Page 126 of Reign of Light
After Dawnlin deemed me unworthy, I knew I would eventually have to say goodbye to my mother, and this time, for good. Despite being prepared, I knew it would still hurt, but I never thought I would have to do it on the same day I buried my other parent.
“I’ll tell the healers tonight that it’s time.”
I feel him nod against my head, but it takes me off guard when he speaks because it isn’t directed at me.
“You would have made a great mother, Lyla. But you can leave knowing I will take care of her. Even though you never got to meet her, she is still very much your daughter. I swear it.”
My fingertips dig into his hips as I squeeze my eyes shut, completely uncaring that the wetness coating my eyelashes is, once again, going to destroy Tila’s work. I allow myself only a few seconds of despair and pain before I sniffle and push myself away from Weston.
“Alright,” I say, setting my jaw and looking at him directly. “Time to bury my father.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Father’s open coffin sits atop a carriage in the entrance hall, on display so everyone in the castle could say their final goodbyes. I’m the last one left. Guards stand surrounding the black wooden box, their faces solemn, but their bodies still held at attention out of respect for their king.
Edmond waits beside it, along with mister Mason, the man my father chose to manage the daily business of the castle. Both dip into low bows as I approach, and the sadness in their faces is unmistakable as they rise and meet my gaze.
“If your majesty would like any more time before it is sealed, we will all take leave,” Edmond says calmly.
“There’s no need for everyone to leave. I will not take long.” Stopping just an arm’s length away from the foot of the wooden box, look over my shoulder at Weston. Jaw clenched tight, with sorrow etched into his features, he looks upon his lifelong friend. “Mister Rowe, if you’d like some time.”
“Thank you, my queen,” he murmurs with a bow of his head. His hands stay clasped behind his back as he steps past me and approaches the side of the carriage. No one but me can see the whites of his knuckles from his clenched fists, or the tension in his shoulders as he takes in my father’s body.
It takes every strength I have not to reach out and take his hand, to hold him, and touch him like I know he needs to feel comforted, but I can’t. Not here, not with all the watchful eyes of the guards and staff anywhere you look. But he knows I can’t because he doesn’t want me to.
My throat tightens. The emotions of this moment are too much for me to keep down, and it isn’t from what most onlookers would think. It’s from having to watch Weston in pain, going through this alone, and knowing there is nothing I can do to help him.
After Tila interrupted us the other morning, the conversation hadn’t come up again. We don’t agree at all about how to move forward, but once all the formalities are over, and the calm has somewhat returned, we will discuss it again. I know his duty is important to him, but I also know he cares for me more than it. He proved that when he tried to get to me instead of my father. He deserves to be loved loudly, publicly, and not hidden away as an illegitimate secret.
I don’t want to live a life filled with hiding and secrets, and I don’t care about alliances or marriage pacts. I want to prove myself to other kingdoms by being me, by being a strong queen, not fucking a low-born prince just to keep peace.
My father and mother did it. They always chose love, even when it felt hopeless.
They aren’t the only ones.
I can do it too.
Maybe that love is what made my mother hold on, or maybe it was her deep, hopeful love for me and the life we would share.
Weston and I have endured hopelessness, betrayal, death, and despair, and our love never wavered. If all of that brought us together,helping me find him and finally have the love I’ve always wanted, why would I hide it away and pretend it didn’t exist?
His selflessness is almost a fault. Everyone else’s needs are more important than his own. Blackwood, the Castaways, and me. He’s constantly choosing everyone around him, but he’s never had someone choose him.
He is my choice, and more than the fact that I can’t do any of this without him, I don’t want to.
“My king,” Weston grumbles, and bends into a deep bow. When he rises, he wastes no time stepping back into place behind me, and I can’t miss the hard set of his jaw and the pain in his eyes.
Now it’s my turn.
I can’t avoid it any longer, despite how much I want to just escape and let the entire day happen without me. My days of escaping are over, as are my days of having a living parent, because this is it. This is the last moment I will ever see my father.
Stepping up to the side of the carriage, I drag my eyes up his lifeless body to his face. The healers did well at making him look at peace, of erasing the final terrorizing moments of his life. You’d never know by looking at him now that he died at the hands of someone who was trying to take everything from him.
My gaze trails away from his face and down to the hands resting on his chest. They are clasped around his dagger, the gold dull without the touch of light from the darkened rain clouds covering the sky. Edmond asked if there was anything I wanted to keep that would not be buried with him, but I declined.
The only thing he valued besides his dagger was his own ring, but I couldn’t take it from him. It wasn’t a piece of history, or a symbol from Blackwood. That ring symbolizes the love he had for my mother, and the hope he held on to for so long. It shouldn’t ever leave him, just like she never did. I returned hers this morning, and now, they both are whole once again.
The length of his polished blade shines against his pristine burial clothing, and its presence is the last tradition he will take part in as king. Presented to him at his own ceremony, his dagger was the same symbol of protection; for himself, for the kingdom, and now is there to protect him even in the afterlife.
