Chapter Text
Emilia looked at the sight in front of her in adject horror, everything was falling apart. The Witch of Envy had showed up in the capital as all the candidates had gathered in preparation for the final vote to decide who would be the next ruler of Lugunica. The candidates and the camps should have been an unstoppable force, they had among them the greatest warriors from the entire kingdom. They had Wilhelm the Sword Demon, but for every shadow he slashed down, two more appeared. They had Reinhard the Sword Saint, but the Dragon Sword Reid which could fell 100 dragons with a single strike wasn’t even capable of leaving a scratch on the monstrosity before them. Even Roswaal L Mathers, the greatest magician in all Lugunica, throwing fireballs capable of incinerating entire cities, paled in comparison to the Witch of Envy.
The fight was nearing its conclusion, the capital was drenched in a sea of flames; however they were contrasted by thick black shadow that extended far past the cities outer walls. It looked nought like a city involved in a perilous battle, instead it looked like small boat barely floating in a massive sea of shadows.
However, their desperate yet seemingly futile struggle had a tiny silver lining; the majority of the capital’s residents had been given an opportunity to escape. The candidates and their benefactors sweated, bleed, and will probably die for their safety. Emilia will probably die for all the people who spat at her when she walked by, hurled insults and called her a monster to her face; but she will also die for people like the Appa Salesman and his family. Emilia will die so that his sweet little girl will get to wake up in a warm bed and hug her mom and dad, grow up with them, laugh and joke with them, have something that Emilia never had; and that was something that Emilia was willing to die for.
Emilia’s heart was being wretched at the sight in front of her, the broken remains of the combined fighting force of all the camps. Wilhelm lay on the ground a few dozen paces from her, his two swords snapped, and his legs contorted at odd angles thanks to a shattered pelvis. Emilia had watched as he slowly abandoned his frantic desire to try and stand, it’s likely that the blood that must be pooling in his abdomen from the shards of bone penetrating his intestines had finally reached sufficient levels to cause his consciousness to slip from reality. Although Emilia was mortified at his injuries she honestly felt a bit happy for him, Wilhelm had fought long and hard his entire life and he honestly deserved the respite she thought; he won’t be aware when he dies, he won’t experience being crushed by the shadow arms or swallowed by the sea, his life will just fade to nothing.
The rest of the fighting force was near Wilhelm’s condition, some slightly better than others. Reinhard was the best of all, yet he stood kneeling drenched in sweat, unable to move. With every divine blessing in the book and the endurance of a thousand men; even he had exerted himself to the point of such exhaustion that he could no longer gather the strength to even stand. Julius and Crusch were the worst of the bunch, Julius lay on the ground writhing in pain as Anastasia held him down as Felt tried to bandage the stumps where his four limbs had been brutally ripped by the many shadow hands filling the plaza. Crusch lay near the edge of the plaza, impaled in several places by the broken water grate she had been flung into. With her was Felix who was desperately dumping healing magic in her body, it took his full power just to keep her to clinging to life, but Felix didn’t dare to remove her from the water grate as it was likely that the second he stopped healing her that she would simply die from the massive trauma she had sustained.
Emilia honestly wanted to help her friends, she truly did, but her own injuries had accumulated to the point that she no longer could. The second they saw the Witch of Envy it had immediately targeted Subaru, dashing straight at him with arms outstretched; like it was trying to take him away rather than simply kill him. However, Emilia wouldn’t allow any harm to come to her knight, he had gone through so much for her back when she was weak; but now that she was strong, she would protect him, she would shield him from harm. But she wasn’t strong enough for as she swung her hammer of ice straight at the witches head a hand of shadow formed and caught it, swinging it wide around herself like a child’s toy before coming back around and slamming straight into Emilia’s chest. She flew back right through a brick wall and felt a series of snaps followed by a sharp pain as all the ribs in her left side broke off and plunged into her lung. As the blood travelled up her throat and started to dribble down her chin, it was like all the pain just disappeared, Subaru must have used Cor Leonis she had thought. She had seen his face soaked in worry as he saw her laying with blood running out of her mouth, but as she stood up, he doubled over in pain and grasped his chest.
But Subaru was still Subaru after all, when Emilia tried to rush over to him, he just forced out a smile and said “Don’t worry Emilia-tan I’ll be okay, so show everyone how strong you’ve become!”
