*****Warning: This is the tragic event that happened to our FL with her family. If it is too much for some readers, you may wish to skip until this particular arch is over. I will give a quick summary once this arch is over if you do not wish to read this. Thanks for your understanding.*****
News of a high noble family being slaughtered over night shocked the capital of Edalelia. The citizens wondered what had happened to such a well known family. Everyone wanted to know why such a thing could happen in this day and age.
Who would do such a thing? At this time, the whole capital seemed uneasy. The citizens thought that if a well known, protected family like the Blakelochs could just one day disappear from the face of the earth, what of them who were considered more insignificant than the nobles and royals?
The day was filled with tension as they seemed to still be looking for victims unaccounted for. The news was being suppressed by the Royal family as they tried to investigate into the death of the Blakelochs, but held back due to respect to the remaining family. Some would stray to the Blakelochs mansion where Elizabella was and would film the mansion from outside.
Although they wanted to go and see the surviving young Lady, they could not go in and interview her, since she was underage. In fact, no one was allowed in, as the Head Steward had told all guests wishing her condolences that she was not seeing anyone at the moment as she was not in the best state to receive any visitors.
Within the noble circles, the Blakelochs were indeed famous and had more friendly acquaintances amongst them then other noble family. However, the reality was that many of them were actually envious of their good fortune without much work. When it came to money, the Blakelochs were indeed loaded because of all their different ventures and of course their healthy mines.
Not only were their mines being envied by others, but so were more ambitious nobles that wished to set up their daughters with the next Crown Prince. However, with the eldest daughter always taking the two possible Crown Princes' attention with just her mere presence, they knew that the Blakelochs would one day have their family ties with the Royal Family even closer than what it was now.
With these sorts of thoughts, the list of potential suspects grew exponentially. Elizabella's life was still in danger since no one knew who the mastermind was behind such a heinous attack on her family. All the wealth her family had accumulated over the generations, belonged to her now and the possibility of her marrying one of the two young Princes was a larger chance than any other noble young lady.
If anything, her living well is probably making her family's enemies seethe in anger over the fact that her future still seems prosperous even now. Even if she did not marry the next King of Edalelia, there was a high chance that she would marry into another wealthy and highly influential family, whether that be in this kingdom or another. With her background and close ties to the Queen of Edalelia, there would be a line of suitors just waiting to be picked by her.
The servants that surrounded Elizabella, understood that there would be many people with very bad intentions now that her parents were not alive to protect her. They tried their best to shield her from the world that they knew was now going to change for Elizabella. They did not want anything dreadful to happen to her now that she was alone without her family.
General Griffon was hard at work throughout the night with his men, sifting through debris finding any human remains. They came to the conclusion that it must have been some sort of bomb as the bomb squad found bomb fragments and they even found some human remains that were not intact, as if it had been blown up.
From these remains, there were able to conclude that the bomb was near where this body was standing, at least they assumed it was only one body. The investigation continued on into the next day, with General Griffon constantly giving the Queen updates. This sort of news really made her feel helpless, as her own subjects could not be protected even though they were her close friends. She thought that Elizabella must not be having a good time right now with all that has happened.
She wondered if there was anything that she could do to change that. When she first heard the news, the first thing that she did was that she called her two grandsons to come home, as they were away in a military field training. Since they were deep in their mission, they were not able to receive the message in time, not until two days later did they get the message and headed home.
By the time two days had passed, they had finally managed to clear everything from the debris and recovered over five hundred bodies from the rubble. Most of them were the personal servants of the guests and staff of the mansion. The Blakelochs numbered over two hundred and thirty and yet there were a few bodies that could not seem to be identified right away as their remains were charred beyond recognition.
Also, it appeared that one body was not accounted for. That meant that someone was missing from the whole ordeal and when Elizabella heard this, she thought it hopeful that maybe they were still alive, like maybe they were meant to be there but like her, never arrived on time. When they told her who was missing, her eyes dimmed again as she knew that that person was indeed at the location when it all happened.
"Why has mother's body not been recovered? Is there a chance that she survived the blast?" asked Elizabella a little absentminded to General Griffon who spoke to her through her CD.
"Lady Elizabella, the possibility that she is still alive, is unlikely. We fear that her body may have been disintegrated or maybe during the blast, was flung far off. However, the bomb techs believe that the explosion would have left her traces, if the first scenario were to happen.
"If the second scenario were to have happened, is also unlikely due to the fact that it was a localized explosion, meaning that the bomb did the most damage in one room, where we believe the bomber or bombers were standing. We believe that they are the intact remains that we have found. Also, due to the area being localized, it was not strong enough to blow the top, sort of speak. So the possibility of your mother being thrown somewhere far off, is not likely. We are still searching for the Madame as we speak."
"Thank you General Griffon for your update and hard work," said Elizabella as she hung up her call.
After the call with Elizabella had ended, General Griffon called the Queen.
"Your Majesty, I have done as you asked of me. I have told her her mother is missing. What are your next orders?" asked General Griffon as he looked at the regal woman in his virtual screen.
"That is all for now. Continue investigating. We must know who would harm Our subjects in such a manner. We need justice to be handled. We trust you to find the culprit," said the old Queen as her gaze seemed to pierce through the screen, making the General have cold sweat on his back.
"As you command, Your Majesty," saluted General Griffon as the screen faded and he continued on with the investigation.
After most of the bodies had been identified, a funeral would be held by their families if they were servants with living relatives. If they had no living relative, as the Blakelochs did like to work with a lot of orphans, then their funeral was paid for and buried together in the location were they perished.
Their funerals were quickly done as Elizabella had wished to have a memorial for all of the deceased, both servant and family member, but knew that burying them all at once would not be feasible with so many bodies. Burying them first was the way to go before she buried her family. She had buried her relatives together in the same plot of land, where they had lost their lives, together with their immediate families.
Husbands, wives and children would be buried next to each other. They were all her uncles, aunts, cousins, distant cousins, some she knew very well and others she hardly knew. As her father was the head of the family, he had to buried in the family grave alongside her younger siblings. She had wanted to bury them last as she was hoping that her mother would be found in time to have them bury together.
She had decided to wait for up to a week, with no luck on her whereabouts. At last, the General had completed his report that he had compiled and handed it to the Queen during the time that Elizabella waited to have her mother found. With his departure of the crime scene, Elizabella knew that it was no use in stalling any longer, so she had her family buried.
The Queen had also made her way with her younger grandsons to accompany her to the funeral, to pay her respects to her dear family friends. The funeral was held during a cold winter day, making it almost impossible to have unearth the ground as it had been frozen the night before.
The Queen had suggested that they have their bodies paraded in the capital before heading to their final resting place, which Elizabella had denied as she felt that her family was only rich and never did anything to deserve such an honor other than having close friendship ties to the Queen and her family.
This lesson had made Elizabella become overly cautious. Flaunting their ties and wealth now that she was alone, made no sense to do. This was on the advise of her father's Head Steward, who had survived as he had stayed back in the mansion. Many of her father's servants had stayed, but there were a few who had gone to help with preparations and his guards had gone as well to guard the family. Those who had gone, all perished.