The room had gone unnaturally silent and still.

"Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?" Ymir said.

Orochi leaned back into his seat, one arm draped over the backrest, watching the exchange with quiet amusement.

"This goes back before the trial of the Saintess, doesn’t it? You were one of the three judges in her trial. But there was something that didn’t sit right, I mean...you’re a kind of guy who wouldn’t let her treat people even if they were dying, yet on the request of some noble house, you agreed to set a meeting?"

"It was from that point that I got suspicious of everything around me. Then I started putting pieces together, and it all centred around Violet. Funny enough, she isn’t even aware of all the schemes that are occurring in the Kingdom."

"Rebellion is one thing. But... what could incite someone to kill the saintess?"

Ymir tapped his finger on the armrest.

"The answer to that was so simple that I had to rethink it."

"Chaos. People would go after covenant, covenant will be after the royals, nobles will be split apart to choose sides, and the kingdom will rot to its core."

"You’re making dangerous assumptions, Your Highness," Ferrey said, but his voice wasn’t really confident about it.

"Don’t get me wrong, Ferrey. I’m not saying you lack devotion. You are actually quite devoted, and that’s what gave your actions away," Ymir said.

"What do you mea-"

"You did everything to separate her from the kingdom and keep her under the clutches of the covenant. Well, the first step of that was to ignite wrath in the strongest military houses, which you succeeded, but the next step was to cut off ties, and what you expected didn’t really happen..."

"So you chose a rather direct way, which is to kill the Prince himself," Ymir said.

"I would neve-"

"And you got a perfect chance when Violet asked me to accompany her to Marakana. There you dispersed the knights, set the stage to kill a useless prince and set Violet free of the ties with the Kingdom, but again things didn’t turn out the way you expected them to happen,"

"And that is where a misunderstanding surfaced. While Vael was there in the covenant, their goal was the Saintess, not the Prince. When he was interrogated, they searched the premises for holy knights formations, not the Prince, as if they knew that the Prince was not the target at all..."

"So I laid a bait, which you caught on really quickly. I said that those demonic humans were there to kill me, and you did not question that. You have a lot of pride in covenant and the Saintess, and I expected you to say something along the lines...why would anyone target the Prince? The Saintess is more important, but you didn’t."

"You’re really wrong about this, your high-"

Ymir snapped his fingers, cutting off Ferreys words again.

"And then the pieces connected. You made a way to have me killed. But the demonic humans were there to kill the Saintess. All this while, you were being used so that she could be assassinated."

Ymir smiled and leaned forward.

"You were a pawn, Ferrey. All this while you were just a piece on someone else’s chessboard," Ymir said.

"No-nono-the---"

"You were a man who was managed by someone more patient than you. Who used your devotion to the covenant as a lever. Who let you believe you were the musician when you were the instrument."

"You’re not a high priest, a strategist, a goody-shoes devotee in my eyes, Ferrey."

"You are a dumb fucking piece of mutt, pff", Ymir scoffed.

Silence settled in the room, while Ymir had draped the area with his aura to not let a single word out.

Ferrey calmed himself down, he took in deep breaths, straightened his back, and for moments, closed his eyes before speaking something.

"Your accusations are baseless; you have no proof, no evidence to back those up," Ferrey said.

"Not accusations, more like an accurate description of what has been happening up to this point, and as for proof..." Ymir paused.

He thought for a while.

"Proof, huh?" He was barely holding his laugh.

"Do I really need one, Ferrey?" he said.

Ferrey couldn’t come up with anything. What could he possibly even do? He was constantly thinking of ways to settle all of his mistakes, but there was no way out except confession.

Confession meant losing everything he had built up until now. His reputation, his position, his self-respect, everything.

But if he could just convince the Prince...

"You wanted to hear it from the beginning, right, Prince?" Ferrey said.

"I’ll start from the very beginning." He said.

"Well, I’m not particularly interested in your sloppy story, but since we have a lot of time, sure, let’s hear it," Ymir said, and he leaned back comfortably.

"ha...hahaha" "I can’t just bring myself to believe this...ahh, this is just," Ferrey loosened up and leaned back.

