I.

(Clay)

She lies in wait and ruin in a garden from the past and watches Hell rain down. Though every breath is choked with blood and smoke, she can almost make out the scents of yellowwood and sweet alyssum slipping through, as if between the fingers of death. Insuppressible. The edges of her vision blacken rapidly, and at the center is an iron sky pouring bullets and flames. Victory is imminent, and all is lost. No one will come for her — she has seen to that — and so she will fall away alone amid the burning wreckage of a memory. She lies in wait and ruin with the taste of blood and dirt in her mouth and watches the blackness creep in around her final unsatisfying triumph.

At thirteen, Cornelia had watched her mother die, and then, too, she had believed the world was ending.

Third Empress Evelyn li Britannia, born Éibhleann of the renowned House of Connaught, had been strong, beautiful, and loving. Claiming direct bloodline from the Ard Rí na hÉireann, the ancient kings who had ruled over all of Ireland from the Hill of Tara in the days before King Eowyn, Evelyn had had a pedigree surpassed only by the royal line itself. She had a classical Celtic beauty, a prized commodity in an increasingly Anglo-Saxon Britannia, and was known as the Rose of Britannia for the sweetness of her demeanor, the hidden thorns of her wit, and for her hair, which was the muted crimson of a winter sunset.

In the end, Cornelia had watched the cancer eat away her mother's youth and strength and beauty, a flower rotting on the stem. In the end, she watched the woman with a thousand years of king's blood in her veins lose control of her bodily functions and babble with drugged incoherence. In the end, love alone was not enough to bind a mother to her daughters. After that, nothing could ever be sacred.

She rides a bubble to the surface of consciousness with no knowledge of how long she has lain submerged. However, the pain shooting through her bones bespeaks catastrophe. The light screams in her eyes as they crack open, and she can just make out the silhouette of a figure at her side. Guilford. His head is bowed, as if in prayer, but she knows it cannot be prayer. He is alive. He is alive...

"Guilford," she whispers.

Her voice sounds distant and distorted, barely audible over the low ringing in her ears, so faint that she wonders if she has really spoken at all until he turns to face her. His face is haggard and white, dark circles under his eyes, stubble on his chin that she has never seen before (How long has he been here? How long has she been here?), and yet as he turns, relief — elation even — radiates like a halo from his face.

"What happened, Guilford?" she asks quietly. And the most important thing. "Is my sister all right?"

And at the question she watches his face plunge back to earth, collapsing in horror. Sorrow. Pity. He opens his mouth to speak, and though she does not yet remember, she already knows.

"Forget it," is all she can say before the bubble bursts and the black current pulls her under once again.

Euphemia was the spitting image of her mother, more so with every passing day. Heart-faced and beautiful, willowy and graceful with sky-colored eyes and a guileless smile that might have been stolen from Evelyn's own face. Those who recognized her inchoate greatness (though most did not) speculated that she would soon blossom into Britannia's new Rose. Though naive (but only because she was so, so young!), she was whip-smart, and while she may not have demonstrated the charisma or articulateness or strategic acumen of her siblings, her authenticity alone made for powerful thorns. Euphemia knew what she believed, demanded what she wanted, and was never any less delightful for it.

Cornelia, too, bore traces of her mother, but her thorns had overgrown her. She did not have her mother's wide, bright eyes or the dainty, smiling-at-rest lips that went to Euphemia. Indeed, the sisters had the same high, broad cheekbones, the same flawless ivory skin with its light dusting of freckles over the nose (although Cornelia always covered this with make-up — it looked cute on Euphie but out of place on herself), the same fine eyebrows, majestically arched. But Cornelia's face naturally set into a scowl, and her eyes were narrow and suspicious, the deep oblivion blue of an Arctic crevasse.

Although she could see the ghost of her mother in her own resemblances to Euphemia, it was her father she saw in the mirror. His deep-set eyes and thin lips, his peaked hairline and the sharp, harsh set of his jaw - all of his regal brutality, perversely feminized, eclipsing the delicate flower-petal vestiges of her mother. Hard as these features were, nobody would ever say that she was any worse off for them ("You are a feral beauty," Clovis had once remarked in their teenage years, the only time she had ever allowed him to paint her), and yet, every time she saw herself in the mirror, part of her wished desperately to redraw the lines of her face. It was no use, though. Too much make-up made her look like a whore, and smiling sweetly was simply not her element. The strokes of her were drawn far too dark and etched far too deep to be effaced.

Three days later, Cornelia awakens for good to find herself in pieces. Her left arm is broken in four places, and she is informed that the nerve damage to her shoulder may be beyond repair; she is lucky to have retained some use of her fingers. Several ribs, also on the left, have been all but crushed to gravel. State-of-the-art titanium plates hold them together and in place. She is very lucky, the doctors say, that no internal injuries resulted from this. Still, every breath is agonizing. Her concussion is described as having been "most severe," but she is now ten days on the mend. Soon, they say, the light will no longer hurt her eyes, and the disorientation ought to subside. Again, they say, she is lucky.

II.

(Stone)

Although it had long been her greatest and not-so-secret fear, some part of Cornelia had never truly believed it possible that her sister could die. She did not realize this, however, until her sister was dying.

"Princess Euphemia has been wounded," Guilford's voice was steady, but his face was troubled.

Cornelia felt worry crash down on her like a wave, but she did not dare panic. "What?" she gasped. "Is it serious?" Despite the eruption of confusion and the certainty that something had gone very, very wrong, she had forced herself to maintain a healthy skepticism. Whether Euphie had actually issued any kind of order and however misconstrued it had been was a question for later. Whether the bloodbath was of the scale reported could be answered after it was ended. The only things that mattered right then were restoring order and, above all, making sure that Euphie was safe.

"It is...not clear at this time. The reports state she was shot once. She has been taken aboard the Avalon for treatment."

"Shot! How? By whom?"

The thought was almost too horrible to bear, but there was still no doubt in Cornelia's mind that Euphie would be fine. Perhaps it was some tiny kernel of childhood naiveté that had lain dormant inside her all this time, concealing itself deep within her heart even as she herself wrought destruction upon entire nations, witnessed the loss of countless lives, and knew time and time again firsthand the ease of snatching away all a person had with nothing more than the squeeze of a trigger. Still, she had often seen men endure gunshot wounds on the battlefield, even go on fighting despite the bleeding holes in their arms and legs and sides. Her sister was young and strong, healthy in body and willful in mind; she would pull through, and together they would see that those responsible for this disaster were severely punished for it.

"The reports state that it was Zero."

The rebellion had been crushed.

"Good. And what of Zero?" she asks Guilford, who sits faithfully as always at her bedside. He has appeared a good deal more together ever since she ordered him to go home, take a shower, eat a real meal, and get some sleep in an actual bed, but his eyes are as tired and somber as ever.

"Executed," he replies flatly.

"On whose orders?"

"His Majesty's."

"Of course." She sighs so heavily that pain shoots through her chest, causing her to wince.

"Careful, Princess!" Guilford's arm shoots out, almost instinctively it seems, to help her ease back onto the pillow. He immediately flushes bright red, stammering an apology. "I'm...I'm sorry. I did not mean to treat you as if you are fragile."

She smiles wryly. "It's fine, Guilford. It's nothing. I suppose I am simply...sad is all. That I was not able to watch."