But since Subaru was a dunderhead who would rather break every bone in his body before he would let Emilia bare a single scratch it was Beatrice who gave her the reassurance to fight. All she had to do was give Emilia a nod from where she stood beside Subaru, holding his hand. That little nod delivered the only message Emilia needed to hear, “Betty will make sure Subaru doesn’t push himself too hard, in fact.”
And fight hard Emilia did, with every ounce of strength she could give, and even more that she probably couldn’t give. Yet it wasn’t enough as there was just one shadow arm she didn’t manage to avoid, and that arm spelt the end of her fight. It grabbed the top of her skull and like before it swung her in a wide arc towards the edge of a well.
Emilia’s life flashed before her eyes as her head neared the well, in but a mere few seconds her skull would hit the large stone bricks and shatter, spreading her brain across the plaza for all to see. The last second before impact seemed to slow down and last forever; as this happened images of her time with Fortuna, Geuse, and Subaru flashed before her eyes, memories that she never wanted to forget. Yet just as she embraced the end the shadow grasping her skull was dispersed by a blade of wind, and from the corner of her eye she saw a head of pink hair slam into her.
Ram had managed to save her from a grisly end, Ram the rough yet kind maid who had been with Emilia since the beginning of the adventure with the royal selection had put herself into harms way for the umpteenth time to help Emilia.
As Emilia careened along a different trajectory than the one ending with her death she was wrapped with guilt. Rams own trajectory led her right over the well, and due to saving Emilia she had no time to break her own fall, and with a sickening crack Ram hit the ground and remained motionless.
Emilia herself slammed headfirst into the outer wall of the plaza and felt a series of cracks spread across her entire skull.
And so she was relegated to simply watching, she was wrapped in a sense of guilt and uselessness as she could merely watch as one by one her friends fell or were ripped apart by the monster that was the Witch of Envy, a monster that Emilia had been compared to her whole life.
She wanted to cry out, to scream to Subaru that he needed to run and leave with the rest of the support team. Subaru, Felt, Anastasia, Otto and Felix could do nothing to stop the witch, they should save themselves and anybody close by and live to fight another day. That’s what Emilia wanted to say at least but nothing more then a murmur or gurgling sound could escape her lips; her second impact of the fight had shattered her jaw. And so the battered Emilia could do nothing more than watch everyone’s upcoming death with her jaw hanging open, blood dribbling out of her mouth and running down her chin, and even more blood escaping her skull and running down from all sides of her head like water down a glass window on a stormy day.
And so, Emilia lay slumped there as the blood began to dye her vision red and everything grew more and more hazy, just as she felt herself slipping into a sleep that would probably be her last, she was jolted to life. A pain worse than death had beset her, the pain of her injuries had returned, Cor Leonis had faded.
Cor Leonis had evolved since the events of the Pleidies Watch Tower, now it not only allowed the sharing of burdens between Subaru and the rest but also allowed anyone connected via it to ‘feel’ the status of others who shared the connection. This meant that anyone connected to this network of Cor Leonis could think about anyone else connected, then things like how tired they were or if they had any injuries should pop into their head in detail. It was because of this they had taken on the Witch of Envy in two teams, a combat-oriented team and a support team, the support team being made up of non-combatants who aided the combat team.
Emilia sucked in a deep breath and tried to get her pain addled brain to focus, she had been lost in a haze thinking about how she had arrived at this hopeless situation, but she hadn’t been thinking about how she could get out of this situation.
“Things feel really fuzzy, but I have a bit of mana left so I could probably cast some weak magic. It may not be much but if I can still help, I’m going to do my best to help!” But than what happened in front of her eyes made her freeze up in shock, it was the last thing she wanted to see.” No Subaru why you aren’t running, you could get away and live, but you’re going towards the witch. You’re too weak to do anything so please leave and live!” This was at least what Emilia wanted to say but her injuries rendered it into a meaning less series of incomprehensible sounds. She tried with all her strength to communicate this to him, but she could do nothing but watch in horror as her knight walked forward seemingly to his death.
But something seemed off about what he was doing, she saw no fear in him, no rage or anger, not even envy at how much stronger the witch was compared to him. He walked towards the witch with what looked like a pitied and kind look on his face, it was like his scary eyes felt bad for the witch that was about to kill all his friends.
