"Charles Augustus Milverton?"
I frowned.
"Who the fuck is that?"
Elaine stared at me as if I were living under a rock.
She sighed. "I guess you wouldn't know. He was quite good at keeping himself hidden."
Her face twisted with annoyance.
"Quite the character. The self-proclaimed King of Blackmail."
I frowned.
What a terrible naming sense.
"The King of Blackmail?" I looked at her. "So he dealt with information, like Vanis."
"That comparison is an insult to the Heretic."
She looked genuinely aghast.
"Milverton used information he obtained through stealing, breaking into places, and coercion. He didn't just collect secrets. He weaponized them."
Her expression hardened.
"Leverage so powerful that his victims had no choice but to do whatever he demanded, or risk having their entire lives destroyed."
Her gaze lowered, anger seeping into her voice.
"And with me, he found an opportunity to gain leverage against the royal family."
"From the beginning, Milverton used his vast network of media outlets to spin and spread vicious rumors about me."
Elaine clenched her fist.
"He tried to put me in a situation where I would do something stupid so he could document it. Fortunately, my Phantom Knight and family made sure that never happened."
"Dad immediately went into action as soon as Milverton's involvement became known. Unfortunately, that slimy snake was very adept at keeping himself hidden, even from the High King."
"Milverton had a field day when I returned and crushed all those who tormented me."
She gave a dry smile.
"The Crazed Princess strikes nobility."
"That was the headline plastered across his tabloids and newspapers."
I raised an eyebrow.
"Crazed Princess. That's a rather interesting name."
She sighed.
"He could've used Mad Princess, but no. Crazed Princess seemed more appealing."
With a slight scowl, she added, "I'm honestly jealous of your name. Ghost of the Tear."
My expression darkened.
"I still can't believe people summarized my entire suffering into that single name."
"Names have power, Mordred."
Elaine turned toward me.
"Power that can sometimes be greater than the one given by ardor or by our stigmas."
The same thing Jack Raven told me.
The power of a name.
I need to find out what it actually means.
I let myself relax.
"Looks like I have to watch out for Milverton, considering what he's done to you."
Elaine scoffed.
"Don't bother with that, brother."
Her gaze remained calm.
"That snake is dead. He tried to play his games against a spider and a cat, and he lost his life."
I frowned.
"Didn't know spiders and cats could team up."
She rolled her eyes.
"Milverton tried to pit the Lord of Crime and the Master Detective of the Kingdom against each other so that he could get rid of both of them."
She pointed a finger at her head and mimicked firing a gun.
"That earned him a bullet to the head. We still don't know who pulled the trigger."
My gaze narrowed.
"The Lord of Crime and Master Detective?"
"You'll meet them eventually."
She shrugged.
"You are a High Prince, after all."
I stared at her for a moment.
Then I shook my head.
"I gave up my claim to the throne. I'm no longer an heir."
Surprise crossed Elaine's face before she closed her eyes and sighed.
"Good for you, I guess?"
I couldn't help but smirk.
Coming from Elaine, that was probably the closest thing to a congratulations I was going to get.
I approached her, and we stood before my mother's grave.
"Now that Milverton is dead…" I glanced at her. "I guess things have cooled down?"
"More or less," Elaine nodded. "But the damage was already done."
She sighed.
"You could say all of this helped me grow. Kind of like those character developments in books."
Looking at me, she smiled faintly.
"I thank you for that."
I frowned.
"Okay?"
Elaine looked away.
"But."
Ah, there it is.
"This 'character development' turned me into a twisted, bitter mess."
She looked at me again, her expression eerily calm.
"And I hate you for that."
Her jaw tightened.
"If you hadn't confronted me back then, I could've lived a more carefree, happy life."
Her gaze sharpened. "Because of you, I can't look little Trinity in the eye and simply be her older sister anymore."
I said nothing.
"With my reputation in ruins and my mind so unstable, I'm afraid I'll eventually start hating her too."
The ardor around us fluctuated dangerously as her fist clenched.
"If you hadn't existed," she hissed, "I would've never become like this."
Her gaze turned cold.
"You should've stayed dead, you bastard."
I simply stared at her for a moment.
Then I shook my head.
"That is a terrible way to provoke me."
Immediately, the fluctuating ardor settled, and Elaine's facade dropped.
She sighed.
"I really need to work on that."
I crossed my arms and raised an eyebrow.
"What do you want, Elaine?"
She stared back at me.
"A good beating."
"I'd gladly beat the ever-living daylights out of you."
My answer came almost immediately.
I tilted my head. "But why?"
Elaine's expression became serious.
"I'm spiraling, Mordred."
She looked down at her hands and then around the garden.
"Everything I had before is gone."
Her voice became quieter.
"My friends. My reputation. My social life. Even my relationship with my family."
She gave a bitter laugh.
"I had stopped going to school. I stopped seeing people. I spent most of my time training because it's easier than thinking."
Her gaze dropped to the ground.
"And somewhere along the way, I stopped caring whether I hurt people."
Her fingers curled into fists.
"Now I don't even know whether I'm training because I want to become stronger…"
She paused.
"…or because I want something to pulverize."
I remained silent.
"I've sent people to the hospital, Mordred. More than once."
Her voice was disturbingly matter-of-fact.
"Sometimes I don't even remember when I decided to stop."
My expression hardened. "How close have you come?"
Elaine looked at me.
"To what?"
"Going too far."
She was silent.
"I… don't know."
That answer bothered me more than anything else she had said.
I knew that uncertainty.
Blood Valley and the horrors of the Tear had taught me what happened when violence stopped being something you feared and became something you accepted.
The Abyss had stripped away even more of that hesitation.
I knew how thin the distance between hurting someone and killing them could be.
Elaine didn't.
Not yet.
"But you know what scares me more?" she asked.
I looked at her.
"Trinity."
Her expression faltered.
"She still looks at me like I'm her big sister."
Her eyes lowered.
"And sometimes I look at her and wonder whether I'm still capable of being that person, that big sister she really wants in her life."
She swallowed. "I hate that I even have to wonder."
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then she looked at me again.
"Mum, Morgan, and Gawain won't do it. Even if they try, they'll hold back too much."
She gave a humorless chuckle.
"And I don't think I could ask Dad."
"But you…" She pointed at me.
"You're different."
Her eyes met mine.
"You hate me, and I hate you. I tormented you, and your words made me go through hell."
She stepped closer.
"We have more than enough reasons to fight each other without holding back."
I studied her silently.
Once, she had been the person who hurt me because she knew nobody would stop her.
Now she was standing before me, asking me to be the one who did.
The irony wasn't lost on me.
She stepped forward and grabbed my hands.
"Please, Mordred."
Her eyes were desperate.
"I need someone who won't hesitate."
Seeing Elaine like this reminded me of the newbies in the Shield.
The ones who had seen too much but hadn't yet experienced the horror of killing their fellow humans to prevent the rise of wraiths.
A sinking feeling swept over me as I realized that if Elaine were to ever kill someone, it wouldn't be like crossing an invisible line.
It would simply be the next step from where she already stood.
And once that happened, there would be no going back.
It didn't for me.
It didn't for Iris.
And it didn't for any Deathwalker who stepped into Blood Valley.
That is simply not how this world worked.
I covered her hands with my own.
"Very well." I met her eyes, blue as the brightest sapphires crushed into the stones of the Rose Palace.
She looked taken aback at first, but then her face brightened with a smile.
A genuine smile.
It was a far cry from the practiced and artificial smile she greeted me with.
"Thank you, Mordred."
Her smile then widened into a grin.
"Let's beat the shit out of each other."