“What are you talking about?” he asked. “Is this some ploy by the Royal Council to incriminate me?”

“I saw you grab one of the corpses from the battlefield.”

“That’s nonsense. How could that possibly fool anyone?”

“You did,” she insisted, and it was hard not to see the girl as a petulant child. But that didn’t mean that she didn’t speak the truth. He thought he had been careful, but it was all for naught.

“Did you just come out here to accuse me?” he said calmly. There was no point in explaining himself. Regardless of what she saw, he had been a loyal paladin for twelve years and had covered his tracks up well. He just needed to deny her claims and convince her that it was pointless to speak out against him. “The prince is dead, and the mission’s over. I’ll head for the Palace of Yvailles in a few days, but I would appreciate it if you went ahead first to deliver the report, Lady Cleo.”

“I don’t get it.”

“There’s nothing else to it.”

“Why are you lying?” There was both confusion and indignation in her voice. “Why did you keep the prince alive? Do you know how many soldiers died?”

From that, he realized that she wasn’t just concerned about the ramifications of the Royal Council learning that they had failed their mission. She, too, had inherited guilt, and for some reason, that made him angry.

“I went along with your plan,” she said, her voice cracking. “You said it was necessary.”

“That’s not what I said.” He shouldn’t have responded, but his sudden anger got the best of him. “I asked if you thought it was necessary.”

“It was, wasn’t it?” she said, and there was a golden glow moving along her body. Her right hand was gripped tightly onto her staff, and her knuckles were bone white.

The rumors he had heard about the 24th Divine Paladin were true. Although she was blessed with enormous power, she had difficulty controlling it. Most likely, she had only used a fraction of her power when fighting the wolves out of fear that it’d run rampant. He had to placate her somehow.

“There must’ve been an easier way. If we waited a little longer, there could have been a simpler way to kill him,” she continued, the glow around her getting brighter. “If you were going to let the prince live anyway, what was the point of doing what we did? You killed those soldiers and for nothing.”

“Me?” he said, and he felt something cold press up the inner wall of his chest. It was the thing he had been trying to avoid by walking away from the city and the soldiers, but Lady Cleo had brought it back into focus. It was the stain of guilt, the heavy burden of blame. “What about you?” he said, and the words came out so coldly. “Spare me the hypocrisy. Didn’t you stand by and help me?”

“What else could I have done?” she cried, but it was obvious that she wasn’t convinced by her own words. “The king said Prince Ghislain was trying to harm the kingdom, so I vowed to stop him. By letting him live, you’re putting everyone in Calorin at risk. Aren’t we as paladins supposed to protect people?”

“We don’t get to decide that,” he said angrily. “The first time I murdered someone was when I was twelve. It was an earl who they had suspected was spying for the Graecians. Like you, I mindlessly went along with my mentor’s plans, and I killed the earl and his guards without much deliberation.

“A few years later, I learned that one of the dukes on the council had held a grudge against that earl because he had lost an enormous amount of money to him over cards. He could’ve easily paid that amount but couldn’t endure the humiliation if the news became public, so he had fabricated evidence to suggest that the earl was a spy.

“Paladins are not heroes of the people. We’re the heroes of the powerful and the wealthy. We protect their immediate interests and nothing more.” He hadn’t wanted to say it so bluntly, but he didn’t have the patience that Lady Romane had had with him. Or it could be that he was angry at the young girl for being as naïve as he had once been. She was clinging to some ambiguous ideal about paladins that had formed in her head; he’d break it.

“No, that’s not…Sir Prosper said that –”

“You asked me why I let the prince live, didn’t you?” he said.

She stared at him with her small innocent eyes.

“It was a whim.” It was the cruelest answer he could come up with.

“What? You can’t be–”

“He looked so pitiful that I lost the motivation to go through with it. So, I let him go.”

“Just because of that?” The golden glow of the Lord’s Favor covered her entire body. “It was that meaningless of a reason?”

“If it makes you feel better, you can imagine it as a protest against the council’s orders,” he said. “But if you keep being so naïve, you’ll be–”

“I should’ve never listened to you!” she screamed, and she charged at him brandishing her staff. An immense golden energy ran through her entire body; he doubted if he could take it head-on even if he tried to block it with his own blessing.

But he was prepared. Ever since the Battle of Wetshard, he had honed his skills in case there was ever a need to fight another paladin, especially one that vastly outranked him. Even if Lady Cleo was ranked 24th, she was in a rage and didn’t have control over her powers. He’d demonstrate the gap between their experiences.

Her first attack was a simple one-handed swing at his chest with her staff, and he didn’t even have to call upon his blessing to evade it. For the returning swing, she aimed higher, so he ducked.

If he read her moves incorrectly, it’d be catastrophic for him. But she didn’t even try to feint, so all he had to do was keep watching the movement of her arms and sidestep her. One step back, two steps left, another step back – he dodged each and every one of her attacks.

“Why can’t I–” she cried out in frustration. She ran forward, trying to close the widening distance between them, and swung at his right temple.

He had been waiting for that. He ducked again, but this time he drew the Lord’s Favor into his feet and propelled himself forward at her. She had gotten used to his reaction speed and had assumed that he’d stay on the defensive, so she wouldn’t expect him to come at her and so quickly.

However, if he just tried to strike her with his inferior blessing, it wouldn’t even faze her. So instead, he went for a low sweep with his left foot, and Lady Cleo, caught up in the momentum, stumbled and fell forward. It took concentration and mental stamina to maintain the Lord’s Favor, and surprised by her sudden fall, she didn’t realize that the golden glow around her body was flickering.

He wouldn’t get another opportunity. Quickly turning back to her, he invoked all of his blessing into his right leg and kicked her in the solar plexus. With a cry of pain, she flew back and crumpled into a heap. The Lord’s Favor must’ve absorbed some of the blow, but not all of it. Without hesitation, he kicked her in the stomach. Again, and again until she was gasping for air, so overwhelmed by the pain that she couldn’t call upon her blessing.

Paladins truly were near-invincible. So, to beat one, he had learned that it was the psychological battle that he had to win. That was part of the reason he paid such close attention to the stories and folktales. If he learned their habits and their backgrounds, it wouldn’t be impossible to outsmart them, even with his measly power. Disarm them through surprise, and then convince them that they’ve lost.

He drew Durendal and pointed it at the girl’s throat. She must’ve heard the stories about his sword and had no way of knowing that it was no sharper than a butter knife. It was most likely the first time she had ever lost since awakening to her power, and the thought of that would keep her from realizing that he had no way to hurt her if she covered her entire body with the Lord’s Favor again.

“Did you really think you could best the man who led the Battle of Wetshard and killed the 13th Paladin?” he said coldly. “As for the prince, I’ve made sure that he’ll be a danger to no one. The Royal Council won’t realize he’s alive if you don’t say a word.

“But let me tell you this. Good and evil, innocent and guilty, none of those things matter. Calorin is a landslide, and you’ll be buried with it if you keep clinging to things like that.”

Lady Cleo's dark green eyes glared at him with hatred and fear. He sheathed his sword, confident that she had lost the will to fight.

“You’re–you’re not a paladin,” she said through pained breaths as he walked away. “You don’t care about the kingdom or the good of the people. Why was someone like you chosen by the Lord?”

He couldn’t answer her even if he wanted to, so he kept walking. Ahead of him was just darkness and the dirt road, but if he went back the other way, he’d have to pass through the streets filled with drunk soldiers and gawking civilians. And that cold feeling that was pressed up against his chest, the guilt of too many things he wished he could’ve done, had done, and will continue to do, would follow him whichever way he went.