Arc 7: Chapter 21: Wake
I stared at Delphine blankly for a long minute. My anger, my focus, my surety, it all curdled and was replaced by a sinking sense of horror.
As Delphine watched my face, a cruel smile quirked the edges of her lips. “That’s right. You weren’t her only affair back then. How does it feel? To know you weren’t so special, Ser Knight?”
“You knew?” I asked in a hoarse voice. “What she—”
“Did I know she was Abgrüdai? A demon of the Abyss?” Delphine lifted her chin, her nostrils flaring as she spoke with a breathy air of relief, as though the admission lifted some great weight off her chest. “Yes, I knew.”
“Are you mad!?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. To feel heartbroken for the loss of a love that wasn’t real and betrayed by a monster, that I could understand. But I saw no doubt or shame in Delphine’s face.
No, she seemed proud of the admission.
“Mad?” Delphine smiled wistfully. “Yes, I suppose it is a sort of madness. Yes, perhaps the Church is right! Perhaps I am a loathsome sinner, a heretic, a witch and a whore. I’ve heard it all.” She spoke through her teeth. “So go ahead! Judge me, but know that it will always be true that you lusted for a succubus, paladin, that you were swayed from your vows and your loyalties by a temptress of the Adversary.”
“And what about you?” I demanded. “You were a nun, sworn to the service of God.”
“I hated that place,” Delphine spat. “I was a prisoner there. The abbess saw me as a pet project, her little sinner she could redeem to stoke her own vanity. Shy was the only one who…” Her lip trembled as she cut herself off.
I spoke slowly, calmly. “That creature would have hollowed you out, devoured your soul, and then forgotten your name.”
I let her go, taking a step back and looking down my nose at this intellectual, this apparently learned woman who could match Lias in her breadth of esoteric wisdom.