"The execution was not public. Supposedly it would have created too much potential for trouble. Though I believe," he pauses, "I am in no position to give my opinion to the matter. Many of the Elevens still believe him to be alive, though there have been no reported sightings of him since Tokyo. I am sure that there must be some greater reason that he was executed in secret and that his identity continues to be hidden."

"How suspicious," Cornelia muses. She turns to look at Guilford. "I saw his face, you know." His eyes widen. "Don't ask, I have lost almost all the details of that night."

It is the truth. All that she can recall is in flashes. Watching the Gawain land amid an alien rendering of the garden at Aries Villa. A victory close enough that she can taste it. A bone-shattering blow. A transmission from Darlton that makes her blood run cold. Falling. Zero walking toward her. Upright, sweeping walk. Regal walk. Removing his mask. Nothing more.

But she knows she will remember. She can feel him there, hiding just beyond the reach of her consciousness. It is only a matter of time before she finds him.

A room had never felt more empty than Euphemia's did the night she died. At first, Cornelia had refused to believe that it could be true. That last scintilla of innocence inside of her continued to insist with a mean, desperate conviction that Euphie was untouchable, immortal, sacrosanct. Cornelia did not know exactly what she intended by entering the room. Perhaps she was only waiting for her sister to come home. But then why had she locked the door behind her?

The room clearly belonged to someone who was still living. There was Euphie's laptop on the bed amid an unmade mess of sheets, just waiting for the girl who liked to curl up in bed at night and watch sitcoms. There were Euphie's retainers, placed carelessly on the nightstand instead of in their case where they should have been. There was an open book balancing atop a great stack of books on the floor beside the bed.

Was this the last thing that Euphie had read? Sitting on the edge of the bed, Cornelia picked up the book and, holding the page with her finger, examined the cover: Poetry of the Romantics. Returning to the page, she began to read.

Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven—

It made no sense. No matter how many times she started and restarted the poem, the words blew past her, voiceless and unintelligible. Because Euphie was never coming home. And Cornelia would never be able to ask her what that poem could possibly have meant to her, why it was the last thing she had ever read, why she left it waiting to be found.

So she closed her fist around the page, crushing it into a ball and ripping it from the book's spine. And she did the same with the next page and the next and the one after that until the book was nothing but an empty cover, and she threw that across the room. Then she picked up another book, Selected Sonnets of William Shakespeare, flung it open and tore all the pages out in one motion. But there were many, many more books, many more pages of her sister that she would never understand, too many, and so she simply kicked the whole stack over and shoved them under the bed with her foot. But that was not enough, so she picked up the ceramic lamp from the bedside and smashed it against the wall. She stripped the sheets and blankets from the bed and threw them out the window. She had to rid the room of all the things that were lying to her, that enabled for even a second the malignant grain of hope that Euphie would be coming home.

It made no sense.

In the end, she sat defeated on the floor (in front of the fireplace, where a fire burned for a living girl who was coming home), wanting nothing more than to wake up from it all. She ignored the knocks on the door, the panicked voices shouting that the world outside was going mad. She curled up on the carpet with her eyes squeezed shut, drifting in and out of fevered dreams where Euphie walked unceremoniously into the room and gasped, "Oh no! What happened?" but each time she awoke and remembered all over again that Euphie was dead. And she hated Zero with all of her heart. If Cornelia had any hope left in her by the time the first morning light appeared through the window, it was the hope that there was a Hell. She would gladly be condemned to an eternity of torment if only to watch him burn.

III.

(Mercy)

"Forgive my intrusion." says the page, bowing low. "His Majesty is pleased to hear that the Princess has awoken and requests an audience with Her Highness."

Cornelia sighs and rubs her left temple with her right hand. "Very well. Does His Majesty wish to converse by videophone? One must be provided to me if that is the case."

"His Majesty has expressed his wish to speak with you in person."

"Oh?" she raises her eyebrows. "And I suppose His Majesty expects me to simply weigh anchor for Pendragon this very second, in my condition?"

Guilford coughs softly. "This is Pendragon, my Lady."

"What?" she snaps.

He pauses. "His Majesty requested our immediate departure from Area Eleven as soon as your condition stabilized, Your Highness."

For a brief moment, she thinks she just might murder him. "And when exactly did you intend to inform me of this?"

He hesitates, and she realizes that it may not have even crossed his mind that she would have no way of knowing where she was. Under different circumstances, his presumption might have been almost amusing. As if the thought of having been dragged semi-comatose (or drugged, perhaps, it dawns on her) halfway around the world on the Emperor's whim would simply occur naturally to her.

"Damn it, Guilford," she mutters through clenched teeth, slamming her fist down on the side table. "God damn it." She turns back to the page. "When would His Majesty have me?"

"Five o'clock," says the page and, noting the absence of a clock in the room, adds, "Three hours and seventeen minutes. A car will be waiting." He bows again and exits.

For the first thirteen years of Cornelia's life, her father had existed only theoretically. In her day-to-day goings-on, his station was far more significant to her than his person. All she had ever had to do to get anything she wanted was throw out a mention of "His Majesty, my father," yet he had never been anything more than a spectral presence in her life. Though she had spent her whole childhood in Pendragon surrounded on all sides by his image, she could count the number of times she had seen him in person on her fingers. The times that he had made any note of her numbered even fewer. The day he summoned her to court — three days after her mother died — and had her brought before him, tear-streaked and dishevelled, was the first time that either of them had ever truly looked upon the other, and Cornelia knew instantly that the reality of him was immeasurably more terrifying than the mere idea.

"You are to look me in the eye when I speak to you."

She raised her face to meet the Emperor's.

"Yes, Your Majesty," he prompted her.

"Yes, Your Majesty," she echoed back, her eyes fixed on his, trying to sound self-assured and failing utterly.

"Good girl. Now come, let's take a look at you."

She shuffled forward to where he sat on his throne upon the dais, carelessly allowing her gaze to drop as she did so. As soon as she was within arm's reach of him, a massive hand shot out suddenly, quick as lightning, to grab her chin. With a hold on her so firm she feared he might break her jaw, he raised her face once again. His eyes bored into hers. For a few moments, he simply studied her.

"You have a good face," he mused. "Though there is very little of your mother in it. That is a shame. They tell me you are smart, too. At the very least, you will make an excellent marriage. Do well in your studies during your time here, and perhaps the Empire will find a greater use for you."

"Yes, Your Majesty." Her knees were shaking violently, and the words came out almost as a sob.

"Stop crying. I will not tolerate the sniveling of infants in my court. You are an Imperial Princess, and it is time you were held to the standards of your blood. Tears are a poison that can only be used against oneself. They are the trademark of the weak. Are you weak, Cornelia? Tell me now if you are, and I will not trouble myself with you any further."

"No, Your Majesty. I am not weak."

At last, he let go of her face. "Very good. Then act like it."

The Emperor is alone in his throne room when Cornelia arrives. Gingerly, she lowers herself to one knee before him, bowing her head so he will not see her face briefly contort with pain. The doctors had been impressive in their efforts to shove pills down her throat before allowing her to leave her hospital bed, but she had been even more adamant in her refusal. Although she did not know what the Emperor wanted with her, she knew well that it would be unwise to stand before him mentally compromised in any way.

"Good afternoon, Your Majesty. You requested my presence." She speaks each word as icily as she can.

"Ah, Cornelia," he booms. "Welcome back. You may rise."

She stands and straightens, raising her eyes to meet his as is now second nature to her.

"There is a matter," he continues, "that bears urgent discussion."

