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Hmm. A queen with an obsession. A desire to restore her religion as the most prominent one of her kingdom. She converts her husband at a young age, and he quarrels with the court priests throughout his reign. Many call her a witch, a demon, a manipulative hag, and when her husband dies of pneumonia, they blame her.

But she has her faith. Her own priests. And a foreign papacy supporting her. Together, they call forth a host of holy warriors. The crown would normally pass to the eldest son, but he was born by the previous queen, the excommunicated one, and so he has no love for her, nor her for him. If she allowed him to be crowned, he would have her beheaded at the earliest opportunity.

And so there is war. Her sacred army proves victorious.

And there is no leniency in her heart. As would have been done to her, so she does to her enemies.

...Man, what the fuck? That was even worse than the last one. And how many of these memories ended with beheadings?

“Ah... Lord Goffe?” arrived a feminine voice.

He looked up from his ribeye steak and creamed spinach in order to see a familiar young woman standing on the other side of the large table in the Tower of Night’s refectory.

Selena Cortes was her name. Zeff’s niece. He did not, however, see her reaper, Ojarea, with her.

Hector was aware that those two had been working through some relationship troubles, which was a rather worrisome problem to have between a reaper and servant. It made him all the more grateful for Garovel, and yet he also felt in some tangential way responsible for them, too. Being the Lord of Warrenhold, where they were currently living, he felt like he needed to keep an eye on them.

He’d mentioned their troubles to Zeff a while back, who had apparently taken the direct approach toward trying to help the two of them repair things. Zeff and his sister, Joana, had confronted Ojarea and eventually arranged for strict regimenting of the time the two were allowed to see each other. And from what Hector understood, the other heads and reapers of both Houses Elroy and Cortes had been speaking with Ojarea regularly as a form of therapeutic engagement.

Which was an interesting concept, Hector had thought. Reapers, being immortal and so knowledgeable of the world, did not seem like the easiest subjects for therapy, but he supposed if he anyone could pull it off, it would be another reaper.