Emilia moved her eyes to scan the plaza, to see how their allies and friends thought of this spectacle, those who seemed to still be conscious of their surroundings at least. Ram and Felix looked absolutely enraged at the spectacle, “no don’t hate him, he’s doing this for us, there’s no way that he’s this friendly with the witch!” Emilia wanted to plead with them. She kept looking around until her eyes settled on Beatrice and Roswaal, both frozen in shock and immobilized by mana deprivation. “So not even those two know what he’s up to…” Emilia realized as her heart sunk, meaning that Subaru might be trying to sacrifice himself. It had always bothered Emilia with how little regard for his own life he had, if someone didn’t step in when he planned something than he would always take the most dangerous place in any plan for himself. If Beatrice didn’t seem to know what he was doing than it was likely that he was about to do something really dumb and get himself hurt since she surely would’ve stopped him if she knew.
Subaru kept his calm walk and when he was nought but a few paces from the witch he just opened his arms and hugged her. Even the witch seemed shocked by this, but her shock didn’t last long. Nearly immediately every shadow arm that had been either idle or fighting the few who could still stand rushed back towards Subaru.
Emilia gasped, she was about to see her knight get crushed to death by hundreds if thousands of shadow arms, even one was strong enough to kill Emilia with its swing. But what surprised her the most was that the arms didn’t crush him, instead they gently held him with such care and diligence that it seemed they were juxtaposed by being afraid of accidently crushing him but also afraid that he’d be gone forever if he slipped out from their grasp. The witch herself seemed to be enraptured by immense excitement, it was swaying side to side saying nothing but “love you, love you, love you” over and over again.
It was like her pain didn’t bother her at all, she was so captivated by the sight in front of her that she couldn’t focus on her body at all, but seeing this was starting to make her heart ache. Why was Subaru showing so much love to the witch? How could he act so intimate with her and not show the slightest hesitation or embarrassment, it was like it was natural for him.
Emilia’s heart filled with jealousy, with envy towards the witch representing that very sin. She watched as her heart raged and burned, as she felt jealous to extents that she never had before; as she saw HER knight, the one who had repeatedly declared his love for HER, lean forward and kiss the WITCH, whisper comforting words into the WITCHES ear.
As Emilia was drowning in her own uncharacteristic jealousy and envy she didn’t give a single thought on why Subaru was doing what he was. Why he was showing such kindness and intimacy to a being that had been ostracized its entire life, why he might give it a reason to let go of its envy. Emilia was behaving eerily similar to Subaru during their first visit to the capital, drowning in envy and possessiveness over another without ever thinking to themselves “why?”
But she clued back into the spectacle unfolding before her, she had come back to reality and realized that she certainly had missed something important. The shadows that had been engulfing Subaru’s body, holding him near to the Jealous Witch had begun to fade, they grew more and more transparent before simply ceasing to exist.
Emilia once again scanned the plaza and the same held true for the rest of the shadows, even the very sea of shadow that had seemed verged to swallow the city whole grew weaker and weaker before fading to nothingness.
When her eyes returned to focus once again on the witch and her knight what drew her attention was not how the witch was now being cradled in his arms, unable to stand on her own. No it was how the face that was once obscured by a veil of shadow was now free for her to see.
“I-It’s me…..” was all that ran through her head. The Witch of Envy looked like exactly like her, if you said they were identical twins or even replicas of one another it would be a hard claim to dispute.
But Emilia’s fixation on her apparent doppelgänger was cut short. She saw a shift in the witches face, the previous obsession in its eyes was replaced by a soft kindness and a weak smile, like the person inside the body itself changed.
“This must be Satella than, so Subaru was right about her not being the same as the Witch of Envy. But wait what was that I heard?”
As Emilia came to the realization that the theory Subaru told her a fair amount of time ago that seemed completely crazy, that Satella and the Witch of Envy were not the same person, she had thought she heard Satella weakly say a few words. She thought she heard “Thank you, for keeping your promise.”
“When did he make a promise with her? How did he make a promise with her? What did he promise her?” all these thoughts raced through Emilia’s head as she watched an even more drastic change occur with the witch’s body.
A strange black light seemed to seep out from her, yet it soon grew into a torrent but than vanished, and with it went Satella’s body. The body of the witch blew away like ash in the wind. With the vanquishing of the witches body so went all the despair and sorrow among the candidates and their camps, they had stared death in the eye and he blinked first, they would live.
“Had they done it, had they beaten the Witch of Envy, was the monster that Emilia been compared to her whole life finally been truly defeated?”