"And what matter is that?" As the words leave her mouth, she knows that she is heading rapidly toward insolence, but the Emperor, strangely enough, pays no mind.

"Zero." He speaks the name slowly and definitively.

"What of him? If all that I have been told is to be believed, there is little information I can provide that will any longer be of use."

A slight smile appears on the Emperor's lips. "That is yet to be seen. Kururugi informed me that it was you who provided the vital information about Zero's whereabouts that ultimately led to his capture. I am merely curious as to how you came to possess this knowledge. Did Zero tell you of his plans?"

"Your Majesty, forgive me. Due to my injuries, I have little recollection of what transpired in the time immediately prior to Zero's capture. I gleaned the information regarding Zero's whereabouts from an accomplice of his, who was piloting the Gawain at the time. She spoke carelessly of their destination. It is likely that she presumed me unconscious or certain to die before I could convey the information. Unfortunately, I did not see her face. Is it her capture you desire, Your Majesty?"

"No. Zero's accomplices have been captured and are being dealt with as we speak. It is Zero that interests me. Tell me, Cornelia, did you see his face?"

She hesitates. It is only for a fraction of a moment, but a hesitation nonetheless. "If I did, I remember nothing. There is no information I can provide as to his identity or motivations." It is not quite a lie.

The Emperor's eyebrows raise, ever so slightly. "Why do I think you are not telling me the whole truth, Cornelia?"

This time she is smooth and ready. "As I said, Your Majesty. My recollection of the encounter is rather fragmented. It is possible that I saw his face, but I am sure that, if I had, I would remember it. At least if there was anything about it worth remembering. Sloppy as he and his associate were in those last moments, I cannot fathom what motivation he would possibly have had to reveal his identity to me. I am afraid I cannot provide any further insight than I presume was already obtained upon his capture and interrogation."

The Emperor's eyes are narrowed, but he seems to accept the answer. "Very well."

After she was brought to the palace, Cornelia no longer attended school. Instead, her days were filled with lessons under numerous personal tutors, all of whom had supposedly been hand-picked by the Emperor himself. Familiar academic subjects were supplanted by exotic new ones. Literature was replaced with rhetoric, which she found just as dreadfully boring. General mathematics fell by the wayside in favor of the somewhat more tantalizing game theory. She studied conversational French and Mandarin Chinese, which she did not care a whit for but picked up quickly nonetheless.

Her favorite lessons of all were combat training. Fencing, marksmanship, hand-to-hand — she loved all of it. Her teachers spoke highly of her natural talent: a sharp eye, swift feet, and an unwavering respect for the importance of precision. It made her feel invigorated, alive. On her days off, she would sometimes spend up to eight hours at a time practicing her punches, parries, and throws, and at the end of it, the exhaustion of her mind and aching of her body would almost allow her to forget how lonely and miserable she felt in that place.

She spoke to her sister at every chance she had, although Euphie would more often than not immediately dissolve into tears at the sound of Cornelia's voice over the phone.

"I want to go home," she would sob. "Take me home. I want Mama. I miss you."

She was only two; she didn't understand. Euphie was not allowed to come to court, since the Emperor had no use for such a small child, who could not yet be effectively trained or disciplined or paraded about for show, so she had been sent to live with cousins of their mother, three-hundred miles north of Pendragon.

Cornelia did find one friend at the palace in her brother Schneizel. She had only met him a few times before her arrival at court and had always found him somewhat insufferable — infuriatingly calm, so humble and obliging in light of his own unquestionable talents that she felt smugness would have been preferable. Once they came to live together, though, he began to feel like a true brother to her — an older brother, even though he was actually a month younger. He always seemed to know when Cornelia was feeling sad (though she thought she hid it well) and would bring her sweets or walk her through the gardens, telling stories to distract her. Sometimes, when Cornelia froze up on the phone because she did not know how to console her crying, homesick sister, he would gently take the receiver from her hand and talk calmly to Euphie for a few minutes. When he returned the phone, Euphie would be back to her chipper self.

He was a strange boy, though. Unlike Cornelia, Schneizel still had a mother waiting for him across the city and only resided at the palace because he wanted to. "If I am to be a good prince, I must immerse myself from as young an age as possible in the arts of diplomacy and war," he said, almost mechanically, when she asked, baffled, why he did not go home to his mother. "What better place for a prince to learn than at the Emperor's court?"

"Forgive me, Your Majesty, but I must know. Who was he?"

The Emperor laughs softly. "Nobody, Cornelia. A fool. For all his talk of miracles, in the end he was just a man and not a very remarkable one. A cheap trickster. He died screaming for his life."

The answer is like a slap in the face, and Cornelia knows it is the best she can hope for.

"And what of Euphemia?" she asks, though she knows already that the question is a mistake. "How did he make her do it?"

"Zero did not make Euphemia do anything," the Emperor replies flatly. "Euphemia made her own choices and was dealt the consequences. There is no way by which a person can make another do something. Our own actions are ours and ours alone. That is all. You are dismissed, Cornelia."

"That is all," she repeats softly. Although she has managed to remain calm and professional until now, it is with those words that Cornelia begins to boil over. "That is all?" A question this time. Then an accusation. "What do you mean, that is all?"

"I mean that is all. You are dismissed."

"Your Majesty," her words are acid now, "you know as well as I that the massacre could not have possibly been any true work of hers. She was alone with Zero just before they say she gave the order. The gun they say she had — I had it retrieved, and it was no make I have ever seen before. It was a plant. I have no doubt in my mind! He did something - drugged her, manipulated her somehow, something! For what possible reason is this not being—"

"If I wished to hear your thoughts, Cornelia, I would have asked for them."

She is shaking now, her good hand clenched tightly enough for the nails to cut into her palm. It takes everything she has to keep her voice steady. "So that's it," she whispers. "You are going to let her go down in history as the Massacre Princess? Even when all the evidence suggests that he strung her up like a puppet and then threw her away? That he engineered the massacre of his so-called own people?"

"And tell me," says the Emperor, "why ought we make the matter more complicated than need be? Yes, the massacre was unfortunate and the unrest it elicited would ideally have been avoided, but that rebellion has been put to an end. Zero is dead. The Elevens have learned their rightful place. The soldiers who acted on Euphemia's order await execution as we speak. After all, she was no longer an Imperial Princess when she gave her order — her own choice — so there was no reason for them to obey her; their actions have only succeeded in making trouble for Britannia. A tragic waste of resources, but it must be done for the sake of restoring stability." He waves his hand. "This business with Zero: even if it is as you say — and, again, I have not asked you — I cannot see what is left to be gained from investigating the matter any further."

She wants to scream. She wants to kick, spit, and curse. She wants to lunge and tear open his throat. But to defy him openly would put an end to the matter. She must not do anything to undermine herself, lest she erase all hope that Euphie's name will ever be redeemed. Years on the battlefield have taught Cornelia that sometimes she must bide her time if she wants results. So she holds herself steady, sets her jaw, and capitulates.

"My apologies, Your Majesty. I was out of line." Every word burns like bile on the way up.

Another friend to Cornelia was her marksmanship mentor, Brigadier Andreas Darlton. He was a brilliant teacher, and (unlike her close combat mentor, Colonel Akerman, whom she had once overheard complaining on the phone to his wife about being "pulled from the line of duty to babysit the Emperor's brat") he seemed to genuinely enjoy working with her and watching her learn. He even went out of his way to be nice to her. For her fourteenth birthday, he gave her a pocketknife with a curved blade and a handle elaborately carved from whale's tooth. Another time, he took her along with his adopted sons to see a real live joust.

