Letter #3,977 #2
My mother is untouched by time. And she is radiant in ways I only remember in childhood fragments. Tears rim her eyes, glinting against the round glasses sitting on the bridge of her nose. “My boy. I’ve waited so long to see my boy.”
I fall into her embrace, clinging to her small frame like a child again. Shaking and undone. “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m so sorry.”
I have waited a lifetime to tell her that.
Though here, in heaven, I know it is not my fault. The sickle. What the evil men made me do. I know. But I unleash my apology just the same.
“Hush now,” she soothes, squeezing me tight. “I love you, my son.”
Over my mother’s shoulder, a small boy stumbles through a meadow in my direction.
His feet barely touch the ground as he charges toward me, hair wild, eyes shining, face frozen in that reckless, fearless grin I memorized before everything was taken from us.
“Kane!” Arthur screams.
I drop just in time to catch him as he slams into me, his arms locking around my neck with the same force he used to tackle me as a child. I bury my face into his shoulder, shaking, sobbing, coming undone.
“I wanted to save you!” I choke out. “I’m sorry, Arthur!”
Arthur clutches me tighter. “I watched over you. I tried my best to be a fierce guardian angel, Kane. You would have been proud of me.”
I cry loudly, nodding in approval.
I used to pray I’d see Arthur one day in heaven, happy and untouched by the sinister acts that took his life.
Every hardship I endured was worth it to be here for this moment.
More faces from my past fill the area. Kaspias, Jack, Scarlett, and Violet.
I hug them all. Sins of the past forgotten. How can I harbor any negative feelings now? I am no longer an old man, reading books alone in a large castle. Wishing I could hug my sweetheart one more time.
I’m here.
“Someone’s been asking for you,” Skylenna announces.
The ground trembles beneath us as something massive barrels forward from the heart of the radiance.
A thunderous sound splits the air.
Lifting my head to see him is a dream. His massive figure is cloaked in darkness and light. God must have welcomed this great beast to heaven with a standing ovation from all of His angels.
I fall to my knees.
“DaiSzek…”
My soul recognizes him before my eyes fully do. No limp. No scars. No white fur dusting his muzzle. Just power. Youth. Strength reborn in every stride.
He roars—not in rage, but in reunion—a sound so deep and joyous it rattles my bones.
He barrels into me, head slamming against my chest. Jumping like a puppy again. Licking my face and wagging his tail in bliss. Those massive paws pin my shoulders as he whines and barks and trembles all at once, overwhelmed by the fact that I’m real.
“I’m here, buddy!” I laugh, kissing the space between his eyes. “I made it. I promised I’d see you again.”
Across many battles. Across an ocean. Across enemy lines. Across heaven. My boy found me again. I sob into his mane, and Skylenna joins in, holding us close and crying with me.
“We’re just missing Ruth and Warrose,” I mention to Skylenna.
Skylenna looks thoughtfully to the happy RottWeilen rolling in the grass.
“They will join us soon. Once they learn of your passing, they will ask Sapphire to move them through time, back to the Dellilian Castle. Renly will take over in her place. And our friends will live out the rest of their days in peace.”
I smile. “How will they pass?”
“Together. Warm in their bed.”
I sigh in relief.
“Hundreds of years later, Alkadon settlers will find two sets of bones in the castle. They’ll never discover who they belong to,” she finishes.
“Wow.” But another thought emerges in my mind. “What about—”
“Sapphire and Krimson will find The Chronicles of The Pawn and The Puppet. And they will make sure the world hears our story, my love.”
I have no words. I sit with my hands stroking DaiSzek’s soft fur, stunned at how this has all turned out.
“When I ran out of books to read, I decided to write my own,” I tell her.
Skylenna’s eyes go round and glossy. “Thirty years is a very long time to survive alone. It broke my heart to watch you. Visiting my grave. Putting a pillow on my side of the bed. Writing me letters. You never wavered in your love for me. You loved me through death. Through thirty years of solitude.”
There’s validation that she was there. That someone was there to witness every moment that ticked by.
“You’re my soulmate. I would have waited three hundred more.”
“I know.” Her kiss wraps me in warmth.
“I hope I am not dreaming,” I say.
“No, baby. We all waited for you.”
I gaze at my family, shaking my head in disbelief at the faces I’ve longed to see in the loneliness I only just survived.
“You’ve finally made it home,” Skylenna adds, entwining her fingers with mine, warm again at last.
DaiSzek leads the way into heaven, opening with an indescribable sun, an endless dawn. And as our family gathers behind us, I feel the youth return to my bones. Whole for the first time since I was six years old.
And now that we’ve made it out of hell and into heaven…
My soulmate and I can finally go see the stars.
The End.