>>5742558As the two of you lay across from one another in your bed, sweaty with recent exertions, one of your hands cups her face and the other pulls her close. You close your eyes, and hear her heartbeat… And another, fainter heartbeat, accompanying it. Your own heart, three-chambered and reptilian at its core, is nevertheless heavy.
Maybe it is true what the Dark Gods feared, what your father and the Chaplain and even the Serpent Queen all accused you of. Maybe you HAVE gone soft. When you’d set out or Hawksong the first time, it was to kidnap and rape a princess—maybe to seduce and corrupt her, in your tenderest notions. Instead, SHE ‘corrupted’ YOU, with notions of kindness, honesty, egalitarianism even for the mammalian ‘surface-scum’ who you had regarded as slaves and servants at best. You defied and repudiated your very Dark Gods, all in service to martial vows made to a gentle soul and a foe-king.
“What’s wrong, Theral?” Eka asks, placing her hand on yours.
“What?” you cough. “Nothing.”
She frowns, a cute expression on her tiny face, and squints her eyes.
“You think I can’t tell when you’re upset, just because you’re wearing that human face?” she asks. “I know you better than that by now.”
You say nothing. You recall how she looks out of the window every day, to the South, even now-waiting for the ‘true’ heir to the Paladin King to return… Even as you know his scorched remains lie in an unmarked grave, a two-day ride from where you honeymooned.
“You know you can tell me anything, right?” Ekaterine asks, seriously. “Being king-and-queen together means sharing our burdens, after all… Not just the good times, but the bad. That’s what marriage MEANS.”
What do you do?
>Tell Ekaterine about Prince Alexos’ fate>Take that secret to your grave[Since we're approaching quest-end, I'm afraid I won't be allowing write-ins on this. There's no 'telling her later' because there will never really be a 'good' time for this within the scope of this quest. This choice will set a permanent inclination for Theral on this matter, going into the epilogue.]
