The Purple Eyed Girl

58. One last chance

The Royal graveyard was the final resting place of many ancient kings and their queens, along with their sons and daughters. Located behind the gardens and airport, it had gotten larger and larger as the centuries passed by. There were three new additions as of last week since an order had been given to move them. Alistair Maverick Ashford, his late wife and Sauron now had a prominent permanent place here, facing the mountains.

Pulling out the weeds surrounding my father's gravestone, I stopped to admire the new engraving. 

'Alistair Maverick Ashford, beloved father and husband, master at making things up as he went along.'

Smiling, I continued to clean his gravestone, followed by his wife's and Sauron's. When I was done, I placed a bouquet of white carnations at each tombstone. I sat down in front of my father's grave, hugging my legs and sighed, suddenly feeling like a little girl who simply missed her father.

"I know it's been a while, but the last couple of weeks have been eventful to say the least. I figured it out, dad, thanks to you introducing me to Indiana Jones, and I want you to know that it's done. Your murderers are gone, their hold on the kingdoms has ended, along with the kingdoms altogether. The borders are no more. It was chaos at first and the species were very hostile towards each other, but they realized they need each other to survive now that everything they knew is gone. The hatred is still there, and it probably always will be, but everyone's keeping it to themselves for now. Once the dust settles, it'll flare up again.

As for me, if I were to say I was fine, you would definitely say I was lying and I would be. As much as I try to move on and leave it behind to go live my life again, I can't. How can one move on when so much has happened? My heart has darkened and I know I'll never be able to feel emotions like I did before ever again. Maybe it is what I'm supposed to do, carry loss around until I resemble every bad memory, every terrible fear, every nightmare anyone has ever had, future queen of a graveyard.

Now that the case has been solved, it's quiet, too quiet. Jorden's been absent for a while, but I know the worst is yet to come. The generals weren't the biggest enemy after all, it's about something bigger. Whatever it is, it'll be up to me to stop it. So maybe one day it'll all fade away and the weight of the world won't be mine, but that rare day is not today."

It was stupid to expect a response, because silence was the only thing that greeted me here. There was no wind, no sun, no sign of any animal, nothing.

"I don't know when I'll be able to come back here, but you better be kicking some ass wherever you are, dad. I love you, always have, always will."

After walking back to the palace past the Royal Airport and the gardens, I leaned on one of the many balconies facing the kingdom, staring ahead, thinking.

I hadn't gotten the chance to tour through the human kingdom before everything went down, instead I had read the first ever kings' journal written while the borders went up belonging to king Primus. Reading it, I discovered that every area resembled one of the ancient countries and their cultures. Countries like France, The Netherlands, Canada, The United Kingdom and Japan, all whom had long been destroyed and whose names had been forgotten.

That wasn't the only thing I learned. The journal revealed that the humans had in fact experienced with the animals and succeeded, creating absolute menaces, placed in the other kingdoms to keep their inhabitants in check. The atom bombs that the other kings knew of were a lie, in fact every bit of information the kings thought they discovered was false, a carefully created fabrication to keep them in the dark, planted there by the humans.

And the rings. Those stupid rings. The humans could've split the genes and manipulated them to make the vampires sun proof, just like they had experienced on the animals, but that would've meant taking one of the vampires biggest weaknesses away, causing the humans to have less control. So the rings came into play, rings so that the human elite could rule over every vampire that had one.