"Master?" the queen gave a confused look. "What are you-- Congratulations, you managed to figure it out. So what?"
The queen's confused eyes suddenly turned to fierce, angry glare as she looked at Ning.
"There you are," Ning said. "Two different people, huh? Two identities, two personalities. I didn't know my skill only worked on one if there were multiple ones."
"Yeah, that is quite a neat trick you have there. Unfortunately, for you, you can't get me," the queen spoke.
"You were the one that hired assassins to kill your own son?" Ning asked.
"I certainly did not," the queen said.
"Right," Ning pulled out a piece of paper from his storage. "You're right. How could I be mistaken? It was Helerach that hired the assassin, wasn't it? I wonder what he would say if we brought him here."
Ning handed the piece of paper to the captain to read. He looked through it and was beyond shocked.
"You gave away the life of your own son for 20 thousand pearls? Was your own son's life that cheap to you?" the captain asked.
"Stop calling him my son. He's not my son, he's her son," the queen screamed.
Ning could hear deep hatred in her heart.
"You really like killing people don't you?" Ning asked. "First the King, then the prince, and now the captain. You really want to get rid of anyone that can go against you. Were you doing it for power?"
"No," the queen said. "That bastard deserved his death, so did the captain."
"Why?" the captain asked. "For finding out the truth?"
"No," the queen said. "For killing my only hope in this world."
The captain was taken aback. "Killing your... hope? I did not--"
"You killed Astier, you bastard," the queen shouted. ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵✶𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖✶𝓷𝓮𝓽
Ning looked back at the captain and saw shock clear in his eyes. "Who's Astier?" he asked.
"The King's brother. The previous prince," the captain said
"Didn't the prince try to kill the previous king?" Ning asked the captain.
"Yes," The captain nodded and looked at the queen. "Your majesty, the prince had committed a crime. I was ordered by the king to kill him."
"And you didn't hesitate even a bit," the queen's eyes went rabid.
"He had tried to kill the king," the captain shouted.
"AT MY REQUEST!" the queen shouted back.
"Wha... what?" the captain didn't know what to say.
He remembered that day when he killed the prince nearly half a decade ago.
The prince lay on his knees on the cold, hard ground with his leg and arms tied behind his back.
The prince's face was swollen after getting beat up by the King whose chest had previously been stabbed through.
"Why did you do it, brother?" the king asked. "Why would you ever try to kill me? Do you want my throne, is that it?"
The prince glared back at the king with a clear snarl on his face. "You don't deserve to be a king. You, who have lost all of your humanity deserve nothing but painful death."
"Kill me! Kill me quickly so I no longer have to call this monster a brother," the prince grumbled with his swollen face.
The king sighed. "Do it."
And the captain returned back to the present. His hands shook as he remembered the gun he held to kill the prince.
The prince hadn't tried to start a coup or something. He had tried to kill his brother because the queen had told him to.
"Why?" the captain asked. "Why would you want to kill the king?"
"Why wouldn't anyone want to kill that rapist piece of shit of a human being?" the queen asked.
"Ra-- what? No, the king was a--"
"Shut up," the queen said. "You don't know anything about that bastard. No one does, not even her."
"That bastard was a horny dog that wanted to do nothing but rape me. He would always try to screw me, and when I didn't agree, he would threaten to go find my sisters and screw them instead."
"She couldn't handle it at first, the poor woman. With time, however, she managed to shove it all down. All the pain, the memories, the hurt. She shoved it so much that I emerged to take care of her pain," the queen said.
"Imagine your whole existence was only there to be raped day after day after day."
"She only remembered the good days, while I suffered from the bad ones."
"I had finally managed to gain control a bit. I could hang on to the times even when he didn't rape me when I wasn't hurt. Doing that, I finally got to talk to Artier, tell him what was happening."
"That poor young man was understanding of my pain and promised to help me be free. And yet," the queen glared at the captain. "You killed him."
"I--" the captain was already shocked from hearing about his king, and now, he had to learn that he killed a good man that wanted to do nothing but save a woman from the monster that was the king.
"After his death, I realized. There was no one that could save me. Not even she could. As such, I took matters into my own hand."
"I started holing on more and more and more until I could take over her whenever I wanted. Using that, I contacted the Shadow's Anarchy and had the King killed."
"I thought that would be it, I would be free, finally. But, here I was, still not gone. Then, they told me I had to sit on the throne and keep it for the one person that still reminded me every day of the torture I went through, the pain I suffered?" the queen shouted.
"That's why you killed him?" Ning asked. "Because he reminded you of a person that you didn't like?"
"If you had a child that was born out of rape, you would do the same," the queen said.
Ning shook his head. "You're sick."