Chapter Five
W hen morning comes with her beams of sunlight brightening the room, I awake confused. The opulent drapes framing this enormous bed are unlike the small, basic furnished bedroom I shared with Avicii.
And then, unbidden once again, it all hits me like a summer storm—dark clouds roll in and unleash a torrent of emotions drenching my thoughts and leaving me wrecked.
I’m not in my own bed. I’m back at the castle. In my childhood bed.
Avicii is dead. The garden. Our fight. Our final fight. My failure to Avicii, to Father, to my kingdom.
I launch my last pillow over my head in an attempt to stop the memories from bombarding me.
If only feathers and silk could stop them.
A comforting sea of green surrounds me. The scent of tomatoes freshly cut from the vine fills the air as I lift my now full basket to make one last stop at the wildflowers. I’ll pick a quick bouquet and then go in. Avicii always brightens when he sees the fresh flowers on the table. “You are the bright wildflowers of my heart.” He used to say each time I placed a jar of fresh cut flowers on the kitchen table.
“Ow!” I bring my finger to my mouth while looking for the cause of my sudden pain. A bee lies in the flower bed, no longer able to sting. No longer a threat. My finger swells and turns red in an instant, but I gently work the stinger out from the center with my dirt-filled fingernail.
“Rowandine?” a familiar voice calls from the stables. And then quieter as if to himself. “Where has that woman gone off to now?” I didn’t expect Avicii for another day or two. He helps me up from the ground, his callused hands warm in my own. I grunt with the strain of the full basket of crops I’ve managed to harvest today. Avicii takes my hand rake, trowel, and pruning shears from my hands, adding them to my basket before he hefts the crops over his shoulder and I gather my bouquet as we begin our way back to the house. He sighs, the exasperation is clear on his face, but not anger. Not yet. “You know you shouldn’t be out here all day digging around in the dirt. It’s not good for the baby. Just in case. You need to be careful.”
And there it is. The same fight we have every month when my courses return. I brace myself for the oncoming storm and he sees the moment when I flinch. His hand drops from my arm, causing me to stumble a moment before I can right myself on my own.
“Again?” he asks, the color rising in his face along with the frustration. I straighten at the familiar tone, preparing myself for what’s to come. With my free hand, I press my thumbnail into the throbbing bee sting, an attempt to anchor myself before it all falls apart, again.
“I’m sorry, Avicii. I don’t know what’s wrong,” I mumble with disappointment as thick as molasses in my mouth. Once again, I’m unable to give him the one thing he asks of me. Of what my kingdom asks of me.
“I know what’ s wrong.” I look up at him, confused at the certainty in his voice. But the small glimmer of hope kindling to life deep inside me at his understanding vanishes when I see the familiar rage in his eyes. “What your father gave me is broken. I should’ve pressed him harder for Licia. Your sister would’ve at least been able to produce a child.”
His words land like a slap across my face. Being compared to Licia is nothing new, we’ve grown up next to each other all our lives and I’ve heard the whispers. Our differences have always been apparent, and I know I’ve always appeared as the weed in her garden, but to hear this—this from my husband. My husband who once loved and cared for me.
But no longer.
Rage overcomes him. His fists clench and unclench. I watch, knowing I’ll be fine as long as he—I try to inch myself backward as the rage reaches his arms, shaking and fierce. But this only infuriates him further, fueling the anger now radiating off of him.
“If there is no heir, then—”
“I may be royal, but I am the youngest. My brother is the one who will produce an heir, no one is concerned with what the third child can or can't produce.” I try to sound reasonable, but we’ve had this discussion too many times to count.
“That’s not how your father sees it, and you know it.”
I cringe, knowing he’s spoken to my father about this and he’s right. Hadeon sees this as a slight to him personally and a black mark against our family being the fertile bunch he claims. This will shed unwanted light on the fact that Killian has only produced two girls so far and Licia’s untried womb.
Light feet pad across the marble floors of the bedroom, pulling me from my nightmare. My memories. I lift the pillow off of my head and slowly look toward the sound.
“Are you asleep?” Licia’s voice is low and scratchy with sleep and a hint of something I could probably identify if I’d slept better. “I thought I heard you talking.” She looks around the room as if I’ve hid someone behind the curtains.
I launch the pillow at her, surprised at her assumption. Exhaustion still pulls at me, but I’ve missed this. “I must’ve been talking in my sleep.” I make space beside me and pull the covers open, knowing Licia will join.
“Bad dream? Have you had a lot of those since—” Her voice trails off, but I know she means since Avicii passed so unexpectedly. Little does she know it’s not just the nightmares that keep me up as of late.
“Must’ve been. Yes and no, it’s all a lot to process so suddenly,” I answer honestly. Her presence warms the room and chases away the lingering darkness.
“Well, this may help a tiny bit.” The smell of clove and cinnamon warm my insides as she wafts a sweet roll under my nose. I’m instantly more awake. My favorite pastry? But that must mean…
“Happy birthday!”
“It’s my—our—it's the eleventh already? Oh!” I throw my arms around her. “Happy birthday to you, too! I’ve completely forgotten. With everything going on, I barely know what day it is.”
She hands me the plate, frowning at my pain, and reaches down to grab the pillow I threw at her, fluffing it until she’s satisfied and joins me, snuggling down into the covers, just as we used to.
Even in sleep, we were inseparable. Using the last moments of the night and first moments of the morning to share secrets and dreams with each other.
She pulls apart the sweet roll as I pull from the other side. Our motions are rusty, but we easily fall into our birthday morning routine.
