Chapter 26 Embers of the Crown
EMBERS OF THE CROWN
SEBASTIAN
Morning came soft through mist, turning the mausoleum grounds into something that looked like memory.
I walked alone. Cloak heavy with damp. White rose in my hand, thorns biting my palm through the cloth. The pain felt right. Necessary. Small penance for taking eighteen years to find the truth.
Marble statues lined the path. Dead kings. Dead queens. All the ancestors who'd worn the crown before it crushed them. Their stone faces watched me pass, judging or indifferent, impossible to tell which.
The gardens sprawled around my mother's tomb like she'd planted them herself. White roses everywhere. The kind that bloomed even in winter. The kind that refused to die no matter how hard the world tried to kill them.
Like her. Like me.
Rain had eased to mist that clung to everything. Turned the world soft-edged and gentle. Made it easier to pretend she was just sleeping instead of eighteen years dead.
Her tomb stood apart from the others. Simple. Clean. Just her name and the dates that bookended a life too short. No grand proclamations. No lists of titles or achievements. Just:
QUEEN ISABELLE LAURENT
BELOVED WIFE, MOTHER, SOVEREIGN
I knelt. The wet grass soaked through my trousers immediately. Cold. Real. Grounding me in the present even as my mind lived in the past.
“We found him,” I whispered. My voice cracked. Broke. Like I was thirteen again and watching her bleed. “The man who took you from us. The one who changed the routes. Who made sure you'd be in the right place at the right time.”
The rose trembled in my hand.
“Marcel.” His name tasted like poison. “Papa's closest friend. The man who stood beside us at your funeral and cried like he'd lost something precious. Who helped raise me. Who taught me politics and strategy and all the ways to smile while bleeding inside.”
I traced her name on the stone. Felt the carved letters under my fingertips. Cold. Permanent. Final.
“You were right about the rot. It was standing beside us all along. Pretending to help while it hollowed us out from the inside.”
Anger and relief tangled in my chest until I couldn't separate them. Couldn't tell which was which.
“I'm sorry it took so long. Sorry I didn't see it. Sorry I couldn't—”
My throat closed. The words stuck.
“You threw yourself in front of that bolt. Chose me over yourself. Didn't hesitate. Didn't think.” Tears burned behind my eyes. Hot. Unwanted. “And I've spent eighteen years trying to be worth that sacrifice. Trying to be what you needed me to be.”
The mist thickened. Turned the world into watercolor. Soft and bleeding and impermanent.
“I don't know if I am. Worth it. Most days I feel like I'm just. Surviving. Going through motions. Playing a part you wrote for me before you knew how it would end.”
I set the rose against the stone. White petals against white marble. Like they'd grown there. Like they belonged.
“But I found him. And we'll make him pay. For you. For Papa. For all of us.”
Footsteps approached through wet grass. Measured. Deliberate. I didn't turn. Didn't need to.
My father's voice came quiet. Careful. “She'd hate this weather.”
I looked up. Found him standing there with an umbrella he wasn't using. Just holding it like he'd forgotten what it was for. Silver hair plastered to his skull. Rain running down his face like tears he was too tired to hide.
“She loved the rain,” I said.
“She loved everything.” He moved closer. Knelt beside me. His knees cracked. Age catching up. “Even when the world gave her reasons not to.”
We looked at her tomb together. Father and son. Two men who'd lost the same woman and never learned how to talk about it.
“Do you think she'd forgive us?” I asked. “For not seeing it sooner? For letting him walk free for eighteen years?”
“I think she'd understand grief makes fools of everyone.” His hand found my shoulder. Heavy. Real. “And that understanding and forgiving aren't the same thing.”
“Are you asking for forgiveness?”
“I don't deserve it.”
“Neither do I.” I touched the rose. “But I'm asking anyway.”
Silence settled. Just rain and breathing and all the words we'd never said.
“I let Marcel become my crutch after she died,” my father said finally. Voice raw. Honest. “Grief makes cowards of kings. Makes you reach for anything that promises to hold you up. Even when that thing is poison disguised as medicine.”
“He used you.”
“He used all of us. I just made it easier.” His grip on my shoulder tightened. “I'm sorry, Sebastian. For being weak. For not protecting you. For letting a monster stand beside us while he planned our destruction.”
The apology hung there. Too big. Too late. Too necessary.
“Then let's stop being cowards,” I said. Placed my hand over his. “For her. For us. For everyone he's hurt.”
“How?”
“By finishing what we started. By making sure he pays for every drop of blood he spilled.”
