The cemetery was located at the Western District of Town Allure, home to commoner's, laborers and riffraff like me. There was a built in cemetery from that part, and is said where the maids from the Flower Manor were buried.
The walk to the cemetery was a silent procession. The morning air, which should have felt refreshing, was thick and stifling, as if the very atmosphere of Town Allure was mourning with us.
As we approached the iron gates, the rhythmic clink-whir of my prosthetic arm felt like a ticking clock, counting down the seconds of a life I no longer recognized.
We found Maine near the back, where the shadows of the weeping willows stretched across the fresh mounds of earth. He was kneeling, his forehead pressed against a cold stone marker.
My heart twisted. I thought of Miera… her laugh, the way she used to tuck a flower behind her ear, the way she looked at Maine like he was the only man in the world. Now, she was under the dirt, and Maine was a ghost above it.
"It should have been me" the thought screamed in my head.
I had the training, the mana, the hero reputation. I was supposed to be the shield. Instead, I stood here with a missing eye and a metal arm, while the girl he loved was gone forever.
I stepped forward, my boots crunching softly on the gravel. The others stayed back, giving us space. Maine didn't move, but I knew he heard me.
"Maine," I whispered, my voice breaking.
He looked up slowly. His eyes were bloodshot, hollowed out by a night of crying. When he saw me… really saw me, with the black leather patch and the mechanical limb… his breath hitched.
"Roxy! You... you're alive." he croaked, his voice raw.
"I am,"
I said, dropping to my knees beside him. The guilt was a physical weight, crushing the air out of my lungs. I reached out with my real hand, trembling, and touched the cold stone of Miera's grave.
"Maine, I'm so sorry. I tried... I swear to the gods, I tried to reach them in time. I should have been faster. I should have seen the trap."
A sob escaped my throat, raw and jagged.
"She's gone because I wasn't enough. I'm the one who led us there. I'm the reason you're sitting here." I said
It tore its way out of my chest, violent and uncontrollable. I collapsed to my knees beside him, the cold gravel biting into my skin, but I didn't care. I looked at the graves of the other maids. Kiera, Sinel... all of them. Young women who had dreams, families, and lives that were snuffed out in the dark while I was only rooms away.
"I couldn't save them, I was right there, Maine! I was supposed to be the Butcher! I was supposed to be the one they couldn't get past!" I wailed, the sound echoing off the silent tombstones.
I slammed my pristine right fist into the dirt, over and over.
"I had the mana! I had the strength! But I was too slow... I let them down. I let her down."
The guilt was a suffocating tide. Every time I closed my eye, I saw the basement… the silence of it, the smell of iron and dust. I saw Miera's very own head, decapitated and dead. I had traded my eye and my arm for my own life and a few others, but to me, it felt like a coward's bargain. Why did I get to walk away with a mechanical arm while they were buried in the dark?
"I'm so sorry, Maine. I would give the other eye... I'd give both my arms just to have them standing here instead of me. I failed them. I failed all of you."
I choked out, my forehead touching the grass of the grave. I was shaking so hard the gears in my prosthetic arm whirred in a frantic, metallic rhythm.
Maine looked at the grave, then back at me. He reached out and placed a shaky hand on my steel shoulder.
"Don't, Roxy. Don't take this from me. If I blame you, then I don't have to face the fact that the world is just... cruel."
He choked back a sob, his fingers gripping the cold metal of my arm. Then he continue with a face full of guilt.
"White told me what you did. You fought a monster. You gave your eye for us. You gave your arm."
I leaned my head against his shoulder, my tears falling onto the dark fabric of my cloak. Two broken survivors in a field of stone. I had come here to comfort him, but as we sat in the dirt, I realized we were both just drowning in the wake of the Bronze Coin's malice.
Maine gripped my hand… my real hand… and for a moment, the guilt transformed. It wasn't gone, but it had a purpose now. It was the fuel for the fire that would burn the Town of Tata to the ground.
The silence that followed was heavier than the earth beneath us. Maine's hand drifted to the grass, his fingers tracing the outline of the headstone as if it were the most fragile thing in the world.
"A few days ago, I saw her in the dining hall. It was late, just before the shift change. I gave her a small box and her favorite chocolates. I leaned in close, Roxy... I could smell the lavender she always wore. I told her, 'Open it tomorrow.'"
I let out a broken, jagged sob, burying my face in my hands. The image of Miera, clutching that box, waiting for a 'tomorrow' that I had let slip through my fingers, was too much to bear.
"It's all my fault, I was the one with the power. I was the one who was supposed to be the wall between you and the dark. I couldn't save them, Maine. I couldn't save her for you."
Maine didn't look away from the grave.
"Do you know what was in that box, Roxy? It wasn't just jewelry. It was a diamond ring. I was going to ask her to be my wife that day. I was going to take her away from the service, away from the danger. I had the words ready."
He finally turned to me, and the sheer, raw agony in his eyes made me flinch. His heart been pulverized into dust. He continued.
"My heart shattered the moment I woke up and realized the tomorrow I promised her was a funeral."
I couldn't stop the shaking. The gears in my prosthetic arm whirred in a frantic, mourning hum. I felt like a failure, a hollow suit of armor with a missing eye and a soul full of holes.
But then, Maine did something I didn't expect. He reached out, his hand steady despite the grief. He didn't pull away from my scarred face or the black leather of my eyepatch. Instead, he gently brushed his fingers against the tracks of my tears, wiping the salt and sorrow from my cheek.
"Roxy! You are going to Tata. You are going to find the men who turned that ring into a relic. You are going to avenge the maids. You are going to avenge my Miera." he said, his voice regaining a haunting, quiet strength.
He leaned in, his gaze locking onto my one green eye with an intensity that silenced my sobbing.
"And you need to hear this, because the hero can't hunt if she's carrying the weight of the dead on her back."
He paused, the wind whistling through the willow trees as the sun dipped toward the horizon.
"It's not your fault, Roxy."