Chapter 16 Lily #2
The soldiers opened the double doors when I approached, each of them making a fist against their chest as they saluted me as their queen.
Lights coming through the large windows filled the entryway and the grand staircase that led to the different levels of the castle.
I assumed my father was in the bedchambers he shared with my mother, so I headed to the third floor, where the royal chambers were located.
The door was open, and voices were audible from inside.
“He looks so pale.” It was my brother.
I stepped farther inside and spotted them across the sitting room and inside the open doorway of the bedroom. My brother sat in an armchair at his bedside. My mother sat beside him, her hand on his shoulder to comfort him.
“This is a stupid question, but how is he?” Hawk spoke quietly, like he was afraid he would wake my father.
“Stable,” Mom said. “That’s what Khazmuda tells me. Their energy is maintaining his body and all his other functions. Khazmuda is tired. More tired than the other dragons because he never gives himself a break.”
“But won’t Khazmuda die if he keeps it up?”
“I think he gives less than the others so he can continue to give.” She rubbed Hawk’s shoulder absent-mindedly while she continued to look at my father.
Paralyzed, all I could do was watch them together, feeling like an outsider who didn’t belong.
After a stretch of silence, my mother withdrew her touch from my brother. “Where’s your sister?”
“I thought she was right behind me.”
I knew I couldn’t linger there forever, behave like a ghost the way Callum did. I forced my feet forward and moved across the rug in the sitting room, and they heard the change in the thud of my boots when I hit the hardwood again.
They both turned to look at me when I stepped into the room.
My mother’s eyes took me in differently, looking at me like she hadn’t seen me in years rather than weeks.
It felt as if she could see the changes within me, the weight of responsibility that I carried, the mark on my heart from a god’s kiss.
I moved to the opposite side of the bed and looked down at my father’s face.
Still sharp and regal, even comatose, he was a king without his armor and sword.
But he was also feeble in that bed, the sheets tucked around his sides and his arms stretched down over the linen.
He looked like he was in a wall-less coffin.
It hurt to look at him.
Really fucking hurt.
My mother wordlessly got up, grabbed a chair from the dining table, and placed it behind me. She gently ran her fingers down my hair in comfort before she moved back to where she’d been seated.
I adjusted my cape before I sat down, still weighed down by the armor and the blade across my back. I felt like I’d served in many battles during my time away, but it was only my heart that had truly been at war.
I stared at his hand, where it lay lifelessly on the bed, and reached for it.
First, our fingers touched, and then I slid my hand farther into his.
Just like when I’d been a little girl, his hand always felt enormous in mine.
His skin was callused from years of wielding his blade, and it felt like sandpaper to the touch.
“We’ll get you back, Dad.” I would defend this kingdom and bring my father back from the brink of death—one way or another.
His fingers suddenly moved in mine, a slight shift before they returned to their stillness. I wasn’t sure if it was an automatic response or if he actually felt me, but his head turned slightly and then he inhaled a sharp breath.
We all stilled as we watched him like he might open his eyes and sit upright.
Then he returned to his coma, his fingers limp in mine.
“That’s the most I’ve seen him move,” my mother said, more to herself than to us.
Khazmuda’s powerful voice suddenly entered my mind. He knows you’re there, Zunieth.
My heart gave a lurch in ecstasy and despair. He does?
For a brief moment, yes. Then his mind returned to a place where I can’t follow.
I should share that with my mother and brother, but I wanted to keep it to myself for some reason.
I wondered if he reacted to me because he was still angry with me…
or because he was afraid for me. Now he was in this permanent state of limbo without understanding that I was safer with the god of the underworld at my side—at least, my body was. My heart was a different matter.
The three of us sat together in silence for a long time, my hand still in his, my family reunited in our greatest moment of despair. I wanted to weep over his limp body, but I had to be strong for him and everyone else in this room. Everyone else in this kingdom.
My mother finally spoke. “Hawk, could you give your sister and me a moment, please?”
Dread dropped into my stomach like a stone in a bucket. What I feared was about to come to pass. I’d hoped my father’s disposition would take the focus completely off me, but that seemed too good to be true.
Hawk silently left the room. His footsteps grew distant, and then the door opened and shut on the other side of the suite.
I wasn’t sure if I should let her interrogate me or if I should try to get ahead of it.
She stared at me, but unlike the way Dad had looked at me in the forest, her stare seemed kind. “I’ve heard tales of the mighty Death Queen as she defended Riviana Star and saved her king from execution.”
She came right out and said it, but not with ferocity. “He’s not my king, but my father.”
“Your father forbade you from traveling to that island to the west, but you’re as rebellious as he was at your age.”
“I didn’t go on purpose. I was shipwrecked.”
The softness in her eyes started to harden. “Lily, you told your father you didn’t want the crown, but then you visit the god of the underworld and ask him for mighty gifts—”
“I didn’t ask him for anything. He granted me those powers freely.”
“The god of the underworld gives nothing for free, Lily. I’ve witnessed the demonic form of Bahamut with my own eyes.”
“Mom.” I had too many burdens to carry on my own, and I couldn’t afford to carry this too. “Do you trust me?”
Her stare initially sharpened, but then it softened once the wave of affection struck her maternal shores.
“They were given freely. I did not offer my soul in exchange. The burdens I carry are many, and I don’t have the ability to argue about something that has already come to pass, not when there are so many issues at hand.
When I spoke with King Ithaca of the Empire Colonies, he met my visit with hostility and demanded our dragons in exchange for his alliance.
I traveled to the Brigandine Empire and earned the loyalty of the pirates there by defeating their enemies.
They’ll come to our aid when we call for it.
The Northern Kingdoms are preparing for the war that is destined to arrive on our doorstep.
And I still need to discover the cure that will heal Father before battle arrives, because I don’t think I can do this without him. So please, just let this be.”
With the sheen of unconditional love in her eyes, she continued to stare at me across the bed, my hand still in my father’s.
“I promise my soul is not at risk—and I would never lie about something like that.”
She considered what I said a long time, at one point even parting her lips like she might say something, but then she changed her mind as her eyes shifted away. “I trust you without your word or promise, sweetheart.”
I tensed as I waited for it, waited for her to rush me with her words.
“But we will need to talk about it at some point.”
“Yeah…I know.” And I wouldn’t be able to lie to her. Not my mother. Not when she was the person to whom I confided everything. I would pour my heart out to her, and instead of focusing on all the urgent matters at hand, I would focus on the angst that festered in my heart.
“But you’re wrong about something.”
“What?” I said quietly.
She looked me dead in the eye, the same expression of pride entering her gaze that my father wore almost every time he looked at me. “You can do this without your father, Lily.”
I shook my head. “I’ve never faced anything like this.”
“I know you can do it,” she said calmly. “You’re the only person who can do it.”