𝔒𝔫𝔢 𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔨 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔣𝔬𝔲𝔯 𝔡𝔞𝔶𝔰 𝔩𝔞𝔱𝔢𝔯...
~𝔗𝔞𝔦𝔯𝔢𝔫~
It'd been weeks. Weeks since I'd last seen Ryker. Weeks since we'd gotten Hailey back and weeks since I've heard from even Keo.
And it was getting to me.
Little by little, I began to hate walking past TKG trainings rooms. Little by little, I stopped going to the garden. And little by little, I secluded myself into my room, asking for food to be brought to me, for any papers needing to be signed or letters needing to be read to be delivered and immediately taken back.
The castle grew quiet. Deafeningly quiet.
I wondered if it only seemed so quiet for me. I wondered if everyone else noticed how silent it became once Dallas and Ryker were gone. Maybe it was only me.
A knock on my door brought me out of my stupor. I slowly stood up, begrudgingly making my way to the door and standing on the other side, hoping that whoever it was would think I was asleep and leave me alone.
To my disappointment, another knock came from the other side and I flung the door open, glaring when I met Cedric's eyes, and forcing myself to keep that glare even when I noticed Ezra behind him.
"So you are alive," Ezra joked. I ignored him, walking over to my desk chair, allowing them to let themselves in. I'd been avoiding the world lately, but I'd avoided Cedric and Ezra just a little more.
"Tairen, its been weeks. You need to attend to your duties as King," Cedric said, and then riddled on about how there's more to being King than the paperwork, and that's when I started to tune him out, picking up my pen and fiddling with it. "Tairen, are you listening to me?"
I shook my head, not even sparing Cedric a glance. He sighed and turned to Ezra. They began talking as if I wasn't there, so I acted as if they weren't either.
My mind drifted elsewhere. I wanted to go to the garden, even though I hadn't been there since we'd returned from Myre. I hated the emptiness of it. I used to go there all the time. My mother loved that place and as I grew up, I learned to love it too. But as soon as I brought Ryker there, it became something more than just a memory of my late mother, but instead it gave me a chance to meet up with Ryker, to have a place where we both went to and I could be alone with him. It became a memory of him, too.
I sighed. If he would have thought of it that way, thought of me that way, then he would have come home with me. He would have given up on this pointless mission and spent his time with me. Didn't he see that it was stupid to spend what little time he had left on a mission that would expose nothing good for him?
I could only hope he'd return having found nothing. If he returned at all.
"Tairen, you can't stay in here forever." Ezra's hand accompanied his words, resting on my shoulder gently while his words taunted me. Telling me what to do. Everyone's always telling me what to do.
I leveled my eyes with his, tilting my head. "What do you want?" I kept his gaze as he nervously worked his jaw, pulling away from me. "If you have something to say, then say it. Otherwise, get out of my room."
He broke eye contact, turning away and forfeiting the fight. He left Cedric to speak, stepping away to leave room for only us. Can't they see how pointless this is? How pointless all of it is?
"If you don't attend the meeting tonight, your reputation will take a huge hit. You can't afford that, especially with members of The King's Guard being out right now. It'll only make things more difficult for them if people lose faith in you," Cedric said, crossing his arms. He was acting like my father. Reprimanding me. Telling me what to do. Always telling me what to do.
"Members of 'The King's Guard.' You know who they are, Duke," I said, shifting my gaze to him. "You know their names. The names of the people I left out there. You know them so why won't you say them?"
"Tairen, it was just easie—"
"No. That's not it," I said, standing. I only realized how close he'd gotten to me when I was tilting my chin to meet his eyes. "You think they're dead. That they're already gone."
"You're talking nonsense, Tairen," Ezra piped in once more. Why don't they know their place?
"Our best soldiers are out there, Tairen. Not to mention, they have Keo. You yourself know that nothing short of a monstrosity could stop those boys." Cedric's eyes were dark as he practically spat the words at me. Inches from me, I could see the glint in his eyes—the fire. "Don't put words in my mouth, Sire."
I smirked, pulling away, and couldn't help but chuckle, running my hands down my face. My eyes found the scarf on my bed. A purple scarf that couldn't be very warm, just resting on the bed post, as if waiting.
My hands shook. "I left them out there. They could have come back with us, been safer, but I left them," I said, gritting my teeth.
"Tairen, they'll be fine." Ezra did his best to assure me, stepping forward once more. "They're just on a recon mission, we don't know what the threat is—if there is any."
"There's a threat. There's always a threat." I met his gaze. This time I made sure to keep mine on his, even when he turned away, like everyone inevitably does. "You know that just as well as I do. Even if there's not an uprising, there's monsters and the weather, and people." I stood up. "And if something happens out there, it'd be my fault. My fault that they could not make it back. Or maybe they make it back in a worse way than when they'd left." When I took a step closer to him, I couldn't help but notice the way Ezra's hand brushed his belt, right where he'd usually be carrying a sword. "And me sitting here waiting isn't doing anything and if I go out there and talk to my people who don't give two shits about what might happen to them, that'll do nothing more for them either."
It was hot. I could feel my hands shaking, feel the twitch of my jaw as I told myself to just relax. I could feel my control slipping and all I could do was watch as I scrambled to pull myself together.
"And when he dies, I'll have done nothing but sat and watched when I could have dragged him back. If only I could have brought myself to be so selfish maybe then he'd have a better chance at a life, a better chance at something more than the pitiful thing he's become." I found myself staring at Ezra's hands, the way they twitched, just like when we'd fought and he was left with nothing but his hands to protect himself. He felt cornered.
