Should We Meet Again

Chapter Ten

"So let me get this straight," King Jarvan III began, "you knew this whole time? You should have killed him and thrown his lifeless body at my feet the moment you found out! Why didn't you say anything!?"

Quinn winced at the image the king had put in her head. Demacia was a nation of ideals and preached peace, but it held not even a shred of mercy for its enemies. She had assumed something like this would happen, and she had made sure resolve herself to face the consequences of her choice before she let him walk out that door. Still, mental preparation can only do so much. She was facing charges of treason, punishable by death. She didn't know whether or not her actions were truly worth it, but that didn't matter now. What's done is done, and regrets wouldn't change anything.

"Do you have anything to say for yourself?" King Jarvan III asked.

"I do not, My King," she answered. "The findings in Lady Crownguard's report are, to the best of my knowledge, accurate. The man recently invited to Demacia City under the alias Bertrand Raschallion is actually the Noxian assassin commonly known as Talon. It is also true that I became aware of this before his departure last week."

"No, you didn't just 'become aware of the information'; you invited him into your home!" the king yelled, his voice booming throughout the throne room,a rather unnecessary display of authority considering the only people there were the king himself and Luxanna Crownguard, her close friend. "You knew he was one of the most dangerous enemies Demacia has ever faced, you knew he was here to prevent Demacia from interfering with Noxus's invasion of Ionia, and you knew that this man could very well take the lives of any one of us standing here if you let him go, and yet, you did nothing."

"I-I didn't know about the invasion; he didn't say anything about that!" Quinn protested. Her neck was essentially already in the noose, she may as well make sure she hung for the right reasons.

"She's probably right, your majesty," Luxanna said. Quinn was glad to have Lux back up her statement; she was the reason she was facing trial in the first place. The information that revealed Ambassador Raschallion's true identity was buried within the findings of her most recent infiltration into Noxus. The findings had been at Demacia's disposal for a few months now, but it was likely that someone as inconsequential as the ambassador was deemed not worth the time of looking into. It was only once news of the invasion reached Demacia that they thought to look into his conveniently timed arrival and uncovered his true identity. Exactly how they knew that Quinn knew was something that still escaped the ranger's knowledge, but she assumed that there were spies tailing them during their multiple outings during his stay.

"As far as we know," Luxanna continued, "Talon did not commit any malicious acts during his stay here. He may have neglected to inform us of the Noxian invasion, but that isn't necessarily the same thing as deceit. I would also argue that his presence had a negligible effect on our ability to respond to the Ionian invasion. Even if he hadn't come at all, we would have learned about it at the exact same time. That being said, it is unlikely he bothered dressing up and coming here simply for a free meal at the king's table. His true motives elude us yet."

"Do you happen to have any leads regarding that, Lady Crownguard?" the king asked.

Lux flipped through the papers she had available to her, skimming through them to see if she could find anything that would betray the assassin's reason for coming to Demacia City. "Uhh, no, nothing concrete."

"Why don't you take a guess, just based on what we do know," the king insisted. "I don't care how absurd it sounds, anything will do."

"Well, the only explanation that could be substantiated at this point is that he came to see Quinn. You did say he personally asked after her when he first arrived, didn't you, Your Highness?"