Though she would never (never ever ever) admit it to him in the years to come, Cornelia would sometimes pretend to herself during this time that Darlton was her father. Sometimes, when she lay in bed at night, feeling so fiercely lonely that she had to bite her lip to keep from crying (tears are poison, tears are poison, she would recite in the dark, certain that if she cried, the Emperor would somehow know and deem her worthless), she would pray silently to any god that might be listening that the Emperor would miraculously drop dead. Then mellow, benign Odysseus would become emperor, and maybe he would allow Darlton to adopt her and Euphie.

Of course, this was too much to hope for, but then something did happen that made Cornelia think that perhaps her prayers had not fallen entirely on deaf ears. She had been at the palace for just over a year when she was summoned to the Emperor's audience room. She arrived dragging her feet, dreading whatever verbal lashing was certainly in store for her. Instead, she entered and found the Emperor with a woman standing beside him. She was tall and slender with long, tumbling black hair and a sharply pretty face. Cornelia recognized her right away. She was a legend.

"Hello, Cornelia. My name is Marianne," the woman said (as if she didn't know!). "It is a pleasure to finally meet you after all I have heard from Charles."

Cornelia was so breathless with awe that she barely registered Lady Marianne's audacity in calling the Emperor by name, or that the Emperor had not even reacted to it. She fell to one knee. "The pleasure is mine, Lady Marianne."

Marianne laughed, a sound like ringing bells. "Such a polite girl. You may rise." As Cornelia straightened, Marianne continued, "I have heard a great deal about your talent in combat arts. As you may know, it is a bit of a specialty of mine, so your father and I have decided that perhaps it would be best if I took over your care and training from this point forward. Of course, I am not going to make you leave the palace if you do not wish, but I do believe you would be a promising student, not to mention an excellent role model for my little ones."

It was too good to be true. "Y-yes," Cornelia stammered. "Yes, please, ma'am." Then she paused - should she ask? "Can my little sister come, too? I promise she will be no trouble at all. She is very well-behaved-"

"Of course!" Marianne chirped. "She is only a bit younger than my Lelouch, if I recall. I am sure they will make excellent friends."

The second she was dismissed, Cornelia tore back to her room and began packing her things. The next day, as she followed Marianne down the front walkway, struggling to keep pace with the Empress' long, sweeping strides while a pair of servants followed behind laden with suitcases, Cornelia blurted out before she could stop herself, "Why are you doing all this for us?"

It came out a bit ruder than she intended, but Marianne did not seem to mind. She smiled softly. "Like I said, I see a lot of potential in you." Then she laughed her ringing bell laugh. "And let's be honest with each other, just us girls. Dear Charles has many quality traits, but he is absolutely terrible with kids."

IV.

(Pity)

It is mid-afternoon, and the winter sun glares through the crack in the drawn curtains. Cornelia sits cross-legged on the bed, sifting through the papers scattered all around her. It is the same bedroom that had felt like a prison cell to her thirteen years ago, and it still feels that way now, if for a different reason.

A ceramic gun of unknown origin was recovered from the scene and is believed to be the weapon initially used by Princess Euphemia…

Three security guards and the Princess' personal knight, Suzaku Kururugi, all reported an unexplained loss of consciousness during Princess Euphemia's meeting with Zero. None witnessed the emergence of either party from the meeting site…

"Soldiers: please kill the Japanese. Kill them all."

There is no longer a question that Euphie had uttered those words. While Britannian intelligence had done everything imaginable to scour the illegal footage from the internet, it continued to proliferate rampantly, faster than anyone could hope to contain it. Cornelia found it and forced herself to watch it in its entirety. It was almost impossible to stomach, but she had to know. It is all so unthinkably ugly. So many pieces lie so clearly out of place, jutting sharply from the story like huge flashing arrows back to Zero, yet she has no idea how to follow the twists and turns from the premises to their logical conclusion.

There is a knock on the door. Cornelia slides off the bed and walks to the door in her socks. She raises her eye to the peephole, fully ready to shout at whomever is on the other side to go away and not disrupt her again. But the face she sees is not one she has been expecting. She opens the door.

"Welcome back," says Nonette.

Before she has a chance to reply, Nonette has grabbed Cornelia's right hand between her own and seems to be choking back a sob. "I'm so, so sorry about Euphie, Cornelia. It's so awful. It's the fucking worst. I hope you're doing okay, and if you're not right now that's okay, too." She sniffs and wipes her eyes. "I'm sorry, I would give you a hug, but they told me the glue is still setting, and I don't want to re-break your torso."

"It's all right, Nonette. I appreciate it." For all of her perpetual inappropriateness, Nonette is like a breath of fresh air in that moment. After enduring several days of trite condolences from half of her encounters and business as usual from the rest, it is surprisingly refreshing to talk to someone who can both claim to share her grief and mean it but still act like her old self.

"Anyway," Nonette continues, sighing heavily, "I just heard you were back, and I wanted to check in. If you want me to go away now, that's totally cool."

"No, it's fine. Come in. It's good to see you." Cornelia has barely gotten the words out before Nonette strides across the room and throws the curtains open, letting light stream into the room.

"Jesus Christ, Nonette," Cornelia protests. "Close those. I look like crap."

"I could give a rat's ass what you look like. You're going to go blind as a bat if you keep trying to read in the dark." Nonette walks over to the bed and picks up one of the documents. She scans it for a few seconds before raising her eyes. "You're investigating. I should have figured."

Cornelia looks her hard in the eye. "And can I assume you have any interest in helping? Because if my father sent you here to make things difficult, you can see yourself out right now."

For a brief moment, Nonette looks offended. "No, Papa Bear did not send me, and fuck you for asking. I swore to defend his empire, not to discipline his sprogs." She pauses, adding in a softer tone, "No, Princess. I am here only as your friend. And as Euphie's friend. I am fucking furious, Cornelia. I want to get to the bottom of this just as much as you do."

"Good," Cornelia replies sharply. "Because I need to ask you a favor."

"Fire away, Princess."

"I need you to take me somewhere. In your own car. Just us, no drivers. I don't want this getting back to the Emperor."

Nonette throws herself down on the bed. "Where is 'somewhere'?"

Cornelia fixes her with the sharpest stare she can muster, as if it were possible for her to intimidate Nonette. "If I tell you, you have to promise you will not say anything to my father."

"Why would I say anything?" Nonette shrugs. "The way I see it, if His Majesty can overlook the way that scum of the earth Bradley looks at your sisters, he can overlook me taking you out for a little fresh air." She sits up. "Now, where to, Princess?"

"Did you hear that, everybody?" Nonette shouted at the top of her voice. "The Princess thinks she can take me!"

In retrospect, challenging Nonette to a practice match had been a no-holds-barred mistake. Nonette was the daughter of Alfonse Enneagram, the Archduke of New Carmarthen and a decorated former General of the Britannian Infantry. She had three older brothers, all of whom were already well on the path to outstanding military careers, but the Archduke had no old-fashioned notions about women and war, and, if Nonette was to be believed, she had been learning to fight ever since she learned to walk. Whether the Archduke had encouraged his daughter's foul mouth and propensity for crushing beer cans on her forehead was less clear.

