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O-oh. How had he known that? She sat down opposite him, almost on the very spot where the cardinal had taken flight, hidden easily by the sunflowers that shot out of the ground. Before the encounter, she had been naif to the world's darkest men, and now she knew more than she ever could have, or would have, bargained for. She couldn't blame Dahlia de Mai, or herself. Nobody could have stopped what had inevitably happened. God's Will was His Law, and she wouldn't disobey anything decreed by Him. Even so, it still to the day baffled the youthful teen who couldn't understand why such a loyal subject of His Word would be subjected to something so absolutely sickening and destructive.
She couldn't blame God either. He wasn't at fault. Nobody but Andrezej could take responsibility for the actions used against her, but Andrezej was dead. He would take no more responsibility for anything, and he wouldn't bother anyone ever again. They were nice to me. Sure, she'd been locked in a shack and unable to leave, but they hadn't been unusually unkind, considering she was their hostage and prisoner. They could have been the one to inflict her pain and not her half uncle, but they hadn't. They had fed her and gave her water and had spoken to her.
Y-yeah. Dad traded some lady to Haku and he let me go home and they declared that it was over. A stalemate. Nobody had won and nobody had lost, in the terms of a game, but everybody had, in fact, been a loser. Nobody had triumphed and everybody had things to tend, wounds to lick, and dignities to rebuild. In the sense of neutrality, it had been a draw. In the sense of disappointment, it had been very, very high for some and it shone a hopeful light on a horizon for many others.