Chapter 76
Skylenna
A closed casket sits among a still surrounding of red oak trees.
Silent onlookers mourning with us.
According to Marilynn, Niles wanted to be buried here one day.
He assumed he would pass of old age and outlive all of us, then when it was time, he would want to be buried close to where we held family dinners on Sundays.
He would want a resting place close to where DaiSzek would rest too. He wanted to be close to family.
Dessin stands on the other side of Niles’s grave, an open rectangle six feet under.
I choose to look at my soulmate, and not where Niles sleeps.
“Niles would be very happy right now. In fact, he wouldn’t let us live it down.” Dessin has his hands in his suit pockets, peering down at Niles’s grave. “Why? Because today, imagine being the main character in a funeral full of main characters.”
I look at the people who have gathered for his funeral. At Warrose and Ruth, at Marilynn and Niklaus, at my children and Chekiss, at DaiSzek. I smile at the thought of Niles taunting us with this. All the attention is on him today.
“Marilynn told me last night that Niles would have wanted me to give his eulogy, so I spent all night writing and rewriting how I wanted to do this. How does one put into words…their final goodbye to their lifelong best friend?” He looks at me with a sad smile before continuing.
“I want to start by saying that I couldn’t stand Niles when I first met him.
I did my best to avoid him. But my time ignoring him actually had the opposite effect.
Niles worked hard to get my attention and to be my friend. ”
I remember those days in the prison when their bickering became a source of entertainment for us. A little bit of light in that dark hole.
“The first time he wore me down was when I found out Niles dove through pikes of fire to break DaiSzek out of his cage during a battle with Vexamen. Before that, DaiSzek would growl at him if Niles tried to pet him. And now? Look at the way my boy won’t leave Niles’s side, even now that he’s gone.”
We all look to the spot DaiSzek is lying in, right on the edge of the six-foot hole. If he could lie in there with him, he would.
“Niles knew how to bring humor to a dark situation. He could always make my girl laugh. But through that humor, Niles was a magnificent friend. Loyal. Heroic. Strong. I knew all of this about him for years, but I gained a new, profound respect for him when I learned how he saved my daughter’s life.
My friend never had the same training I had, but he used his own hands to protect my daughter from a sword.
That is a debt that I can never pay back.
I will never get to the chance to hug him again, to tell him thank you. ”
I don’t know how I’m still standing. How I’m still keeping my emotions strapped down and kept quiet. But I listen to my husband keep going in awe.
“In the Vexamen Prison, on Niles’s birthday, he made the annoying request to have a best friend handshake with me.
Eleven humiliating moves. And now that he is gone, I didn’t realize how much it would hurt that I’ll never get to do that with him again.
” Dessin’s dark mahogany eyes land on me, and he pauses, as if knowing what he’ll say next will both mend and break my heart.
“So, last night, I tattooed the moves on my arm…for Niles.”
Everyone leans in as Dessin rolls up his sleeve, revealing an outline in fresh ink of each movement to the handshake. The fist bump. The pinched fingers. The hug. All of it.
I drop my face into my hands and cry.
A symphony of sobs, sniffles, and whimpers echo through the forest. The wind carries each beautiful sound in swirling gusts, kicking up dust and leaves as if Niles is answering this great act of love with a smile and a wave from heaven.
I look up in time to see Dessin turn to his left, opening his arms as Marilynn collides into his chest. Her pale skin turns a deep shade of pink, and her grieving moans makes Dessin look to the sky for answers. He leans down and whispers something that makes her cry harder.
Ruth’s chair bumps my leg, and she takes my hand with a smile.
“I brought something for Niles too,” she says.
She moves to his lowered casket, pulling out a stunning golden crown from her bag.
“For the many times you stole my crown and said it looked better on you,” she announces to his grave.
Our tears are interrupted by surprised laughter.
“I’ve been saving this for your birthday, Cupid. But I’ll leave it here, and you can wear it in heaven.”
Warrose places a hand on her shoulder as he towers behind her. Off his weapon’s belt is a golden sword, glinting in the sunlight.
“And for all the times you told me you deserved to be a knight of Vexamen because your muscles were bigger than mine…” Warrose lowers the sword to his casket.
