The Princess of Wrath

Chapter 5 - Part V: The Aftermath

Once they were sure there was no immediate danger, Asura, Royce and Fontaine stood up. The Princess remembered how to breathe, feeling a great relief and fatigue caused by the sudden drop of adrenaline in her body.

"Daniel, come here," the Shield Saint called out to one of the two soldiers who had escaped from a fate of madness, forcing him to leave Anna alone and writhing on the ground, unable to quell the chaos of her shattered mind. "Go find the brigade captain right now and tell him to bring ten armed and sedated men, and the rest to see to it that this damn ship doesn't sink. Tell them to use floats, harpoons or whatever, but do not allow the pier to give way. Do you understand me?"

Amid the exchange of words between Fontaine and the elite soldier, Asura cautiously walked to the edge of the stairs, subdued with a morbid curiosity to know that the nightmarish monstrosity had truly given up.

"Princess!" Royce exclaimed, incredulous at seeing such insistence from her for walking towards impending danger, and without the courage to stop her by force. But he was not the only one who had that idea, clearly: Fontaine herself took Asura by the shoulder, squeezed her with enormous force with her mechanical fingers, and threw her back away from the stairs.

She fell to the ground, sore and looking surprised at the woman who had fire in her eyes.

"Stupid girl! Isn't it enough that two of my soldiers have seen what shouldn't be seen? Do you still want to go towards that abomination?!" she yelled at her, as furious as an unleashed beast. A head injury caused fine lines of blood to run down her face, making her look mundanely terrifying. "The Prince is dead! DEAD! Nothing will make him come back, not even an illusion! Get the hell out of here or I swear I...!"

She could not finish formulating her threat: Lucy took advantage of the rapid advance of events and confusion to appear behind Fontaine with her impressive stealth and had placed two of her throwing knives at the base of her neck with perfect stability and control.

"Should I kill this clockwork woman, Princess?" the Wraith asked, resting her knives menacingly against the epidermis, just where the carotid vein was, when Fontaine instinctively moved her arms. If seconds ago she had been very angry, at that moment she looked at Asura in the same way as a member of the imperial family subjected to the power of the curse.

"Tell the freak to get away before things get ugly," she threatened and made Asura come out of shock.

"L-Lucy, let her go!" The Princess's order caused the wraith to release Fontaine. She got up from the ground again, feeling very sorry and guilty for everything that happened. "I... I have no words to say how sorry I am. Your soldiers..."

"Shut up. There is nothing that can be done for them. Just go and let us work. Right now, before the monster decides to return and leave us without an heir to the throne."

With the last word, Justine Fontaine turned her back on the trio and moved cautiously to the edge of the stairs.

Crestfallen, Asura motioned for Royce and Lucy to follow her. The soldiers Fontaine requested got on the ship and passed by them; two of them, healers, quickly approached Anna and Frank to force them to swallow analgesics.

"They are lost... Their minds broken beyond repair. The Crawley Asylum shall be their final destination..." the Princess told her companions. Remorse compressed her chest; she was guilty of ruining the lives of those two poor souls for having allowed that horrible creature to violate her mind with vileness and impunity.

"But you also saved my life, my lady. Without that syringe, I would have followed the same path," the knight tried to comfort her, indirectly forcing her to look at his face: even with the help of that mysterious vaccine, the trauma was irreversible. "That thing ... By the Gods, I can't even describe it in words. What was it? How did it get into the Phantom Reaver? All the sailors... They..."