The woman who lived by the hill

(67) Confession

Paradis
858

Three weeks following Falco's recruitment into the rebellion...

Queen Historia stared at the unconscious teenage boy in the grass for a brief moment. Subsequently, her eyes moved up and settled on the fresh corpse hanging by its neck, the other end of the rope tied to a tree branch.

She squeezed the letter in her hand.

"Send the copy to General Barklov. Now."

7 hours earlier...

It was actually a miracle. Never would have Falco believed that Reynold's nephew-in-law, Lan, could have them snuck inside the royal palace where he worked undercover, disguised as a soldier, even as security was at its highest and a frightening amount of guards patrolled the vicinity. Now, the group of three stood in the shadow of a tree in the gardens.

"The heck is going on, Lan?" demanded Reynold. "Why aren't you telling me anything?"

"It's really important," assured the young man. "Uncle," —Reynold grumbled when addressed by this title— "would you mind taking a few steps back? Falco, stay right where you are."

Falco was somewhat confused. He glanced at Reynold who was retreating to stand by the trunk. Lan took the opportunity to throw his foot in a violent kick on the side of the boy's head. It sent Falco flopping on the ground like a child's doll, knocked out cold.

"Huh... Why d'you kick the kid in the head?" asked Reynold, not particularly affected by the attack he had just witnessed. He came forth and prodded the unconscious individual's rolling head with his foot. "Hey, d'you kill him? He's been really useful to me, you dumb dick!"

"Lower your voice," growled Lan. He bent down and checked Falco's pulse. "Still alive. Quit complaining."

"Don't talk to me like that! You just behave yourself and I'll—"

"Shut up!" hissed Lan.

He stood up, advancing on his wife's uncle. "I'm really fucking tired of you, old man. You bossing me around and making me do stuff that will ruin the easy and peaceful life I want with Elena. I'm going to make sure we can secure this peace treaty. You and Yelena aren't fixing the world. You're smashing the broken pieces to dust."

Lan pointed a gun in Reynold's direction, drawing out at the same time a rope.

"I'll make you 'confess' your crimes. But first, you need to die."

***

A guard banged loudly on the Queen's door before the sun had even risen. Groggily, Historia answered, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and exercising her healing shoulder.

"Is there an emergency?" she asked, judging by the caller's pale face.

"We found a man hanged in the gardens—he's dead, by the way—and the attacker—not dead, I guess—unconscious nearby." He held out an envelope. "There was a suicide note in his hands—caus he's dead. My superior read it and said I should bring it to you immediately after he had a scribe copy it to send to General Barklov—with your permission of course, your majesty, cause I hear you can be pretty scary and then, gosh, you might kill him!"

Historia snatched the letter away from the guard, letting him fret by himself in the hall. She wandered around her room, reading over the contents of the suicide note. Actually, it could not be called that for the guard had implied that the hanging was in fact a murder. What read was the following:

My name is Reynold; I will not disclose my last name for fear that this information could harm my innocent niece. I am a leader in the secret rebellion that cannot accept this peace treaty.

Tonight, I plan to deliver this letter and kill myself. I have committed abhorrent crimes which I regret deeply, and haunt me. I hope that this information will convince you that Yelena, who's infiltrated the military of Paradis and is presently leading a massacre of the Marleyan people, and the rest of us have been pitting both sides against each other.

It all started with the giant silhouette of the titan in the sky a few months ago which put her Highness in unfortunate danger and demolished any hopes of a peace treaty. Well, I confess that it was my doing. Myself and another went out on a small fishing boat, and projected the image into the sky with use of an enormous shining stone we purchased off the black market. Two days later, we came to the Queen herself and lied that Marleyans were the culprits.

I wished to stop there, but Yelena wanted to do more. She wished for Marley to hate Paradis, reciprocating our country's feelings. And so, a few of our men snuck onto the beach near Fort Salta and kidnapped the first person they encountered—an allied nations representative named Pieck Finger. Yelena allowed her followers to gang-rape her. I sickened me to witness such a thing and hear her sob and scream. We then killed her and planted her body in the Queen's office to make it seem like Paradis's government was responsible for her murder.

Next, we killed the famous Levi Ackerman. He met with Queen Historia, but we bombed his ship with a Marleyan aircraft, fearing he may negotiate peace and screw up our plans.

Our intention was to make Armin Arlert our next target. He's been an important and influential figure in the past few years and we thought eliminating him would be to our advantage. We didn't have to resort to that, though, because another opportunity presented itself to us.

We came across the information from a prostitute in the underground that a girl fitting Gabi Braun's—a Marleyan citizen—description had accompanied Mikasa Ackerman, a woman with the same surname as Levi, to the brothel where she worked. By staying on Paradis instead of returning to her own country, we were able to feed the lies to a friend of hers that she had been kidnapped. He, in turn, went and convinced his leaders of that false information.

I have killed, stolen, abused, cheated, and have a long list of other crimes to my name. But I hope to redeem myself.

The rebels' base of operation is an abandoned bakery called "John's Delicacies" in the underground. All of them apart from Yelena, who's still in Marley, should be there on Friday nights. I beg that you arrest them so they stop this foolishness.

We rebels have been pitting your countries against each other. Please make peace after my death.

Historia drew in a great breath.

Here it was. Proof. Proof that her government and Marley's was innocent. This remorseful rebel could perhaps just have given her the key stopping the fighting and finally having peace between Marley and Paradis!