Now Nonette was a wiry, petite, baby-faced military student with a Dutch boy haircut, a junior instructor at eighteen with an irreverent manner and a reputation for viciousness. Cornelia was two years younger and four inches taller and possibly a tad overconfident with only three years of intensive training under her belt. She was still just a haughty girl who had never seen a battlefield, a mere youthful shadow of the Witch of Britannia who would one day ensure all witnesses to the incident that followed would never dare speak of it. Still, she had spent the past two years training day-in and day-out with Marianne the Flash herself. She was naturally talented and a fast learner. Already, her brusque manner and fighting prowess had proven intimidating even to older students.

With Nonette's announcement, a crowd had rapidly begun to form around them.

"I'll try to go easy on you, Princess," Nonette taunted. "I'd hate to wreck that pretty face. Then you might have to develop a likeable personality. Are you ready?" Cornelia barely had a chance to raise her hands before Nonette's fist was flying toward her face. She dodged it expertly, countering with a hook, but Nonette caught her arm in mid-throw.

"Predictable," she sneered. She began twisting Cornelia's wrist painfully, but, in her confidence, allowed herself to come in too close. Cornelia took the chance to knee her opponent in the gut, and Nonette let go of her arm.

They proceeded to spar for several minutes with no end in sight when Nonette announced, "Oh, this is so boring! We're taking this party to the ground, kitten." With that, she dropped to the floor, Cornelia's fist cutting through the air where her head had been milliseconds ago, and threw her arms around Cornelia's knees. Cornelia fell onto her back hard enough to knock the wind out of her.

"I told you I was taking it to the ground, and you didn't see that coming? Pathetic!" Nonette was now on top of Cornelia, choking her with a forearm laid across her throat. There was a way out, though. Cornelia grabbed Nonette's hand with both of her own, digging her thumbs into the spaces between the knuckles, twisting and prying it away from her throat. It was almost surprising how easily she was able to break out of the choke, and then she was up on her knees, twisting her body around to turn the tables on her opponent.

"You thought you could keep me down with such a weak choke?" she yelled. Nonette smirked.

It was a feint. In all of her smugness at her momentary possession of the upper hand, Cornelia had neglected to pay mind to her balance. Nonette lunged like a tiger and before Cornelia could even process what was happening, she was lying with her face to the mat, tasting blood, and Nonette had her arm pinned excruciatingly behind her back.

"Amateur!" Nonette cackled. "I've got you, Princess. Now submit like a proper lady, and we can pretend this never happened."

"The hell I will, you cretin!" Cornelia spat, her cheek pressed hard to the floor.

"Oh, no! My feelings! Whatever will I do?" cried Nonette, twisting Cornelia's arm harder. "Shut the fuck up, Princess! You can talk all the trash you want when you're winning. I don't want to hear a word out of your mouth right now unless it's 'uncle'!"

Cornelia was not giving up yet. There had to be a way out…

"I swear to God, Princess, I will break your fucking arm if that's what it comes down to. I am not going to sit here with you until one of us dies of old age. Submit! Now!"

Nonette's weight was laid heavy over her, but Cornelia was sure there was room to wriggle free. She began inching sideways, slowly but surely…

"You don't think I would do it? I am giving you until the count of three to submit. One...two…"

She wasn't getting very far, but she knew that, with just a little more effort, she could turn the tables…

"Very well," Nonette declared cheerfully. "Let it never be said that I made an empty threat."

The pain of the arm breaking was outclassed only by the hideous sound. A flurry of gasps rose up from the students who had gathered around. Nonette stood up and Cornelia rolled exhausted onto her back, her left arm lying limply and painfully at her side.

"Let that be a lesson to all of you twats!" Nonette yelled. "Know when you are beat! And if you can't accept defeat, don't fucking lose!"

She turned back to Cornelia, who was still lying on the floor, face contorted with pain and rage. "You are an idiot," she said, reaching out a hand. "Now, come on. Let's get you to medical."

The garden at what was once the Aries Villa is dead. The trees are bare, the grass has all gone brown, and the flower bushes have long been overrun with weeds. It no longer smells of yellowwood and sweet alyssum, but of dirt and decay. Dead leaves crunch under Cornelia's boots as she walks across its ground for the first time in seven years.

The crisp winter air is harsh on her face, but it is a spring day that haunts her. She walks on and on, noting where the rose bushes once were, the violets, the black-eyed susans. She passes by that window, smashed years ago with a hail of gunfire that had taken her idol and the last of her faith. She spots the gazebo in the distance, its white paint peeling from the wood.

If she waits here long enough, Cornelia wonders, will Zero come to her again?

She walks into the gazebo, leaning herself against the splintering wood of one of the supports, and looks out over the entirety of the garden that had been such an oddly sentimental place for all of them. Clovis, who had been so petulant that he had never dared let on his love for Marianne and her children when they were alive, had seemingly so longed for the place in adulthood that he had had it reconstructed down to the last detail. For all his shortcomings, he had always had an excellent visual memory. And Euphie, who had spent so many hours of her childhood playing in the garden, gathering flowers or simply sitting with a book of poems, reading aloud to anyone who would listen or no one at all, had recognized Clovis' nostalgia right away and shared it wholeheartedly. And Lelouch and Nunnally had spent their whole lives in this once-Eden only to have those lives ended amid the horrors of a war zone.

Now Clovis and Euphie are both dead, too, and Cornelia is all alone in this deadened, rotting shell of the place they had loved. Zero is also dead, yet her hatred for him burns hotter than ever where she stands, for the things he did to them. To her. For the reality that she may never get the answers she craves.

You're one to talk, my dear sister. Considering how you idolized my mother, Marianne the Flash.

And suddenly she smells it...smoke and blood, yellowwood and sweet alyssum. And Zero's mask falls away. And there he is before her. Him, all along. He has Marianne's smile but the Emperor's eyes.

"It was you," Cornelia whispers to the dead, empty garden, sinking to her knees. "How could you?"

For Nunnally.

And Cornelia is twenty years old again, standing in the shower after throwing her blood-soaked uniform into the incinerator, the water turned up as hot as it will go as she watches Marianne's blood wash from her hands, pool around her feet, run in red-brown rivulets from the ends of her hair.

And there is Clovis, lying in a coffin, his face stitched together where it had been blown apart.

And there is Euphie, saying Kill them all in the same tone of voice with which she might offer a cup of tea.

And there is Darlton's final cry of shocked anguish, as if he had awoken suddenly from a deep sleep only to find himself amid his own treachery. What have I done, Princess?

And there is Lelouch's face burning with hatred, the last time she ever saw him until he found his way back to her seven years later as a vengeful ghost, his face grown into a man's but with that same loathing still seared into its features.

And Cornelia can deny it no longer. It's over, she thinks. I've lost.

The garden was in the full bloom of spring, but to Cornelia everything felt dead. She stood under the gazebo with her back against one of the supports, arms folded over her chest, staring dry-eyed over the green expanse that had once been her refuge.

What will happen to them now, she wondered? To Lelouch and Nunnally? To Euphie, who had now lost a mother a second time and was old enough this time to understand exactly what had happened but still too young to take care of herself? Cornelia thought that perhaps she would have to be the one to care for them, even if it meant sacrificing her plans for the future. It was a bitter thought, but she would do it if she must. After all, she reminded herself, at her age Marianne had already borne a child of her own. Besides, it was still far preferable to the thought of the Emperor getting his hands on them.

