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Finale

The Fragile Echo of a Shattered Mirror

The first thing Furina felt was the cold. It wasn't the numbing, peaceful cold of the void she had briefly inhabited, but a sharp, clinical chill that smelled of antiseptic and rain. Then came the weight. Her limbs felt as though they had been cast in lead, pinned to the mattress by an invisible force.

Memory returned in a violent, sickening rush. The wine. The chalky pills. The letter. The darkness.

She was alive.

The realization didn't bring relief. It brought a searing, white-hot agony that started in her chest and radiated outward to her very fingertips. It was the agony of a failed escape.

"She’s waking up," a voice whispered. It was Clorinde. Even through the haze of her damaged senses, Furina could recognize that tone—guarded, professional, yet laced with an undercurrent of exhaustion.

"Furina?" This was Neuvillette. His voice was closer, vibrating with a desperate hope that made Furina want to scream.

She didn't open her eyes at first. She couldn't see anyway, but she kept her lids pressed shut as if she could hide from the reality of her breathing. But the air kept forcing its way into her lungs, and her heart kept beating, stubborn and cruel. The physical pain in her head, the throbbing pressure of her blindness, came roaring back to greet her.

"Lady Furina, can you hear me?"

That was the healer. Furina felt a hand touch her brow.

With a strength she didn't know she possessed—a strength born of pure, unadulterated venom—Furina arched her back and threw the hand off. She bolted upright, her movements jerky and uncoordinated like a marionette with tangled strings. Her head spun, the room tilting in her sightless world, but she didn't care.

"Get away from me!" she shrieked. The sound was raw, tearing at her throat, sounding nothing like the melodic voice of the star of Fontaine.

The room went silent. She could feel them—Neuvillette and Clorinde—standing just feet away, frozen by the suddenness of her outburst.

"Furina, please, you need to lie down," Neuvillette said, his voice low and soothing, the way one might speak to a wounded animal. "The toxins—"

"The toxins didn't do their job!" Furina screamed, swinging her arms wildly in the direction of his voice. Her hand caught something—a tray, perhaps—and sent it clattering to the floor. "Why am I still here? Why won't you let me go? Haven't I given enough? Five hundred years! Five hundred years of acting, of lying, of watching every person I ever cared about grow old and die while I stayed trapped in a lie!"

"We were trying to save you," Clorinde said, her voice cracking slightly.

"Save me?" Furina laughed, a jagged, hysterical sound that bordered on a sob. "You didn't save me! You just dragged me back to the stage! Look at me, Clorinde! I’m blind! I’m broken! I’m a fraud that the heavens spat out because I wasn't even worth killing!"

She turned her head toward where she imagined Neuvillette was standing. She couldn't see his face, but she could feel the immense, heavy sorrow radiating from him. It only fueled her rage.

"And you! The great Iudex! The Hydro Sovereign!" she spat, the words dripping with bitterness. "You sit there in your Palais, playing at being human, while you watch me rot in a cottage? You let Focalors die! You let her put that executioner’s sword over her own head and you didn't stop her! You let her leave me with nothing but a broken body and a memory of a nation that hates me!"

"Furina, that is not true," Neuvillette stepped closer. She could hear the rustle of his robes. "The people—"

"The people glared at me!" she roared, her voice reaching a pitch that made her ears ring. "They whispered about the 'false god' in the streets! They looked at me with pity, Neuvillette! Do you know what that’s like? To be the center of the world and then to be a charity case for Melusines? I hate them! I hate this city! I hate every drop of rain that falls because I know it’s just you crying for a tragedy you helped write!"

She was shaking now, her breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. Her hands clutched at the hospital sheets, tearing at the fabric.

"She used me," Furina whispered, the rage suddenly turning into a hollow, echoing grief. "Focalors... she was me, and yet she wasn't. She got the noble end. She got to be the hero. She got to rest. And she left me here to pay the bill. She left me to be the one who remembers the pain. I hate her! I hate her more than anyone!"

"Furina, stop," Clorinde moved to grab her shoulders, trying to keep her from falling out of the bed.

"Don't touch me!" Furina thrashed, her sightless eyes wide and staring at nothing. "You were my bodyguard, Clorinde! Where were you when the heavens took my sight? Where were you when the loneliness started eating me alive? You’re just a jailer now! You’re all just jailers!"

She began to cough, a deep, hacking sound that tasted of copper and bile. The exertion was too much for her poisoned system. The adrenaline that had fueled her outburst was draining away, leaving behind a terrifying, cold emptiness.

"I just... I just wanted to sleep..." she wheezed, her voice dropping to a faint, broken murmur. "Why won't you... let me... sleep..."

Her body suddenly went limp. If Clorinde hadn't been holding her, she would have slumped onto the floor. Her head fell back against the pillows, her face ashen, her consciousness slipping away as quickly as it had returned.

The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating.

Neuvillette stood motionless, his hands clenched so tightly at his sides that his knuckles were white. The room felt cold, the air thick with the moisture of a storm that was brewing just outside the Palais walls.

"She didn't mean it," Clorinde said softly, though she didn't sound convinced. She was looking down at Furina’s pale face, her own expression a mask of controlled pain.

"She meant every word," Neuvillette replied. His voice was devoid of emotion, a terrifyingly calm facade that masked a tectonic shift in his soul. "And she was right. We failed her. I failed her."

He stepped toward the bed, looking down at the woman who had once been the most vibrant light in Fontaine. Now, she was a shadow, a ghost of a person kept tethered to the world by sheer force of will—his will, not hers.