All these thoughts raced through Emilia’s head as she felt joy for the first time that day since the capital was attacked, she didn’t care how hurt she was if it meant that they’d saved the capital from being consumed by shadow. It didn’t even bother her anymore how Subaru defeated her, he managed to save them from a death by a being that not even Reinhard’s raw power could overcome.
The looks on her companions faces seemed to echo her sentiment, the looks of anger, shock, and worry were replaced with amazement and joy. They would all get to live another day and after the royal selection was concluded maybe, just maybe they could all just honestly enjoy each others company as friends instead of rivals, without another care in the world.
But Emilia was sucked out of her dream of everyone being friends and happy together when she caught sight of Beatrice and Roswaal. Beatrice had recovered her strength but was desperately trying to crawl towards Subaru while Roswaal held her back. Emilia started to try and focus in on this odd interaction between the two, maybe it was due to blood loss but her mind was feeling really hazy, making it hard for her to figure out what was happening between the two.
Beatrice seemed to be pleading with Roswaal, not even bothering to use her normal speaking techniques or habits, “Just let me go, let me help him, he needs Betty’s help right now!”
And Roswaal was also responding without his normal pronunciation, but with a cold caluculating voice “The miasma coming off him would kill even you; the boy would be unable to live with himself if you died for him. All we can do now is watch and hope, maybe he will live, maybe not”
“Who were they talking about, why was there a boy giving off miasma?” Emilia tried to work out the answer to these questions, but her mind was just too hazy to help her here. By this point her left eye was so drenched in blood running from her head that she couldn’t see the left half of her field of vision. She painstakingly and slowly turned her head, the fractures causing her immense pain. What she saw broke her more than any injury she had.
Emilia’s knight Natsuki Subaru, the boy who had been one of her closest companions since her adventure to become the Queen of Lugunica had begun, looked like he was dying. He lay on the ground rolling and thrashing like he was in the worst pain in his life, yet he didn’t make a sound. His arms held onto his neck and clawed deep into his skin, letting streams of red blood run out. It was like he was being strangled from the inside, and was so desperate to breath that he was willing to tear into his own throat to get at it.
Emilia’s gaze continued along his body to see his face and now she understood what Roswaal was saying about miasma. Dark thick clouds of miasma were flowing out from his mouth and pouring from his nostrils, black circles were forming around his eyes as if the miasma was building up behind them, on the verge of surging out at any moment. The miasma began to surge at a vastly higher rate from his mouth and nostrils, it burst out from behind his eyelids, than and only than did Natsuki Subaru stop struggling and lay still, his body fully being shrouded in the miasma that was spilling forth from him.
Emilia wanted to call his name; but she couldn’t speak.
Emilia wanted to rush to his side; but she couldn’t move.
Emilia wanted to remember his strength; but her mind was in a deep fog.
Emilia wanted to watch his final movements; but her consciousness slipped away.
Emilia lay in her bed in Roswaal’s mansion, warm and snug under her blankets. If she could choose than she would lay like this forever if she could have the chance. However, something was bothering her.
“Hmmmmh, I don’t wanna get up, Puck hasn’t woken me so it must not be time yet”
Click Click Click
“Something is on the tip of my tongue, something realllly important happened but I just can’t remember it”
Click Click Click
“What’s this sound? Is that Ram or Rem walking outside the door, their shoes don’t normally sound that loud?”
Click Click Click
Emilia slowly got out of bed and began walking towards the door, every step lifting the sleepy haze from her head ever so slightly. But the clicking sound from right outside the door continued in its steady rhythm, building to the point that she felt it inside her own head.
Emilia finally reached the door and threw it open with uncharacteristic aggression. What met her was not one of the mansions maids pacing outside but instead a blinding light.
Emilia blinked away the blinding light and was met by a head of blue hair, Rem.
Emilia remembered Rem; when Rem had suffered at the hands of Gluttony, they had journeyed to the watch tower at the edge of the world, to the Pleidies Watchtower in order to ask the sage for help in restoring her name and memories. Although it hadn’t gone to plan they had at least retrieved her name, meaning Rem woke up and everyone else was able to remember her, just Rem was never able to recall her lost memories consumed by Gluttony. Emilia remembered Subaru’s bittersweet reaction when he finally accepted that although Rem was awake, his Rem would never return to him.
