn't have passed. That he is here... and knowing that he is horrible at lying, means he definitely did it. Though without assistance."

She starts hesitating as she speaks... but that much is understandable. Their culture demanded he kill himself from that? But by cutting his stomach open... that is a slow and painful death.

"What do you mean, without assistance?"

She doesn't blink as she answers:

"Usually someone beheads you after you cut from one end to the other. Unassisted means that he was not beheaded and bled out from his injury. Other than a vertical cut along with the horizontal one, he would've had to wait it out in silence. Though, knowing him he would have easily cut deep enough to make it last shortly."

Instinctively I end up putting a hand to my stomach after hearing her words. I've been stabbed in the stomach before, and her words reminded me of that. Her husband... or husband to be had killed both of them. Keeping on a calm third point view grew harder by the moment.

I felt nauseous, and a slumbering, confused anger seethed in the pit of my stomach.

I think I'm getting what happened. Lily asked her lord to let her die, which he obviously refused, and Lily's husband or husband-to-be gave in and probably gave her what he thought she wanted after someone kept pushing it... the only piece that doesn't fit is why he used poison. Lily must have known how to detect it as she did when we were kids. It was risky and unlikely to succeed. Had he been betting on the 'cheating' infuriating her enough to act? Even if that was it, she might have gone somewhere he didn't expect or someone else might have gotten a sip first. For someone used to handling a sword it's a very roundabout way like he was leaving it up to fate.

I take a breath to calm myself and watch Lily who is staring calmly out the window.

Honestly, when I heard about the storyline in the 'game' I had wondered why she hadn't attempted to charm Alstair at all. If she had told Alstair of her healing powers and made him happy, then there would have been no interest left for Claire... but this explains it perfectly. She'd just been killed by her husband or husband-to-be... there was no way she would take that path. That together with her personality and her grief was just too much for her to deal with.

Even so, I want to express my anger with the man that killed her. The endless frustration burns from knowing that she's suffering in silence and has been doing so for a long time now.

Why is it she is so numb to her own pain, but recognize the pain in others immediately? Even now when she gazes out the window only her hand on the pendant I gave her betrays the pain she is in.

How do I talk with her about something like this? With her loss I had... I had some understanding of the feeling in her and I knew I should tell her to grieve... but this is different. What do you say to someone who was quite literally killed by the person they were supposed to be able to trust?

"Lionel."

I get jerked out of my thoughts by her calling my name. My gaze had fallen to the ground in thought, but is now faced with Lily looking at me with a vague smile.

"You look as though you're going to fight someone. I have no grudges with the dead. I will be fine."

...how can she say that with a smile after all we just talked through? Has she really forgiven him? If she has, can I still hold a grudge? I notice my teeth grit and the frustration in my stomach twirl for a moment. If she isn't angry, then neither should I be. That is not my role. She can take care of grudges and decisions on her own, my role is simply to help her if she needs it.

I place a hand on her small shoulder as I would do with any other warrior, but the words I speak end up softer as that to a childhood friend.

"I will be here if you need to talk."

She looks up at me with her blue eyes that have widened slightly. Then... another smile... but this time warmer and more gentle.

"Thank you, Lionel. I will be counting on you."

...her smile is adorable...

This is not the time, place nor... the person.

"...of course..."

I cannot help but to stare for a moment too long at that unexpected smile. I don't think I can get used to that.

—-*—-

In the end she was convinced to go home to Castle Celeste even though she wasn't happy about it. The Celeste army left around noon. Their injured had been healed up, and they left without complaint. They were probably aware of the chaos that was about to unfold.

After we had said our goodbyes I couldn't help but to feel like that was the last time I would see her. The aching pain in my chest at the thought haunted me for the rest of the day.

I had a meeting with my father about the Headal declaration, and how I'd sent Augustus back without asking him first... he was visibly upset and had his voice raised most of the meeting. He was not a man to accept a declaration like that. He's is the kind of man that will fight for his king to the end... however,  making martyrs in this situation is unreasonable.

That night I finished a letter to Reynold and Bertram. I'd need them to take over here when I began the rescue mission for Princess Emilia.

In the end I think most of our army would give into the demand, but a good deal of them were as stubborn as my father. If this went poorly, our army could end up split in half.