Did he have something to do with it, she wondered? The question was chilling, and she did not know where to begin going about answering it. The memory made her sick: Lady Marianne, one of the greatest warriors Britannia had ever known, gunned down unarmed and unguarded in her own home. Not to mention poor tiny Nunnally, trapped beneath her mother's dying body — a mere girl of seven, whose sight had been taken, her legs ruined. The cowardice of it was disgusting beyond belief.

Cornelia's thoughts were abruptly interrupted by the sound of footsteps behind her. She turned to find Lelouch standing at her back, his eyes blazing with contempt.

"How can you still show your face here?" he said, slowly and deliberately.

"L-Lelouch—" she stammered, taken aback, struggling to comprehend.

"I know it was you!" he shouted. "I know you withdrew my mother's guard. I don't care if everyone else in the world wants to pretend that you are innocent, I know what you did! I know that it is because of you that she is dead! She trusted you. She treated you like you were her own daughter even though she had no reason to care about you! Why did you do it, Cornelia? What did she do to deserve it? She treated you like her own, and you sold her out!"

In the years to come, Cornelia would run over and over in her mind the things she could have said or done in that moment. Perhaps she could have tried to reason with Lelouch. Perhaps she could have cried to show him just how sorry she was. Perhaps she could have fallen to her knees and begged for his forgiveness, grovelled at his feet and sworn her undying loyalty to him as a child of Marianne. Perhaps she could have simply understood that he spoke from a place of grief and stood by his side as his sister until he calmed down and came to his senses.

But Cornelia did none of those things. Instead, she flared with anger at the arrogance and insolence of this child who had the gall to accuse her of betraying someone she loved. So she raised her arm and struck him across the face as hard as she could with the back of her hand, knocking him to the ground.

"How dare you, you little shit," she snarled as Lelouch lay sprawled on the grass before her, clutching a hand to his cheek, his eyes still scorching with a hostility that had no place on such a young face. "How dare you speak to me like that? You know absolutely nothing!"

Then she turned on her heel and walked away without looking back.

"You will pay, Cornelia!" he shouted after her. "I swear it on my mother's grave, you will regret what you did!"

And she would regret it. She would regret it the very next day when Lelouch went before the Emperor. She would regret it when he and Nunnally were sent away to Japan and there was nothing she or anyone else could do to stop it. She would regret it to the very core of her being when she learned of their deaths in exile. And yet it would not be until seven years later, when those burning, hate-filled eyes met her own one final time, that she would truly understand the meaning of regret.

When Cornelia returns to the car parked along the back road, the sun is already almost set, and Nonette lies fast asleep is the driver's seat. She jolts awake, her hand instinctively reaching for her sidearm, when Cornelia swings the door open and throws herself down heavily in the passenger seat.

"Oh, it's just you," Nonette yawns, rubbing her eyes. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

Cornelia slams the car door shut behind her and says nothing.

"I take it that's a 'no'?" Nonette inquires tentatively. "Should we head back then?"

Cornelia stares into her lap in silence.

"Okay, I'm going to start driving back. If you change your mind, just say the word."

As they drive along the dirt roads of the countryside back toward the city, crickets singing, the first stars appearing in the dusk sky, Cornelia leans her forehead against the window and watches the inky silhouettes of trees rush past. For the first time in as long as she can remember, she is falling apart faster than she can pull herself back together. She no longer has the energy or the will to hold back her tears, and they course down her cheeks in silent streams. Her nose is running, too, but even raising a hand to wipe her face would demand more strength than she has in her. She cannot even muster the mental fortitude to reprimand herself for crying.

If tears are weakness, then I am weak. If tears are poison, then let them finish me.

She doesn't care about answers anymore. She doesn't care about revenge. She doesn't want closure. All she wants is to start over, to make things the way they were again. Or maybe the way they never were but should have been. It is a torturous, unfamiliar longing. Cornelia has always made a point to never waste her time with "was" and "should." There has only ever been time for "is" and "will." Reality has never seemed so exhausted of potential.

Nonette, glancing over from the driver's seat, lays a hand on her shoulder and says, "You don't have to hide from me. It's okay if you want to cry. I won't think any less of you."

Another time, Cornelia might have swatted the hand away and snapped at Nonette to shut up, just shut up, for once in her life. Instead, she disintegrates entirely, her body wracked with loud, sloppy, undignified sobs that tear themselves painfully from her chest.

"I'm finished," she chokes. "I failed."

Nonette swerves the car to the side of the road and comes to a stop. Cornelia feels her friend squeeze her hand. "You're not finished," Nonette says, her voice soothing. "I know it might feel that way right now, and maybe it will for a while, but you're not. The world is shitty and shitty things happen — really, really shitty things — for no good reason, and sometimes nothing we do can ever be enough to make it different. You didn't fail."

"You're the one who said 'know when you're beat,' Nonette. And I'm as beat as I've ever been."

"Good God, Cornelia. No," Nonette sighs. "'Beat' is not the same as 'finished'. Decide that you're finished, and that's it. You're dead. You've made sure that nothing more is going to happen. Show's over, folks. Know when you're beat and you just might survive to fight again and win. Believe me, there is still so much to fight for."

Cornelia splashed about the pond, bare-footed and bare-legged, soaking the hem of her short summer dress with mossy green water. She emerged with cupped hands and a beaming smile, a lily pad clinging to one skinny leg.

She ran over to where her mother lay in the grass under the willow tree, her long sunset hair fanned out around her like an aura, with tiny baby Euphie propped up against her knees.

"Look,"Cornelia said, parting her hands just enough to show her mother the small brown frog she held inside her cupped palm. The frog was sleek and speckled, and it sat so perfectly still in her hand that she poked it a little just to make sure it was still alive. It jumped at her touch, and she quickly clapped her other hand back over it to keep it from escaping.

"Look, Euphie," she parted her hands again to show her sister, who stared at the frog with the same huge-eyed wonderment with which she stared at everything. "It's called a frog. They live in the water. We can put him in the aquarium with the fish, and then he can be our pet."

"I don't think a frog can live in a fish tank, Cornelia," her mother said, smiling. "Besides don't you think he would be happier if you put him back in the pond with his family?"

"No," Cornelia replied firmly. "I caught him, so he's mine. We can be his family. We're a whole lot more interesting than a bunch of frogs, anyhow."

Her mother laughed a warm, breezy summer laugh. "Come here," she said, reaching out a hand to pull Cornelia in toward her. "My two little sunflowers. You make life such a treat."

And so they sat for a time, the bright sun beaming down, the birds singing overhead. In the end, the frog escaped, but that was all right.

V.

(Peace)

After that, Cornelia knows that she must go. That the Emperor has hidden this from her is one insult too many, and to serve him further knowing what she does now would be an offense for which she could never forgive herself. It would be to desecrate Euphemia's memory, as well as Lady Marianne's. It would be to betray Nunnally, wherever she might be. And what if her father were to learn what she knew now, that Zero had been his own son, a son who was supposed to have died years ago? How far would he go to keep that secret? To keep her from uncovering whatever else it is that he is hiding? She must go, and she must go immediately.

On her last night in Pendragon, there is only one goodbye to say. Cornelia arrives at his door with her bag already packed and slung over her shoulder. She knocks three times - a nondescript, impersonal knock - and the door opens just a crack. For a moment, Guilford looks almost comically horrified to see her. They have not seen one another in five days, which might be the longest in a very long time, and she may well have been the last person he expected to turn up on his doorstep at this hour. He is clad in a turtleneck and jeans with no shoes, only his socks, but he nonetheless drops into a customary kneel at the sight of her.