“Wait…. Subaru!” Emilia tried to press herself off the ground to her feet. The image of Subaru suffocating to death while being swallowed by the very miasma that was bursting out from within his own body. She needed to help him, Subaru was her knight and had been there for her throughout some of her hardest trials. He had rarely asked for her help even when he needed it the most, but it was painfully obvious to her from that horrible memory of him thrashing around in his death throes that now was certainly one of those times.
But as she tried to press herself up, she fought against a terrible headache in her head, and soreness in her ribcage. She didn’t let this stop her, but it didn’t matter, a pair of small and delicate yet immensely strong hands were placed on her shoulders and easily held her down in her weakened state.
“Emilia-sama please don’t try to get up, I’ve pieced your skull back together, but you need to rest, or the wounds may reopen.” Rem calmly but forcefully told the chosen candidate of her lord, Roswaal. “I apologize for my rudeness, but it took the very last of all of our mana to bring everyone back from the brink of death, we don’t have the capabilities to heal any more injuries.” As Rem said this, she hung her head in shame at her inability to fulfill Emilia’s wish.
But Emilia was still driven by desperation, the terrible memory burned into her mind just wouldn’t let her stop looking for answers, she needed to find him, she needed to know that he was safe. Driven by this desperation she hurriedly looked for someone who would know, someone who could tell her that he was safe.
Her desire was met when her eyes settled on Beatrice. The great spirit sat huddled alone in the plaza quietly sobbing with her head pressed into her knee’s.
“Beatrice, where’s Subaru” Emilia called out in desperation.
“…….Gone……..” choked out Beatrice quietly between sobs.
“Gone? What do you mean Beatrice? Where did Subaru go? Where was he taken?” Emilia cried out, growing more and more desperate with every word.
Beatrice’s head shot up at Emilia’s words and looked at her right in the eyes, fully showing her the tears that ran down her face and yelled back at her with a mixture of anger, dread, and sadness as if she simply couldn’t manage her own emotions anymore. “I DON’T KNOW I SUPPOSE! DEAD, LOST, BOTH? THE CONTRACT BETWEEN US IS GONE SO BETTY DOESN’T KNOW WHAT THE WITCH DID WITH HIM! And with that Beatrice returned to her former state of crying into her knee’s, as if mourning her now lost contractor.
Emilia froze up at this, Natsuki Subaru was gone and very possibly dead, and not a single one among them knew or was currently in a position to find out what happened to him. So once again, and for the second time in this timeline that Subaru had cultivated, Emilia retreated into her mind, unable to handle the loss and turbulent state of her emotions. She stayed frozen in place, not moving a muscle from the position Rem had held her in. She didn’t move when the Karsten men that had been evacuating civilians came to move their group to the Karsten mansion. She didn’t move when she was placed in a bed. She didn’t move for over several days and nights.
It wasn’t until some of the most unexpected people entered her room that she left her catatonic and depressed haze. Julius Euclius entered with Garfiel Tinsel, both supporting the still battered Crusch Karsten. Of course, Julius and Garfiel had also suffered grievous injuries, possibly worse than Crusch herself but for reasons unknown to Emilia no healing magic had or ever would allow Crusch to recover completely. But the reason they had come was not out of despair but hope, they had come because they refused to believe the official statement, that Sir Natsuki Subaru had given his life to prevent the Second Great Calamity.
“Emilia-sama, I don’t believe Natsuki Subaru would like the look you have on your face” proclaimed Crusch from her position of being supported by Garfiel’s and Julius’s shoulders. Her face contorted in pain as her broken body was lowered into a chair setup to face Emilia’s bed. She wasn’t done yet however, “Just because the Margrave declared to the council of wise men that your knight gave his life to vanquish the Jealous Witch doesn’t mean its true.”
Now this statement caught Emilia’s attention and for the first time in days her angelic bell like voice could be heard, “You mean to say that there’s a chance that he’s alive? That there’s a chance that we can get Subaru back?”
As Emilia spoke tears started to form around the rims of her eyes, but her voice held hope. Hope that one day she would be able to be reunited with Subaru.
The young knight who had continually given everything for her.
The one who had on numerous times proclaimed his willingness to spend the rest of his life by her side.
The one who she had accepted to spend the rest of her life with just days before the witch attacked.
Crusch had one final statement to give, a promise to the man who had saved her and her men from certain death at the hands of the White Whale, an event where someone so weak saved those who should have been too strong to ever need his help, from a monster which should have been too powerful for him to have done anything against. “I can’t promise anything, just that we believe that Natsuki Subaru could not have fallen in battle. We believe that he still stands among the living, somewhere in this world.”