"It was all going well. Literally, I did everything literally right, so why the...I can’t believe everyone thought you were dumb," He said, looking at Ymir.

"You have no Idea how many I’ve killed, some of them were even my friends. Just so that I could reach here, and then, your highness...YOU MESSED IT ALL UP!" He screamed.

"That’s a lot of anger. Now I’m curious about your story," Ymir said calmly.

"Curious? Curious? Are you curious, too?" Ferrey’s hands were shaking, his heart was beating fast enough for a man who knew that everything had fallen apart.

"Well, if you ask that way, sure, go ahead," Orochi said.

Ferrey stomped his feet and stood up. He had lost all the elegance and was moving with the stride of a man who might just be some sort of thug.

He gripped his hair, pulled on it tight, and groaned.

"What is he doing?" Orochi whispered.

"I have no idea---"

"FINE!" He screamed.

"Sit down, Ferrey," Ymir gestured in front of him.

"ah---yes, I’m – I’m sorry," Ferrey gained back his composure and took a seat carefully.

He heaved a heavy sigh.

"Twenty-five years ago, when I was nineteen years old..."

And so the story of Ferrey, the high priest of the covenant, began.

Which was extremely boring. Really boring in fact. Orochi even slept through it.

Basically, at that time, twenty-five years ago, Ferrey was a squire of the covenant. Technology wasn’t really developed, so there was no way of knowing that a rift had appeared unless someone sensed it from afar or looked at it in sight.

Squires at that time used to do multiple things, from carrying stuff to cleaning tents, and sorting the carcasses of the war.

In Marakana, when the demons were killed after a town was massacred by them, he found Violet inside an underground dark room of a house. She was a child at that time, noticing blood on his hands, she healed him.

And then it all clicked for him.

He used that situation to rise to power. Earlier she used to trust him, and still does, that’s what he thinks.

He claimed to be her temporary guardian, then he orchestrated an incident to kill the previous high priest. He murdered his fellow squires, who were his friends, to bury the reality of the incident and spread the news that the saintess had been found, and the covenant aided him.

He became a high priest by currying favours from nobles, giving them the opportunity to be blessed by her, but as time passed, his methods became more strict as he started isolating her even more to make sure the world knows how precious she is.

He hated it when she was just engaged to the Prince; he did all in his power to stop that. He wanted her under his rule as an asset that only he can control.

"...I was frustrated."

He said, tightening his fists.

"I found her, I gave her the life she has, I protected her from harm, from being used, what I got in return was just the price for my protection," he reasoned about his actions.

"But when you arrived, I saw my efforts, my life falling apart."

"I would use all my power to keep her away from you. I did everything I could, but it just won’t work because her mind is so fragile that she thought that you’re the one who is engaged to her, which means you are her only family. Now, how does that work?" He questioned her actions.

"I protected her all along, I did everything for her, but not once in her life did she think of me like that, yet a man who is engaged to her without any prior meeting is now all her life because that’s how families are? I knew her mind wasn’t stable, but to this point?"

Silence settled in the air for a long time, but the look in Ymir’s eyes was of disappointment rather than sympathy.

Earlier, he would look at Ferrey as a man with ambition, but now, to him, he was just a mindless scum crazy for power.

"And... it was then when I met him...I never expected a man like him to be so vile, but what can I say...I could go to lengths to get her on my side," he said.

"Whom did you meet?" Ymir asked, ignoring his previous rants.

"He’s someone you will never expect to be the mastermind of all the rebellions, Your Highness, he’s just...I fear he knows that you’d come to me, or maybe he already does." Ferrey said.

"Who is that man, Ferrey? I just need a name."

"His name is...###"

*Splusch*

Ferrey’s eyes burst like a blood bomb in an instant, and he dropped to the floor with his head facing down.

"..."

"..."

Orochi and Ymir looked at him in shock.

The action was so quick that they didn’t even have the time to deactivate the contract that had bound him.

Ymir looked at Orochi, as if expecting he could have stopped Ferrey’s death, but unknown to him, even Orochi sensed the contract the moment it activated.

"You had one job!" Ymir murmured.