>>5640967Eka takes your hand in hers. Not fully understanding why she squeezes it so, you nevertheless return the gesture. It feels nice, at least.
"Do you have siblings?" she asks.
You have no idea if Roth has ever bred, and which among his progeny might yet live, let alone their identities. Thus, you answer in the negative.
“My brothers largely played the typical father’s role in my life, I think” she admits. “mother’s, too, when she fell ill and… And after. Rufos always so wild, but also the one who was most willing to humour my, ah, more extravagant or esoteric fancies. And Alexos, of course, the worried mother-hen.”
“…I ssee,” you say, not sure you do.
Ekaterine smiles, a bit more happily, and explains: “Even if they both since… Well, grew into the sorts of roles they now occuy, became their place in society and their duty at the expense of the sorts of siblings that we used to be to one another… I will always appreciate the little adventures they took me on, the way they kept me smiling and distracted during the, the difficult times. Rufos stirring my love of politics, and world history, and Alexos always bringing me tokens from his adventures, telling me tales of his fellow Paladins’ gallantry in battle or of the things he saw and people, he met in his training and travels.”
“They are important to you,” you infer.
“Of course!” she says, sounding surprised that this wasn’t understood. “That’s what family is, isn’t it so?”
“…Hm.”
Of course what she doesn’t know is that one of her precious older brothers has been corrupted and turned against the other—infected first by a demon, then by the venom of your rhetoric and influence, to the point that he has ordered the death of the other. And the other—Alexos, Paladin Prince of Hawksong, the ‘mother-hen’ who protected your Eka and kept her precious spirit vibrant and alive in her youth—is soon to die at the hands of your assassins, using your hard-won intelligence.
Do you feel any guilt at all?
>Yes, a great deal>No, none at all>Some… But it must be done, for the good of all 