"Monsieur Neuvillette?" the healer asked tentatively. "What are your orders? She is stable for now, but her mental state..."

"She cannot be left alone," Neuvillette said. The authority in his voice was absolute, the voice of the Sovereign, not the judge. "Not for a single second."

"I will stay," Clorinde began.

"No," Neuvillette interrupted. "You have your duties. We need more than just a guard. We need a perimeter."

He turned to the door, where several Melusines were huddled, their large eyes filled with tears. Among them were Menthe and Sigewinne, the latter having been summoned from the Fortress of Meropide.

"Listen to me," Neuvillette addressed them. "Lady Furina is to be moved back to her cottage once she is able to travel. But the cottage will be changed."

"Changed, Monsieur?" Menthe asked.

"Every sharp edge is to be blunted," Neuvillette commanded, his eyes flashing with a faint, draconic light. "I want the corners of the furniture shielded. Every knife, every fork, every glass bottle is to be removed and replaced with materials that cannot break or cut. The windows are to be reinforced with unbreakable glass, and they are not to be opened more than an inch. The river nearby... I want a fence erected. A high one."

Clorinde frowned. "Neuvillette, you’re turning her home into a cell. She’ll notice. She’ll hate it."

"She already hates us, Clorinde," Neuvillette said, turning to look at her. "Her hatred is a burden I will carry. But I will not carry her casket. Not yet."

He looked back at the Melusines. "I want double the shifts. Four of you at all times. One in the room, two at the doors, one patrolling the perimeter. If she so much as moves a finger in her sleep, I want to know. If she tries to skip a meal, I want to be informed immediately."

"And the medicine?" Sigewinne asked quietly. "She hoarded it before."

"You will administer it personally," Neuvillette told her. "Crushed into her food if necessary. She is never to hold a vial or a pill in her hand again."

Clorinde stepped forward, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword. "This is a lot, even for her protection. She’s already fragile. If she feels like she’s being smothered, it might drive her to try something even more desperate."

"Then we must be more vigilant," Neuvillette snapped, his composure momentarily cracking. "I will not lose her. Do you understand? The heavens took her sight. The trial took her divinity. I will not let her take her own life because we were too 'polite' to intervene."

He walked to the bedside one last time. He reached out, his fingers hovering just above Furina’s hand, but he didn't touch her. He remembered the way she had recoiled from the healer, the way she had screamed at him to get away.

"She called us jailers," Neuvillette whispered, more to himself than to Clorinde.

"She’s hurting," Clorinde replied.

"She is," Neuvillette agreed. "And perhaps I am a jailer. But if a cage is what it takes to keep her breathing until she finds a reason to want to, then I will build the strongest cage in Teyvat."

The days that followed were a blur of coordinated activity. While Furina lay in a drug-induced lethargy in the infirmary, her small cottage on the outskirts of the city was transformed.

Carpenters worked under the watchful eyes of the Palais guards. The beautiful, sharp-angled mahogany tables were replaced with rounded, soft-edged versions. The glass windowpanes were swapped for thick, laminated sheets that could withstand a sledgehammer. The kitchen was stripped of its metal utensils, replaced with heavy-duty wooden and silicone tools that were blunt and harmless.

Outside, a discreet but iron-strong fence was grown from the earth itself, hidden behind a hedge of flowers, circling the property and cutting off access to the treacherous river.

When Furina was finally deemed strong enough to return, she was transported in a closed carriage, flanked by a dozen Melusines. She didn't speak during the journey. She sat huddled in the corner, her sightless eyes fixed on the floor, her hands wrapped in bandages to cover the marks where she had tried to claw at her own skin in the hospital.

As they helped her through the front door of her cottage, she paused. She couldn't see the changes, but she could feel the difference in the air. The echoes of the room were different. The scent of the wood was new.

"Where is my desk?" she asked, her voice thin and raspy.

"We moved it to make more room for you to walk, Lady Furina," Menthe said, her voice trembling with the effort to remain cheerful.

Furina reached out, her hand trailing along the wall until it hit the edge of a table. She felt the rounded, padded corner. She moved her hand further, feeling the lack of a sharp edge. She felt the heavy, unbreakable texture of the new window.

A cold, hollow laugh escaped her lips.

"A cage," she whispered. "He really did it. He built me a cage."

"It’s for your safety, Lady—"

"Don't call me that!" Furina snapped, though the energy for a full rage was gone. She slumped into a chair—a new, soft chair with no hard wooden frame. "Just leave me alone. Go to your posts. Watch me. Stare at me. I know you’re there."

The Melusines looked at each other, their hearts breaking, but they did as they were told. They retreated to the corners of the room, silent sentinels in a house that had become a fortress.

Neuvillette stood outside the gate, hidden by the mist. He listened to the silence of the cottage, his heart heavy with a guilt that no judgment could ever clear. He knew she could feel him there, even if she couldn't see him. He knew she hated him.

He looked up at the grey Fontaine sky. The rain began to fall again, a soft, persistent drizzle.

"One day," he whispered to the wind. "One day, you will thank me for the cage, Furina. Or you will hate me forever. Either way... you will be alive to do it."

Inside the cottage, Furina sat in the dark, her sightless eyes open, listening to the rhythmic ticking of a clock she could no longer see. She was surrounded by people who loved her, in a house designed to keep her safe, under the protection of a god-like power.

And she had never felt more alone in her entire life.