Herald of Steel

"....."

At Lady Miranda's sudden and lethal attack on her husband, the room suddenly turned deathly silent, as everyone in the room just stood in his place, shocked and astounded.

None of them had expected this.

They might have envisioned a scenario where the two 'prisoners' Lord Nolan and Lord Cassius suddenly attacked the Pasha and the lady next to him out of rage, and the legionaries were even ready to intervene if that happened, but they were not ready for it to be the other way around, for a wife to kill her husband…this was a first for them all.

And it was to the point that it seemed to them that the amount of incredulous things these men had seen just today might be more than all the things they witnessed in their lives.

And these veterans had seen a lot, from fighting camels to shooting fireballs from catapults to facing charging elephants.

But they had never seen a son kicking his son, or a wife killing her husband.

A husband killing his wife, sure, that was not news, that was a greeting.

But the opposite was very rare indeed.

Thus the men took the time to recover from their shock, and for a time, the only sound coming out from the room was Lord Cassius's labored breathing as he lay on the ground next to his unconscious father, the large dagger still embedded into his large chest, which had by now turned a wet crimson red.

The enormous loss of blood soon made the man's face go pale, his lips turning almost white, and his gaze pallid and blank.

Lord Cassius surprisingly did not look back at Lady Miranda who was staring at him from above, a freezing, almost stony look plastered on her face.

Whatever emotions the lady was currently feeling, be it shock, anger, regret, relief, or any other, she made sure to hide it deep into the depths of her heart, unreachable to anyone.

For now, Lady Miranda was only content to observe her second husband join her first with a numb curiosity.

While her counterpart's mind was much more 'alacritic'.

Because what flashed before Lord Cassius were all the sweet recent memories he had with his love, his first and last love.

So the pitiful man reminisced all the times he had spent in the last few days with Miss Linda- talking, laughing, drinking, cuddling, kissing, as well as all the various x rated things she had done with him.

To Lord Cassius, who felt the cold grip of death, that was what most attracted him- the comfort of those memories, not the burning hatred of being killed by his wife.

That, somehow to Lord Cassius, actually seemed inconsequential, proving that in his core, he truly was a gentle, caring man.

It was just that he had slipped for a moment, and unfortunately, as luck would have it, that was all it took to cost him his life.

How tragic.

Hence this soft hearted man did not wish the last few precious moments he had on earth to be filled with such acrid thoughts, but instead chose to be swallowed by the sweet nectar of those honeyed memories.

Lord Cassius honestly did not care whether these memories were true or fake, whether Miss Linda truly felt that way about him or was simply using him.

It was immaterial.

They were real to him, and at the end of the day, that was what mattered.

"Linda!" And thus as Lord Cassius drifted away into his eternal slumber, the last word he whispered was this.

It was too soft for anyone in the vicinity to pick up, except for the person towering over him, and her plump, frozen face suddenly shattered and twisted into an ugly, manic repulsed countenance upon hearing it.

Lady Miranda could not believe her younger sister had managed to cast such a deep spell on her husband, that after spending just a few days with her, it was this name that the man chose to utter on his deathbed, and not the one with whom he had shared his bed for the last three, almost four years!

And for a moment, the realization caused a primal urge to rise within her, one that wanted to stomp on the man's face and crush it under her high heel, all so that he could never speak again.

But fortutanly, Lady Miranda managed to restrain herself from defiling the corpse and only bent down to unlatch the dagger from the heart, yanking it hard it great intent, and producing a small streamlet at the moment of retrieving it.

"Here! My lord! I hope you did not mind."

And then approaching Alexander with a steady, confident gait, Lady Miranda handed the weapon back in a such. regal, freezing tone.

"...."

Alexander would have to admit, when he saw the lady approach him with the weapon directly pointed at him, a small part of him became alive and alert, just in case this 'not in her right state of mind' lady decided to do something funny.

So he breathed a small sigh of relief when she only coldly returned his item.

And then suddenly found he did not have the exact words to address the act that Lady Miranda had just committed.

How would he even approach the topic?

'Why did you kill your husband?'

Well, the answer to that one was obvious- he was a traitor who let their most prized captive escape.

Some would even say that such a quick death was actually a blessing for him.

So then the next statement could be, 'We could have used him later.'

Again, that was highly doubtful. Lord Cassius had already confessed to everything he knew, and the man was in general quite incompetent.

So Alexander doubted he knew anything more.

As for the third and last query, which was on the morality of her act, Alexander did not really care.

Given what Lord Cassius had said and done, Alexander even somewhat agreed with what Lady Miranda had done.

If not perhaps the exact method, but certainly the intent behind it.

"What do we do about the water supply, my lady?" Thus instead, thinking quickly on his feet, Alexander decided to engage the still woody Lady Miranda with this topic.

And it proved surprisingly effective.

Producing a subtle glance that seemed to thank Alexander for avoiding the obvious red herring, Lady Miranda made the slightest thin smile run across her shut lips, before speaking in a slightly hoarse, gravelly tone,

"What Lord Parker wants to do is certainly possible. Our drinking water can indeed be cut off as claimed.

And At the moment, our best hope is to hope that Uncle… that those two were right…that letting Linda go was enough to show our sincerity and stop the other side from killing us all of thirst."

There was a subtle undercurrent of helplessness in Lady Miranda as she said this, sounding as if she was tired, so very tired.

It seemed all these betrayals had finally been enough to sap her will to fight, and although Alexander missed it, Lady Miranda was slightly shaking all over her body, as the reality of what she had, of how she had stabbed her husband to death was finally dawning on her.

But Alexander was too preoccupied with his imminent death sentence being written to care about this, as he groaned in his heart, mumbling the comment,

"I do not think they were letting Miss Linda leave out of sincerity. I think Lord Parker intended to cut off the water supply anyway and simply sent General Achillas as a heads up to them. Asking them to find a way out somehow. So I think all of them were just trying to escape."

Alexander was able to hit the hammer on the nail on his first try, although these words also felt like a sledgehammer to the hearts of the people listening to him.

If what he said was true, when they were truly fucked.

At least with Lady Miranda's rhetoric, they had a fighting chance. And so many of the soldiers subconsciously had their eyes shift toward the lady, hoping she would offer a strong rebuttal.

Or even just a plausible hypothesis.

"......"

But no, there was no such thing!

Because deep inside, Lady Miranda actually agreed with Alexander. Lord Cassius's confession clearly pointed to that possibility, not what she had claimed.

Thus for a while, an uncomfortable, stuffy silence reigned in the room.

"Hey! Get Lord Nolan up! Take him to his room! And wrap Lord Cassius's body for the funeral!"

Until Alexander decided to change the topic, and quickly twisting his head, he uttered such an order to the surrounding men, hoping to distract them from all these negative thoughts with some work.

"Ye ….yes!" And getting the order from their pasha, a few of the men close to the bodies immediately reached down to grab Lord Nolan first.

But instantly upon touching him, suddenly one of them cried out in shock,

"My lord! The old man… the old lord he has no pulse!"

The claim had Alexander's heart skip a beat while hearing this, the other guard next to him quickly put his hand on the man's nose, then chest to check

"He is not breathing either!"

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