It was these words that placed a tiny fire in Emilia’s now icy heart, gave her the little push to continue on the path that she had begun on so long ago. Although she did truly believe Crusch’s words, there was always going to be a tiny seed of doubt in her mind that gently yet constantly whispered. “He’s gone forever.”
And so, from the room that three had entered, four left. They resolved to find the hero who had all helped them in the time of their greatest need, just the question was would this resolve hold.
Today was the day of the Royal Selection, and it was occurring not but a few days after the witch’s attack. And so as Emilia walked down the streets there were not only the crowds gathered in excitement over the choosing of the next ruler, but also construction teams that had been hard at work for the past several days trying to repair the vast damages caused by the witch.
But right now, none of that was on Emilia’s mind, at this point there was nothing she could due to influence the result of the selection. The selection was too close and although the results were unknown, they must be set in stone and would be revealed to all the candidates in a few hours.
Emilia was now walking down an alley; this alley didn’t mean too much to her specifically, but it had an unusual importance to Subaru. Every time they had visited the capital after the first selection meeting, he had specifically requested to take some time to come and visit this place. And whenever she had asked him why this place held such a special place in his heart, he had simply said, “This is where you saved me Emilia-tan!”
His voice playing in her mind still sent a pang through her heart, it reminded her of the last promise he made to her, and how he was now missing and unable to fulfil it.
But she pushed this out of her mind, she had arrived in front of what she was looking for, a plaque commissioned by Roswaal. The plaque was made of an unknown black metal with bronze glyphs and detailing adorning it.
The plaque had a depiction of Subaru’s face above a short paragraph briefly describing both his significance and the significance of this spot.
It was here that the adventure of Natsuki Subaru; Destroyer of the Witches Cult, Slayer of the White Whale, and Vanquisher of the Witch of Envy; began.
This was not the only move Roswaal had made immediately following the witch’s demise. He had hired town criers to travel around and spread the news of Subaru’s deeds, even spreading the official story that he had given his life to defeat the Witch of Envy, finally he had them emphasis that Natsuki Subaru had served as Emilia’s knight. By doing this he attached Subaru’s supposed sacrifice to Emilia’s name, thereby tying his already well known and new deeds to her election campaign. The most significant of these was the witch’s destruction, which finally separated her from that very witch and left her viewed not as a devil but an angel in the eyes of the people.
Of course these actions left a bad taste in the mouth of nearly everyone in the various camps involved in the royal selection, they all thought it was wrong of him to use Subaru’s death, whether they believed it or not, into political currency. Although these actions put his candidate in the place of being the most likely to be elected, it also isolated him from not only the other camps, but also most of his own camp. Roswaal L Mathers was once more alone in the world besides the 3 maids who continued to serve him.
And so, the 5 camps attended the final meeting of the Royal Selection many years after the first but with a mark upon them that showed all the hardships they had faced to reach this point. Some bore this mark physically, such as Crusch who had her body so thoroughly broken that she was now incapable of standing on her own. Others bore them mentally such as Emilia who had lost her childlike innocence and had finally come to embrace that the world was a dark and cruel place. And than there were the three who had stood with them years ago but do so no longer; Aldabaran had been killed after being uncovered as the Sin Archbishop of Pride, Subaru who had been lost in the process of stopping the Witch of Envy from destroying the Capital in a Second Great Calamity, and finally Beatrice who had simply gotten up and walked out of the Karsten mansion without a single word.
And so the five candidates stood before the council of wise men as they waited to hear who would take the throne, but this moment was not to be filled with joy and celebration as they had predicted all those years ago, but one of melancholy and regret as each candidate came to the realization of what they had lost to reach this moment.
And so, one candidate stepped forward at the call of their name and knelt before the wise men as a crown was gently placed on her head. When she and turned to face the crowd of nobility and knights arrayed before her, tears formed in her eyes. These were not tears of joy but regret and guilt, regret and guilt at all she had taken and sacrificed to reach this moment.
Regret and guilt over the suffering and hardships her followers had to endure to get her there.
Regret and guilt over the part of her that was lost forever to reach this point.
Regret and guilt over not being strong enough to save the people she wanted to most.
Emilia, just Emilia was now Emilia, Queen of Lugunica.