Chapter 32
Thirty-two
Edwin
I sat on the sofa tucked up against James’s side, him with a glass of wine in hand, me with the notebook.
The notebook currently trying to break my brain.
The first few pages seemed innocuous at a glance—a bullet point list with a parenthesis next to each item with a date and no context. It seemed so innocent my brain wanted to la-di-da skip right over it.
Then my eyes caught certain keywords such as Wrath disaster or epidemic, and all of a sudden, I found my attention locked in and ready for action.
I mean, granted, James had given me the bird’s-eye view of what happened in the previous life, but somehow seeing it in writing with an actual timeline made the fact even more soberingly real.
I flipped to the next page, then the one after, where he’d jotted down a more in-depth summary, but even the epidemic had only rated two pages of notes. I did not think this sufficed.
“James?”
“Yes, beloved?”
“How often in our past life did I reach out and try to strangle you for not writing down detailed notes?”
He cleared his throat, looked away as if the wall had suddenly taken up acting, and sipped his wine.
“That often. How about you start explaining to me, then. Whenever you give me satisfactory details, I’ll kiss you.”
The man perked up like a dog being offered a meaty bone. “I like bribes.”
“I’m sure you do.” Keeping the notebook and pen in hand so I could jot down notes, I turned to see his face easier, hooking my thighs over his. It was nice, cozying up with my lover like this.
“Now, let’s start with the beginning problem. You note here the Wrath hit first?”
“Right. I think I mentioned before how when I first came into the palace, I was given work to do, but it took about six months for us to figure out how to use me effectively. I was at leisure more often than not, until I got to know everyone, they knew me, and I figured out where the slack was. So I didn’t realize until after the Wrath hit that one of Victor’s many projects he’d failed to work on was the seawalls. ”
James let out a pained sigh, eyes closing for a second.
“It was horrific, Edwin. Truly, as bad as what happened to us, it was so much worse then. No one was down in the lower city to call on the mages, so their response was slow. It took nearly thirty minutes for them to get the alarm and rally, and even then, they weren’t a united force.
The first responders were quickly overwhelmed, and then the support was slow to arrive.
It was devastating. Thousands of lives lost, property damage in the millions, and it took almost a year before the lower city was rebuilt enough for people to move back in.
Even then, businesses were very, very slow to restart down there.
I actually paid for new seawalls myself, out of pocket, just to avoid the whole issue with the council and get an immediate safety measure in place. ”
“This is why you not only immediately took on the bill for the walls but made sure the mages knew how to deploy.” It all made sense now. “And after the seawall fiasco?”
“Victor lost all chance to be crown prince. It was firmly yanked out of his hands. There was a hot debate for months on who would get the title next. Even then, I didn’t want the throne. That wasn’t why I’d agreed to the adoption. Royce resisted, though, and fought the position tooth and nail.”
I followed the timeline with my finger and pointed to the next thing. “And that’s when the epidemic hit?”
“That’s when the epidemic hit.” James rubbed a hand over his face.
“Really, it was directly caused by the Wrath, although we didn’t realize it at the time.
Royce put the pieces together after the fact.
Because so many people were displaced from their homes, they ended up in a sort of tent city all up and down the coastline.
Sanitation was for shit, they were practically living on top of each other, and the disease sparked like a flame to dry tinder.
It spread like wildfire. Whole towns were burned to the ground in a desperate attempt to halt the disease from spreading.
It did and didn’t work. We learned the preventative measures three months in, but because the towns were walling themselves off from any outsiders, we had a hard time getting the information to anyone. It was too little, far too late.”
The heartbreak in his voice made my own heart pang. I leaned my head against his shoulder in a gesture of support and comfort. “It won’t happen again this time.”
“No, it won’t, I’ll make damn sure of it.”
“How devastating was it?”
“We lost nearly half the populace.”
When the number penetrated, I jerked my head off his shoulder, needing to look into his eyes and make sure I’d heard him right. “Of the entire country?”
“Unfortunately, yes. We lost millions.” James stared down at the open book in my lap, expression twisting with memory and grief.
“It raged for nearly a year and a half without anything to check it until Royce found the cure. Those were dark days. None of us were sleeping. I ran around like a madman, trying to get the cure into everyone’s hands, sometimes distributing it myself.
The sight of towns burning, just black pillars against the sky as I rode for the next town, still haunts me.
It felt like I could never do enough, go fast enough.
It took us almost two months to get the cure out completely, and then the tide stopped, salence faltering until we had only a dozen cases. ”
Yaldir protect us, no wonder he’d been so quick to recruit Royce and give him the hints he needed to figure out the cure. Just preventative measures would do much to save lives this time around. “Is this something else you dream of?”
“Yes and no. It crops up in dreams every now and again, but mostly, I dream of battling the Demon King.”
“You’ve mentioned before you fought him, but how did that even happen? Wasn’t the portal sealed?”
James let out a long sigh, sipping more wine. “I get a kiss for information at this point, I’m sure.”
Snorting, I leaned up and kissed him. “Yes, you’ve done well so far.”
“Thank you, darling.” He stole a kiss in return, grinning.
“Now, now, don’t get distracted. How did the Demon King rise?”
“Sadly, I don’t know,” James answered with a sad shake of his head.
“The ward was old, yes, but still functional. We should have had more time to renew it, but somehow the portal opened. I never could get an answer as to why, just different theories. Once he rose, he sacrificed every person he could lay hands on up north, which was several thousand people, and either turned them into possessed souls to do his bidding or sacrificed them to regain his demonic powers. The only thing I can blame, really, is salence. Because we were so busy recovering from the disease, no one monitored the portal. It never really crossed my mind to be worried about it. We paid dearly as a result.”
I could so easily see it. How often did we make a to-do list for ourselves?
Calendar a renovation or a specific task around the house, only to have it put off for years because of a lack of time or money?
Being a king didn’t automatically give you the power to have the right money, motivation, and time to get everything done. Rather the reverse, from what I’d seen.
“Right as the epidemic started, I was pressured into taking the throne. I did so almost immediately, for a variety of reasons. One, King Patrick’s health was failing.
The stress of two disasters coming in back-to-back had weakened his heart until he just wasn’t up to the strain of governing.
I didn’t really have my head wrapped around how to run a country but promised him I’d get up to speed.
I told him I needed him to stay for two more years and then I’d send him off to retirement. He agreed.
“Two, I couldn’t stand by and watch the entire country suffer, knowing I could do a better job.
I relied heavily on Royce, and after battling with salence, he was spent.
He just didn’t have the energy to battle with his parents anymore over taking the throne.
One day, he just packed up and left. Left the capital altogether, in fact, and retreated far south and stayed there.
He did return to help me when the Demon King rose, and I’m forever thankful.
Then, of course, we had the whole fiasco with Gillespie’s marriage to Helena, and the fallout, and my own damn marriage drama.
Again, some of this I’ve pieced together after the fact, but I believe it was a few years after the epidemic finally died down that the portal’s seal failed completely. Either failed or was undone somehow.”
The timeline worked out in my head near perfectly. “Is that why you were so confident it would fail in five years unless we did something about it now?”
“Yes. I know it failed at that point. Or was sabotaged to fail. Which is why I stationed knights this time.”
James made a face like someone had stuck a thorn directly into his side and then leaned into it.
“When I took the throne, Beatrice arranged an engagement for me with Valentina, which I fought her on, but after the epidemic, I caved. We were in dire straits for money and needed the support of our southern neighbor to get the country back up on its feet again. I put off the marriage for three years, knowing how bad it would be. Gods below, I wish now I hadn’t gone through with it. ”
“You said before she was a female Victor.”