"That's enough, Tairen."
My eyes snapped up to the familiar voice. Hailey.
Her eyes were dark. After weeks of recovery, she still looked as if she were sick. Her skin more pale than I'd ever seen it before, her blue eyes sunken and tired. I knew she wasn't taking this situation well either, having grown attached to them during her short stay out there.
Ezra rolled his eyes and left the room in a hurry. He was the type that if given the chance, he'd always run.
Cedric turned to me, obviously disappointed, his eyes studying me for a moment before he sighed, turning away. "You'll learn some day, Tairen. Some day you'll learn that not everything leads back to you, for better or worse." He said the words quiet, as if he wasn't quite sure if he believed them himself, and then followed Ezra out of the room, closing the door behind him.
I picked up on Hailey's discomfort as soon as the door clicked shut. After last time, when we were alone together, in this room no less, I was surprised that she even wanted to come here in the first place.
"I heard the commotion from next door," she explained, as if reading my mind. I nodded, sitting at my desk and sighing, head tilted back to look at the ceiling. She cleared her throat, regaining her composure, I assumed. "They'll be back, Tay. Neither Dallas nor Ryker would let themselves get killed out there, I promise you that."
I scoffed. "Nobody lets themselves get killed, Hailey," I said without sparing her a glance.
She took a deep breath. "I know you're upset and I can't help but assume you're upset with Ryker for deciding to continue the mission. I ask that you listen to me for a moment so that you can understand that he wasn't doing it out of spite, far from it."
I rubbed my eyes, turning to her with a sigh. "Let's hear it, then."
Her eyes lit up for a moment, her posture straightening. "I spent a long time getting to know Ryker in particular. He isn't the type to do things out of spite. He's not a spiteful person—"
"Your words are becoming irrelevant, you're telling me nothing that I don't already know," I cut her off.
"You said you'd listen." I clenched my jaw, turning away once more and motioning for her to continue. "My point is, Tairen, you need to learn how to interpret other ways of affection and that you need to see that the way you are affects the way Ryker believes you feel about him. Because of the way you are, he feels the need to prove himself in this way."
"I never told him that he needed to prove anything. Thats not what he's here for," I argued.
"Well did you ever think to tell him that?" she questioned. I sent her a glare. "All I'm saying is that you blaming yourself or being upset with him isn't helping anything. You're blaming yourself for a decision he made and there's nothing you can do about it and I understand you being upset but you need to realize that despite it seeming stupid or reckless, it is the only way he knows how to prove himself worthy, and I urge you to let him do it the only way he knows how."
I nodded and my response didn't seem to satisfy her so I said, "Thanks."
She stood there for a moment before leaving the room with a sigh. I didn't understand what she thought that would do, if she thought her words would just magically fix the way I felt about the situation.
I stood up, leaving the room for the first time in what felt like forever. That feeling in my stomach—that tight, heavy feeling— only worsened as I grew closer to my destination. It almost hurt and I told myself it was all in my head, that it was just me letting things get to me again.
A king did not let things get to him. Only another reason to cut out the weaknesses that made me this way.
The garden always smelled so welcoming. The rare plants and rich soil made for a wonderfully unique scent that one couldn't grow tired of. I hadn't been here in a while and the emptiness of it only reminded me why. It looked exactly as it did when I left it. Not a single thing out of place. I guess that was part of the reason I didn't like it.
My fingers brushed the drooping flowers, dry petals at my feet. Most of the plants in here were watered regularly, automatically, but some needed special care and those ones had wilted in my absence.
Perhaps such plants should not be kept in the confines of a flower pot, depending on a human to keep it alive. How narcissistic is humanity that we find ourselves playing god with anything and everything we can?
I laughed softly and found myself picking up the pot. And then I dropped it, watching it shatter at my feet, soil dusting my boots and slivers of terracotta grazing my legs.
"Damn it all," I hissed under my breath, my fists clenching as my eyes glanced around the room. My throat clenched, hot with anger, an anger I couldn't force out of my veins.
I saw him everywhere in this room. On the hammock, leaning against a table, tending to the flowers. Leaving. It was best if he left. It was best if he stayed gone.
My hands swung at pots, stepping on the plants as the flattened against the ground. Thorns stuck into my fists and soil stained my clothes as everything around me broke. I destroyed everything around me and with it, a reminder that I would put a end to this weakness.
Blood and dirt and plants spotted the ground and my hands shook, my breath calming as I laid on the hammock.
That fresh scent was sickening.
Its cold.
Why is it so cold?
I pried my eyes open, although it seemed cold enough to have frozen them shut. I didn't know it got so cold in the garden.
I sat up, my back aching. I don't know how Ryker slept on the hammock so much.
"Tairen."
A single word, catching the breath in my throat and refusing to let me use it, and in doing so, keeping me completely still. It couldn't be.
"Tairen, you need to listen to me."
And those words seemed to pull me out, allowing me to breathe, as long as he was the one to ask them of me.
I met his eyes. Those smokey blue eyes.
"Ryker. What are you—"
"This is important. I need to know if you're listening—really listening." His eyes were alert, darting around the room as if something were hiding there, something in the shadows that we couldn't see.
I sat up straighter, forcing myself to pay attention—to listen—but my mind kept trailing back to the fact that he's here. He's finally here.
"There is a threat. A threat I'm not sure we have the ability to handle," he said, his voice shaking. "And I'm afraid." His eyes met mine, his fingers interlocking nervously. "I think we should all be afraid."