Page 57 of Blood Red Woes

Frederick doesn’t answer. He pulls me past a man that looks like a farmer, and we walk onto the fields past the goats. That’s when it dawns on me: this isn’t just a field.

It’s a cemetery.

It’s a goddamned cemetery, and Frederick is leading me over old graves.

Even though I know what this means, it doesn’t really hit me until we’re on the far end of the field, where the graves have no headstones. It doesn’t hit me until we’re standing before a small mound of dirt that’s fresher and more recently-disturbed than the grassy area around it.

“I’m sorry,” Frederick whispers as he squeezes my hand. “We did what we could, but she lost too much blood. She wasn’t strong enough to… I’m sorry.”

The words hit me like a wall, and I sway on my feet, unsteady. I knew. I had the feeling when Frederick didn’t respond the first time I asked, the look he gave me when I walked through his door with that other boy. I knew, and yet I was still unprepared to hear it.

Frederick releases my hand as he reaches for something in his pants’ pocket. He pulls out a dirty ribbon and offers it to me. “She wanted you to have this,” he tells me, “and she wanted you to know that she believes in you. You… were her empress.”

I stare at the ribbon in his hand, the same red ribbon she wore in her hair the day she got hurt, but when he says that last bit, I can’t. I just can’t. I sink to my knees before her unmarked grave and close my eyes. The weight of what I did to Gladus is nothing compared to what I feel now.

If anyone should’ve had a better life, it was Prim.

I’m not one who cries, not anymore. I cried out a life’s worth of tears when my dad died and I was faced with a new life in the system. I told myself I’d never cry again, and up until today, I kept that promise to myself.

Even with them squeezed shut, tears escape their confines in the corners of my eyes. The water falls down my face, following the curve of my cheeks until they reach my chin, where they then fall to the dirt below.

It hurts. Fuck. It hurts so bad.

Frederick drops to his knees beside me, and before I can push him away, he reaches for me. Without saying a word, he pulls me into him and wraps his arms around me. I don’t want him to. I don’t. I’m still mad at him for leading me on, but the emotions inside me are too strong. I can’t push him away because I hurt too much inside.

“I couldn’t save her,” I whisper against his chest.

“Sometimes things happen and there’s nothing we can do to stop them.”

Though his words are meant to be comforting, they’re simply not true. If I would’ve agreed to the Emperor’s plan, I would’ve gone to Pylos and Magnysia and taken care of the other empresses right away. This never would’ve happened if I would’ve just swallowed my pride and helped the asshole on the throne of Acadia.

Prim might still be alive if I would’ve made different choices.

Frederick tries to soothe me, to comfort me by saying, “You gave her hope in her final hours. It’s more than any of us could’ve done. She died knowing you would make things better for us all.”

I try to push him away, but his arms are locked around me, so all I end up doing is lifting my face off his chest and glaring at him. Through tears, with semi-puffy eyes; I’m sure I look menacing.

Not.

“Make things better?” I echo, my voice cracking. “How can I make things better? I’m not supposed to be here! This isn’t my world! You’re not my people! I have a life somewhere else, responsibilities that don’t include saving Laconia from the woes and their own damned empresses!”

Frederick doesn’t say anything to that, but he does stare at me like he knows what I’m about to say next.

“I’m just a normal girl. I’m not an empress. I’m not the chosen one who’s come to save everyone from their problems. I can’t even save myself from my own fuck-ups, so why the hell should I be expected to save all of you?”

Frederick drops his arms from my back, and he doesn’t say anything as he holds Prim’s ribbon between us. My watery gaze drops to it, and still I don’t take it.

His other hand lifts, and he wipes away some of my tears with the gentlest touch I think I’ve ever felt in my life. “Sometimes,” he whispers, “we aren’t given a choice. Sometimes there is no other way. We face what our destinies throw at us, and we do what we can. I’ll be the first to admit that I was skeptical. I didn’t believe in you or that you could truly survive outside the walls. I thought you were out of your mind when I first heard about you.”

If he’s trying to make me feel better, he’s going to fail.

He wipes the wetness from my other cheek before continuing, “I didn’t really think you’d be able to follow my father’s path, that you’d bring back anything from him, but you did. Not only that, but you came back with news from Acadia, news none of us in Laconia expected. You defeated Gladus’s soldiers, and then you went off to defeat her. You brought back the Hilt of Storms, Rey. Do you know why that hilt is so special?”

I shake my head. My eyes are still watery, but no fresh tears have fallen since Frederick started his speech.

“It is said it has been passed between Pylos’s empresses for centuries. It’s never been lost. The only people who can use it are Pylos’s empresses.” He pauses, and the intensity of what he’s saying is undeniable. “I never, not once in my life, thought I’d lay eyes on the Hilt of Storms. Only empresses of Pylos can handle that hilt.”

“What are you saying?”

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