“Did you ever think on our thirty-fifth birthday,” she begins around a full mouth of sweet, goey goodness, “we’d be sharing a sweet roll in our childhood room? One a maiden and one a widow?” Her big sigh is more telling than her words. She’s not the only one disappointed in the way things have turned out.
I can’t help but let out a laugh. “There’s a maiden in this room?” I make a show of looking all around the room for someone else. “I hadn’t realized we had company.”
She laughs, elbowing me lightly in the side. “It’s rude to mention a lady’s indiscretions.” She brings her free hand to her chest in mock outrage, her curling bangs falling into her eyes.
“I believe you were the one who brought it up, dear sister,” I reply through a laugh that echoes into the high ceiling of the room.
A comfortable silence falls while we both pull another chunk from the roll.
But Licia brings up the inevitable. “You must miss him. You were so happy in your cottage tucked into the hills, far enough away from court to not be bothered,” she says dreamily, and I realize it must indeed be a dream for her. She’s still here, at the beck and call of our father and his politics. At thirty-five, she’s reached a stage in life where societal expectations weigh heavily. I still don’t understand why he kept us close all these years, almost too long for anyone to have us.
I choose my words carefully, knowing she’s looking forward to her marriage, even though Father refuses every suitor who comes for her. “We were happy together.” And that's accurate enough. It’s just been so long since that was the case. “What about you? Who’s been keeping you happy as of late?” I try to change the subject, the wound still too fresh to poke.
“Father mentioned you two weren’t able to bond?” It’s almost a whisper, but loud enough for me to hear. She’s not looking at me, giving me a way out of the conversation if I want it.
Bonding with a partner isn’t something everyone can do, and most humans can't. But it is something expected of royals. Killian and his wife bonded almost instantly. And although it can’t be seen, if you know them well enough, there’s a change in them both, especially when they’re together.
Some people say it's a spark that surrounds the person and gets brighter when they’re closer to their mate. Others say it looks like a colorful bubble just on the peripheral surrounding them. Licia always described it as more of a feeling when she was around people. Even when we were little, she would feel the air vibrating a certain way between two people and she just knew. I’ve never been able to see it, let alone feel it, so I wouldn’t be sure what to look for. I was hoping to get my first glimpse with Avicii.
Unable to ignore Licia, I respond. “No. It never happened. I kept waiting for something. We tried everything—finishing each other’s sentences, sleeping together under a full moon, feeding each other from a silver spoon. We even mixed our blood with an obsidian dagger.” I cringe thinking about the last one, remembering the way my blood bloomed from beneath the steel blade as Avicii slid it across my palm .
Licia laughs outright at my absurd response and I try to mask my thoughts. “Those are all just silly superstitions. If you and he were mates, it just would have happened, with or without you willing it so.”
My cheeks redden and I stare straight ahead, avoiding eye contact with her. “We knew that. But hoped there must be some sort of truth in one of them.” What I leave unsaid is, I had hoped it would’ve made it easier to bear his child. Something we were never able to do. Something he reminded me of constantly. It was my fault.
She sits up, propping herself up on her elbow. “You’re right. I would’ve tried everything under the stars as well. I’m sorry your bond never clicked into place. But something has changed within you. You’re not yourself since you’ve been back.”
She’s right of course. I feel it, too. I can’t put my finger on it, but I know it has to do with the last day I saw Avicii. I can’t recall all that was said, but when the messenger found me at the cottage and handed me that letter, I couldn’t even bring myself to cry. I only felt relief with the news. But I can’t let her see my confusion, not when I don’t know exactly how I feel or even what happened. So I just shrug at her comment.
“But tell me, there has to be a special someone?” I try again to change the subject. “Or a special someones ?”
She smiles, hugging her knees into her chest and staring off dreamily. “There is someone. It’s too early to tell, but I think it's something more this time. He’s my everything, Roe!” She throws an arm across her eyes exaggeratedly, making light of her serious feelings and suggests he really is someone special, and it frightens her.
“I bet he is, if he has you stumbling over yourself.” I try to hide my smile but can’t help it .
“This is news! I’m so happy for you. Is it someone Father has introduced you to?” Knowing that if it’s not, she’ll have a hard time moving forward with anything more than the trysts she no doubt finds time for now.
The slow shake of her head and the way her lips curve from a wistful smile to a frown tell me otherwise though. There’s no hope there. Her and her secret lover will only ever be that. No matter how her heart feels.
I wrap her hand in my own, our sticky fingers intertwining and the empty plate forgotten. She rests her head on my shoulder and I rest my head on top of hers. We stay there for just a moment. Her grieving for a love she’ll never freely have and me trying to forget all that’s happened since I thought I found love.
“Don’t worry. We’ll figure out just what you need and set you right.” She pops up, visibly shaking off the mental cobwebs, at least for now.
“Speaking of that, I think what I want to do is spend the morning in the healer’s ward.” I follow her lead and start climbing out of the cozy nest we’ve made. “I don’t think anyone will miss my absence.”
“You know you shouldn’t go down there, Roe. Father has made his thoughts very clear about that already.”
I shrug her off. This is the one thing I won’t bend so easily on. Being in the healer’s ward is the only place I’ve ever felt myself—next to my garden in the hills. “I’ll be discreet.”
Before I disappear out the door, I look back at her. Her face is unreadable. “I’m sorry about the Etos king.”
She looks at me as if her mind has already moved to the next task of the day. Her hand fans the air. “He’s no match for me. And I’m not upset with you of all people.”
Her reassuring smile carries me all the way to the ward.