"Princess, I—"

"Oh, get up, Guilford. You look ridiculous."

Before he can rise, she has invited herself in, stepping around him and shrugging her bag to the floor. When she turns around, he is on his feet again, closing the door behind them. As he stands before her, hopelessly underdressed, charmingly dumbfounded, Cornelia is overcome by the sudden urge to kiss him, so she does. She pushes him against the door and kisses him long and hard on the lips.

When they break apart, he gapes at her, saucer-eyed, for several moments. She looks him in the eye and simply says, "I am leaving."

"Leaving, Your Highness?" he asks. "Leaving the city?"

"Just leaving, Guilford," she replies. "I am afraid that I can no longer effectively serve the Empire. I have other callings now."

"Other callings…? Highness, please. Tell me what you mean, and I will do what I can to assist. We can—"

"There is no 'we,' Guilford," she says, raising a hand to caress the side of his face. "I am leaving. You are staying. That is all there is to it."

"But—"

"Stop it." She runs her fingers over his lips. "You still have a future here. I no longer do. You are to stay here and do your duty. I chose you as my Knight because I saw greatness in you, not so you could throw your life away for me. You are to stay and pursue that greatness. You are not to wait for me, and you are not to follow me." He opens his mouth to protest, so she adds, "That is an order."

They stand for a while there in the foyer, loosely embracing, neither speaking, his head resting on her shoulder. After some time, they decide in unison that they are both exhausted and move to the bedroom, where he watches silently as she sits on the bed, removes her boots, and unholsters the three pistols hidden on her person (right hip, small of the back, left ankle), placing them on the nightstand one after the other.

They spend the rest of the night curled in bed together, shoeless, but otherwise fully clothed. Cornelia tries to sleep, but cannot. It has been days since she last slept for more than an hour at a time. Each time her eyes open, she checks the digital clock beside her, content if more than twenty minutes have passed since she last looked. Guilford is asleep within the first half hour of lying down, his breathing slow and deep. He has always been a heavy sleeper. One of his arms is draped lazily over her waist.

For the next six hours, Cornelia lies in a persistent state of semi-wakefulness, her eyes fixed on the darkness and the green glow of the clock. She listens to Guilford's sleeping breaths beside her, counting them until she enters an almost meditative state, her mind almost empty, almost free from all of the worry, sadness, confusion, and anger that have plagued her during the past few weeks (or months, or years). Strangely, his unconscious embrace feels overwhelmingly safe, warm, certain. In a different world, she thinks, perhaps she could have loved him.

The first time she met him, he held her at swordpoint and apologized. On the outside, she sneered in his face. "Fuck your apologies. Don't insult me, soldier," she spat, raising her hand to signal the end of their match. On the inside, she smiled as he drew the wooden blade away from her throat and bowed. His face was still and serious, showing no signs of conceit at his victory or offense at her contempt. He was exactly what she was looking for.

Of the twelve who fought her, he was one of three to defeat her. Of the three to defeat her, he was the only one who had not made her loathe him in the process. After she dismissed him, she strode over to where Darlton stood on the sidelines.

"Send the rest away," she said. "I want him." Darlton nodded in agreement and made no further reply.

When they were both twenty-one years old, Cornelia made Guilford her knight, and it was a decision she would never regret. In battle, they worked together like a well-oiled machine with minimal need for verbal communication. He was the cool water to her fire; they were unquestionably different, and it was not difficult for him to unintentionally provoke her wrath with his sheer submissiveness and desperate desire to please, yet it was that same amenability that allowed him to simply shrug off her vexation to the point that she would tire of it.

He made a superb lover as well. Their encounters happened most frequently in the wake of combat, the first following a splendid victory only a week after the knighting ceremony, when their nerves were still afire with adrenaline. If a battle went well and ended cleanly, five minutes after their return to base would find them shut up in an empty office or conference room or even (a handful of times) janitorial closet, locked in a passionate struggle for dominance. Their trysts were as violent as the clashes that preceded them, and it was not unusual for both of them to emerge covered in bruises. Conventional courtesies and the demands of rank went out the window as they tore at one another's clothes, pulling hair, kissing and biting at exposed skin. Sometimes she would request that he hit her across the face only to strike him back twice as hard when he inevitably showed signs of panic at what he had done. Afterward, they would dress without quite looking at one another and wordlessly make the transition back to business as usual. It was the lingering trace of shame between them afterward that Cornelia almost liked best.

She made a point to never kiss his lips. He was to have no illusions about what he was to her day-to-day (a comrade, a confidante, perhaps, but not an equal) or what he was to her in those moments (another notch in her bedpost, another pen stroke in a blunt message to whatever man she would ultimately be forced to marry: she had had others, and she had had better, and she belonged to no one). One time, on one of the rare occasions that she had lain in bed beside him into the night, he had pulled her in close and whispered, "You are beautiful." At that she got up, dressed in the dark, and left without a word.

She is up before the sun simply as a matter of habit and leaves quietly so as not to wake him. He will hate himself in the morning, she knows, for sleeping while she slipped away, but it is just easier this way. She makes her way to the rendezvous point, walking for about an hour in silence, hood pulled over her face, hand poised over the gun on her hip just in case any complications should arise. When she arrives, Nonette is already waiting with the car. She rolls down the window at Cornelia's approach.

"Come on now. I don't have all day."

"Thank you for this," Cornelia says, stooping to take her seat beside Nonette. For what might be the first time ever, Cornelia notes that Nonette looks nervous. Her eyes seem to shift constantly, and her knuckles are white on the wheel. ("You know what this is if we get caught," she had hissed when Cornelia first requested her assistance. "Big goddamn trouble, that's what it is." She paused a moment, and then smiled, adding, "But I live to serve, Princess.")

"I hope you got one hell of a goodbye. Pretty-boy better keep his mouth shut when the shit hits the fan," she says, starting the car.

"Trust me," Cornelia replies. "He won't say anything. I'd stake my life on it."

"You may very well be staking your life on it," Nonette shoots back. "Mine, too."

Cornelia ignores her. "Did you speak with Kururugi?"

"I tried. If he knows anything, he's not talking."

"Son of a bitch," Cornelia mutters.

"I don't know," Nonette says with a shrug. "He's a weird kid. Fucked up, you know?"

"Not nearly as much as he would be if I had my way."

Nonette glances over. "Hey," she says softly. "Don't get the wrong idea. Maybe he just doesn't know anything we don't already."

"Evidently. I'm amazed he was able to pry his lips off my father's ass long enough to say as much."

"I think he really did care about her."

"Just don't, Nonette."

They drive in silence for some time before arriving at the harbor.

"So who are these people of yours?" Cornelia asks.

"Smugglers," Nonette answers simply. "Garden variety. Booze and cigars and shit. Not weapons or organs or anything like that. Bureau hauled them in two days ago, but I got to them before they were booked. Agreed to their release and a sum I'm not proud of on the condition that they do a very special, secret favor for a friend of mine. Kept a few of their guys as collateral, too."

"And where have they agreed to take me?"

