Page 81 of The King is Dead
I should have known. Should have anticipated. But now I could see it and… and I grieved for him.
My boy had done a man’s job. And a man he had become. Whether it suited him or not.
There was no longer any question in my mind how to address this with him.
Our eyes locked and despite the grief weighing my lungs, I straightened to my full height and forced my features to calm, barking at him—not a father’s assurance, but a General’s command.
“Soldier,attend.”
I saw his lips tighten in the split-second before he reluctantly obeyed, but we had trained and trained to make certain he’d never again face repercussions for responding too slowly to a command.
He snapped to attention, chin up, and eyes fixed in the middle distance. But his jaw was tight, those muscles flexing as he clenched his teeth.
I crossed the space between us to stand over him—barely. I used to have inches on him. When had he started looking me in the eye?
Except, he wasn’t. He was doing as he’d been told, standing at attention, avoiding challenge, awaiting command. He stared at the tree over my shoulder, lips pressed to thin lines as he fought the urge to resist me.
“Are you the Warrior who answers to Gallus Dann Handras?” I bit off the syllables of his full name.
Gall blinked. “I am,” he responded abruptly. “But… I am no Warrior. I am a servant to the… the…”
Shit, was he going to forget?
Gall swallowed hard. “I am a servant to the crown, a-a mind trained for war, and a body apprenticed to weapon.”
“You speak true, soldier,” I said quietly. “But today, I stand, a Warrior, a General, and… and your Commander, to acknowledge you before the Crown.’
Gall’s eyes went wide and he swallowed again, but he rightly didn’t say anything as I drew the knife from the hidden sheath in these leathers that Yilan had given me, thanking God she’d trusted me enough to give me a weapon.
Keeping myself straight and proud, but my face solemn, I stared down at him. “What is your name, Warrior?”
“I am Gallus Dann Handras,” he said slowly, blinking several times.
“Gallus Dann Handras, I am Melek Erus Handras, and I see you. I see not a soldier, but a Warrior. A man who has taken the fate given him, and proven his worth. Do you recognize the call?”
A tiny noise broke in the back of Gall’s throat. “I… I do,” he rasped, his eyes beginning to well.
Fuck. Now I was going to cry.
I blinked back the threatening blur, and swallowed the pinch in my throat.
“I stand witness to you, Gallus Dann Handras. I acknowledge your courage and strength. I call witness of the world to your victory. Only a warrior can take the life of an enemy in war, and so you… You are now a Warrior.”
Gall cleared his throat, blinking rapidly. “I…Papa are you sure?”he croaked, his voice a ragged whisper, as if we truly recited the ritual in front of an audience.
I swallowed hard and only nodded once, waiting for him to finish his response with the correct words, praying he remembered them.
Gall blinked again, and again, hands clenching to fists at his sides as he fought for control.
“I have slain the… the enemy in defense of my brothers,” he said hoarsely. “I have proven no coward in the face of danger.”
I nodded again sharply, just once. “Stand silent, Warrior, in respect for the dead.”
The poignancy of that moment smacked me between the eyes. It was tradition in our ranks to recognize the fallen, to acknowledge that victory in battle came at the cost of death from another. That our brothers who had been killed were now in the dirt with our enemies. And that we, too, would fall one day. But I hadn’t thought ahead to the fact that Gall would be asked to stand in silent memorial to the man he had killed: His blood-father. And his King.
But to my surprise, even though his eyes widened, and a quiver rocked through him, his eyes cleared of tears and his chin rose as we stood there, twin statues, remembering the dead.
When the minute of silence was done, I cleared my throat and put one hand on his shoulder to turn him so he stood on profile.
