Sword & Succession - A Darklina AU Fanfic

Chapter 18

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𝔸𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕒 𝕊𝕥𝕒𝕣𝕜𝕠𝕧

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Everything was exactly as I remembered it. The gold embroidered walls, the detailed oil paintings, the giant canopy bed and its too silky sheets.

It made me sick to realise how much I'd missed it all.

Even the feel of my kefta, black with gold embroidery, was scarily familiar and soothing. I sat alone at the end of my bed, my mind going over the events of the past few days.

I had been able to convince myself to leave my room since we arrived at the Little Palace. Every time I thought about it, I'd see flashes of Reagan. He'd never truly been a happy boy, forced to live in hiding in the shadows of Ketterdam for most of his life, but his face on that day in Kribirsk...

He'd looked like a different person. Healthy. Powerful. Alive. Certain... He'd looked like his father. It made me scared, but also something else I couldn't quite understand or describe.

Suddenly, the door opened, allowing some of the evening sunlight to pour into my purposely poorly lit room. I clutched the sheets beneath me.

Reagan stood in the doorway. Above him floated two balls of light he'd summoned. It lit up his kefta, adding a shine of colour to the fine silver fabric. In his hands, he held a tray which he promptly put on my desk. "I brought your dinner," he said, but I didn't reply. I couldn't think of anything to say.

Apparently, neither did he as a quick look of uncertainty crossed his sharp features. My heart fluttered a bit at the small remnant of the boy I'd raised. "I haven't seen you since we arrived. Is everything alright?"

It was a stupid question and he knew it. Of course, I wasn't alright. My best friend, and the man who helped raise my child, was dead. My chains may have been removed but I was still a prisoner of the Little Palace. My son had changed in ways I'd feared but never expected.

I was far from alright. Very far.

Reagan sighed as if my stubbornness to remain silent annoyed him. He took a few steps forward. I knew I shouldn't feel upset about the new air of confidence my son had acquired, but it made my stomach drop.

The balls of light spread across the room with ease. It wasn't the first time he'd split light in two. He'd mastered it quite early in his lessons, even faster than I had. But with the Sea Whip's scales he barely had to focus on summoning them.

It'd been a few months since he'd been taken from me in the harbour of Ketterdam. But he looked older, more mature and more knowledgeable than before. "Please," Reagan sighed again. "Talk to me."

"What do you want me to say?" I asked, my straight back aching a bit.

Reagan leaned against one of the canopy bed poles, crossing his arms over his chest and looking at me with his father's eyes. It was too much of a relaxed position not to put me on edge. "Something. Anything."

"I don't have anything to say."

A silence ensued, where Reagan and I stared at each other for a long time. Eventually, he shook his head and began walking back to the door. The lights remained soaring slowly on the ceiling.

I grabbed holding of my bedsheets again. "You scared me." 

He stopped, turning back to me with a look I couldn't quite read in the dim light. "What?" His voice was confused, but had the hint of a sharp edge to it.