"I told them to leave that up to you. See now, they think we'll be tracing them. That's not the case, though. I think it's a bad idea if I know where you are. I'll probably be one of the first people questioned when they notice you're missing, since I'm pretty sure your father thinks we have some sort of lesbo thing going on. So really, you're on your own with these guys. Keep that hood up, wrap your face if you can, try not to let on that they aren't being watched. I doubt they'll try anything funny, but be ready to fight your way out if that's what it comes down to. Shouldn't be too hard against a bunch of petty criminals," — she grins — "even for a one-armed featherweight."

Cornelia sighs. "That is an awful plan."

"Yeah, well. Welcome to the real world, kitten. Shit's suddenly not so glaringly easy when you decide to live outside the law. I'm abusing my authority big-time here, so please be so kind as to have a little faith." She tosses a yellow envelope into Cornelia's lap. "Here's your bullshit passport and some other bullshit documents. Enjoy your new name. I picked it myself."

The sky is beginning to grow lighter, and Cornelia knows it is now or never.

"Thank you, Nonette," she says, pulling her friend into a hug. "Thank you for everything you've done. And please give my thanks to your parents, too. For fostering Euphie. I do not know if I can ever repay my debt to them."

"It was no trouble at all, Cornelia," says Nonette. "I know my mother was thrilled to finally have a real daughter to raise. Euphie was such an amazing kid. We all loved her. We still love her. We want nothing but to honor her memory."

"I swear it," says Cornelia. "I am going to find out what happened to her. I will redeem her name. Tell your family to keep their noses clean, okay? I won't have them going the way of the Ashfords."

Nonette looks up with tears in her eyes. "Godspeed, Princess. Come back alive, promise?"

VI.

(Love)

The sea is calm tonight, and the moon rises full and yellow on the horizon, bright enough to cast a rippling, frosty glow over a vast expanse of the ocean beneath. Cornelia has taken to wandering the ship's decks by night, restless and wakeful. She mostly sleeps through the days, or pretends to sleep in order to avoid interaction with her cabinmate, a dour-looking young woman who sleeps with a hunting knife under her mattress and whose husband is one of the men still being held in Pendragon. Ending up in a situation where she is forced to injure or kill one of her couriers would only complicate things; for once it is in her favor to keep the peace.

The ship's crew are low-class Euros. When they speak with Cornelia at all, it is in a gruff Russian-inflected French. They appear to have little knowledge of Britannian politics and even less interest. If they suspect the identity of their passenger, none has let on in the slightest. ("Your husband?" one of the men — a boy, really, maybe nineteen, skinny with blond hair and gray eyes — asks at one point, approaching her from behind as she leans forward against the rail, looking out over the waves. "What?" she turns to face him, taken off guard. "Your husband hurts you?" He indicates her broken arm. "This is why you run away, am I right?" She gives a brief, sharp laugh before turning back to the ocean and ignoring him until he leaves.)

In three days, they will touch ground in the Philippines (Area Twelve, as she knows it, as she helped establish it; "the Philippines" as the Euros still call it), and from there it is only a short way to the Chinese Federation. What she will do upon arrival there, she does not know. Lie low, perhaps, recover. But has she not done enough of that already? There is no jumping off point but so-called miracles. Brainwashing. Mind control. Puppetry. Concepts she would have scoffed at less than a month ago, but now has no choice but to believe. Believe in the extraordinary or believe that Darlton would betray her. Believe in the extraordinary or believe her sister capable of atrocities she herself, for all she has done (and in the name of what?), could not fathom committing. Any day, she would take science fiction over that. Any day, she would take even the most absurd conspiracy theories and fairy tales over that. She would rather believe that Zero had been the Devil himself, even when she knew that, long before, he had once been her brother.

They said that Euphie died without knowing what she had done. Cornelia wants to look at that as just another fact, another piece of the puzzle, but every consideration of it only results in the realization that there is no way for her to approach her sister's final moments from a logical perspective. It is a good thing that she did not know, says her heart, a very good thing - a saving grace,but her mind insists on being furious that her sister died in ignorance of the evil committed against her. The only thing worse than betrayal is not knowing that one had been betrayed. But that is Cornelia's belief, not Euphemia's, and had it been Cornelia at her sister's side when she died (though it had not been — it had been the Kururugi boy who had held Euphie's hand and made sure she understood in her final moments just how loved she was, and for that Cornelia will forever be indebted to him, just as she will forever hate him for abandoning her sister's memory and defending her father's lies), she knows that she would not have had it in her to tell the truth. Still, would Euphie truly have preferred happiness over the truth? Would she have wanted to know what had happened, even if it meant dying in despair? Cornelia genuinely does not know. She wishes it didn't matter so much.

Perhaps the thing that gnaws at her the most — more even than the jagged rift torn through the world where her sister's absence hangs like a concrete thing, palpable and suffocating — is the realization that she may never have truly known Euphemia at all, that for the past sixteen years, she has filled that space herself, imposing on it with images of her own creation and leaving no room for the real Euphie, who in the end had been so much more than just a fragile doll to be protected or an innocent to be preserved or a living shadow of their mother. The way that Euphie saw the world had always seemed so bizarre, so shapeless and malleable and full of light in places where none should have been able to get in. Cornelia had always chalked it up to youth, figuring that Euphie would make more sense when she got older, even though her own memories of adolescence afforded no such difference in perspective. Now she must face the reality that Euphie will never be getting any older, and her only remaining choice is to make sense of the precious few years her sister had lived. That or conclude that her entire life had made no sense and had meant nothing.

Cornelia looks down at the book in her hands. She found it the day before her departure in a neglected section of the palace library. When she pulled it from the shelf, she had to brush a thick layer of dust from the cover to read the title: Poetry of the Romantics. Euphie had loved poetry ever since she could read (and possibly long before, when their mother would croon poems to her in Gaeilge and she would smile as if she understood), but Cornelia has always thought it confounding at best and inane at worst. Poetry only attempted to paint the world in ways that were not real. Poetry would have a world where suffering could be beautiful, where vulnerability and downtroddenness could be inspiring, where all people shared some sort of unspoken understanding and common experience. It was a world where it was not as the Emperor said and she had always believed - that all people are expendable until they can prove themselves otherwise - but rather every life carried a unique and meaningful impact on the world, and every death in battle or otherwise was its own deep tragedy. It was a world where spurning a man's love but still trying to keep him for oneself might be something more than just selfish, where the mere memory of somebody one has already failed to protect might still be worth fighting and dying for. In the world of poetry, things like love and pain and loneliness pretended to exist in pretty smatterings of words instead of in the way they just were, hard and cold and absolute.

But perhaps there is something to be said for that world after all, Cornelia ventures as she opens the book to the place she has marked. As she begins to read by the moonlight, she wonders if perhaps somewhere on the dusty page, nestled deeply in between the letters and the spaces, she will finally begin to uncover all that her sister has lived for.

Citations: Title is paraphrased from Hamlet ("A ministering angel shall my sister be when thou liest howling." - Laertes, Act 5 Scene 1) because it wouldn't be amateur fiction if we didn't get ole Billy the Bard involved in some way. The poem snippet is from William Blake's "The Clod and the Pebble." I thought it made a ton of sense that Euphie would have been a Blake fan, given all of his socially progressive visionary awesomeness (and for bonus points that someone like Cornelia would have a completely impossible time with him). If you are not familiar with the full poem, what the deuce are you waiting for? The sections titles are also Blake references ("The Divine Image"). This whole thing is entirely Patti Smith's fault.

Note: This story is a companion piece to "The Tigress," my other obscenely long one shot. It works fine as a standalone, but I feel it is worth mentioning that the two were written to inform one another.