My father was quiet for a long moment. Then he nodded. Once. Sharp. Final.
“Justice or vengeance?” he asked.
“Does it matter?”
“It should.”
“But does it?” I looked at him. At this king who'd spent eighteen years carrying guilt that wasn't entirely his. “She's dead either way. Bringing him to trial or putting a bullet in his skull won't change that.”
“No. But one makes us better than him. The other makes us the same.”
“Then we do it right,” I said. “We bring him to trial. We make sure the world knows what he did. We let history judge him.”
“And if history's judgment isn't enough?”
“Then we'll live with that too.”
My father's expression shifted. Something that might've been pride. Or relief. Or both.
“Your mother would be proud of you.”
“I'm not sure I believe that.”
“I do.” He stood. Offered me his hand. “Come. The rain's getting worse.”
I took his hand. Let him pull me up. We stood there for a moment, looking at her grave, at the roses blooming white against grey stone.
Sunlight slipped through clouds. Brief. Fleeting. Touching her name like a blessing before disappearing again.
A promise of peace that wouldn't last. Could never last.
But it was enough.
Afternoon found us in my father's private sitting room. Fire crackling. Rain against windows. Tea going cold on a table between us.
The room felt different than his study. Smaller. Warmer. More human. Pictures of my mother everywhere. Of me as a child. Of all of us together before the world fell apart.
Evidence that we'd been happy once. That love had existed here before grief hollowed us out.
“What will you do?” my father asked. “When this is over? When Marcel's been caught and tried and locked away?”
I stared into my teacup. Watched steam rise and disappear. “Make the crown worth the blood that built it.”
He studied me. Really looked. Like he was seeing me for the first time in years.
“You sound like her.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“Both.” His mouth curved. Sad. Honest. “She had ideals that would've destroyed the monarchy. But she also had the fire to remake it into something better.” He paused. “I see that same fire in you. Have for years. Terrifies me.”
“Because you think I'll burn the kingdom down?”
“Because I know you will. The question is whether you'll build something worth keeping from the ashes.”
The words settled over me. Heavy. True.
“I don't know if I can,” I admitted. “I'm not her. I'm. Broken in ways she never was.”
“You're not broken. You're grieving. There's a difference.”
“Is there?”
“Yes.” He leaned forward. “Broken things can't be fixed. But grief? Grief just needs time. And the right person to share the weight.”
I thought about Viktor. About the way he carried his own ghosts. The way we'd learned to shoulder each other's burdens without asking permission.
“I think I found that person,” I said quietly.
My father smiled. “I know you did.”
He reached into his pocket. Pulled out a ring. Small. Delicate. Gold band with a single emerald. “Your mother wanted you to have this. When you were ready.”
I stared at it. Recognized it immediately.
Her signet ring. The one she'd worn every day. The one she'd pressed into my palm that night while she bled.
“I'm not ready,” I said.
“No one ever is.” He took my hand. Pressed the ring into my palm. Just like she had. “But you're close enough.”
The metal was warm from his pocket. From his hand. From memory.
“What if I fail?” The question came out broken. Young. “What if I can't be what she needed me to be?”
“Then you fail. And you try again. That's all any of us can do.” His grip tightened. “Your mother didn't die so you could be perfect. She died so you could live. Really live. Not just survive.”
Tears blurred my vision.
“I miss her.”
“I know. So do I.” He pulled me into a hug. Held me while I fell apart. “Every damn day.”
We stayed like that until the tears stopped. Until I could breathe again without it hurting.
When we finally pulled apart, I felt lighter. Cleaner. Like something had broken open and drained.
“Thank you,” I said. “For. This. For talking to me like I'm human instead of just an heir.”
“You're my son first. Always.” He wiped at his own eyes. “Even when you're impossible. Especially then.”
A knock interrupted. Viktor at the threshold. Silent. Watchful. Eyes finding mine immediately.
“Sorry to interrupt, Your Majesty,” he said. “But we need to move. Adrian's confirmed Marcel's location.”
My father stood. Looked at Viktor. Then back at me.
“Watch over him tonight,” he said. Not a command. A plea. “Tomorrow the walls will shake. But tonight. Let him rest.”
“Always, Your Majesty.”
My father's hand found my shoulder one last time. “Your mother believed love could save empires. Don't prove her wrong.”
Then he was gone. Leaving me alone with Viktor and the weight of everything unsaid.
“You okay?” Viktor asked.
“I will be.” I slipped my mother's ring onto my finger.
Night came with rain that turned the windows into rivers.