“And because you knew how to pick a lock which made you smarter than us,” Ruth adds, cheeks wet and rosy yet chuckling along with the rest of us.
Chekiss approaches the daunting space with a cane and a heavy, wide book.
“I know you used to accuse me of favoring Skylenna and calling you a little shithead behind your back—and I did.” We laugh, and I know that this is what Niles would have wanted.
He would have begged us to mourn, yes, but also to laugh.
To tease. To remember the good memories too.
“But…I also kept all of your accomplishments here, in this book.”
The laughter is gone. As Chekiss’s rough voice cracks, and he cries into his fingers, we all lose it once again.
“The article clippings of you rebuilding the blueprints for a women’s sanctuary.
The first photographs I took of you and little Niklaus.
The confetti from the Christmas ball you threw.
I kept your best moments because you are my proudest moments as a papa, Niles.
This is not the first time I’ve had to bury a child.
So, my only regret, is that this should be you here—burying me. ”
Niklaus does not say a word as he drops a letter on top of the casket, leaning down to graze its glossy finish with his fingers.
I walk straight to Marilynn leaning on Dessin for support. My offering isn’t for Niles.
“In two days, you and Niles would have been married for twenty years. Niles had enlisted my help for three months to help him write these words to surprise you and renew your vows in a ceremony we planned.”
Marilynn closes her eyes and lowers her head, nodding somberly at the dreadful fact that they were days away from celebrating their twenty-year anniversary.
“When you’re ready, you can read it. But it’s between husband and wife.”
I hand her the pristinely folded envelope, wrapped in an adorable pink bow. Marilynn holds it to her chest, as if exposing it to the air will make the pages dissolve in a cloud of dust.
“Thank you, Skylenna.”
I don’t know how much she knew of the prophecy. But I do know Marilynn tried for a long time not to fall in love with the most lovable man in the world. And she failed, despite her greatest efforts.
She must have known enough.
And I cannot imagine a heavier burden than knowing your soulmate was going to die and not being able to stop it.
As Marilynn leaves a delicate kiss on Niles’s vows, I remember something I watched him do after he finished tying the bow. My face cracks a big smile. There isn’t any doubt in my mind that Niles pushed this memory forward to tell his wife. To make her smile one more time.
“If you’re wondering what that smell is, it’s Niles’s cologne. He sprayed it, and said, I quote, my wife needs to get a whiff of my sex appeal thus she will never leave me, and our marital bed shall be iron clad.”
Marilynn and Dessin fall into a fit of laughter. Though her laughs are harmoniously entwined with her distraught whimpers.
I tuck Marilynn into a long hug, feeling Niles’s spirit and his love through her embrace.
“You knew your whole life, didn’t you?” I whisper.
She nods slowly against my shoulder.
“What a burden that must have been.”
“No,” she mutters. “At first, I thought so too, yes. But after falling in love with our golden boy, I was so grateful to know how it all ended. I cherished every second with him, Skylenna. I held each millisecond of his time with me like a coveted holy grail.”
That’s all he wanted too. To be loved and to love someone.
“If you knew, why wouldn’t you do something to warn him?”
I hate that I am even asking that question now at his funeral, but I have to know.
She looks down at our black heels and shakes her head grimly.
“I did. Even though it was forbidden for our colony to warn or interfere in that way…I did, Skylenna. A couple of years ago, I broke down and warned him. I told him everything. I begged him not to go, even though I didn’t have an exact date to give him.
I put your daughter at risk by warning him because he protected her that night!
But Niles…Niles was too noble not to go.
Not to be there when our kids needed him the most.”
That fucking hurts so much more. What was I thinking? No amount of warning would ever keep our sweet Niles from doing the right thing.
“And…he saved someone important while he was out there in the Blackspire Ward of The North,” she adds, wiping her pink nose.
“Is this Niles’s funeral?” Two men approach from the shadows of the trees.
Everyone stops talking. I scope out their appearance, recognizing the older one with dark skin, and gray hair in long braids down his back.
They are from the Naiadales.
“I helped Niles once after he was burned,” the older one says, speaking to me.
I lift my chin. “Rydran?”
He nods, flicking his gaze to the grave site.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, feeling uncomfortable for how to say this. “This is just for family.”
Rydran bows his head. “I understand. But I am not here for me, I am here for him.”