In The End

Chapter Four- Rowan

I waited until I heard the footsteps disappear before I exhaled the water back into the ocean. That was too close. Someone had been yards away from me and easily could have seen what I was doing. I had felt eyes on me before I had heard the footsteps. With anxiety fresh in my mind, I grabbed my coat and started heading back to my house. I had left after my dad had fallen asleep but knowing him, he probably somehow heard the door close and now was up waiting for me.

Slowly I opened the door to find no one waiting for me. Looking around the kitchen he truly was still in bed, which was confirmed as I got to the top of the stairs and heard him snoring. Something I hadn't heard him do in a long time. Perhaps he had finally gotten something to help him sleep from the farmer's market. Either way it aided me in being able to sneak out without getting in trouble. My bed looked incredibly comfortable so that as soon as I had laid down, I was fast asleep, the concentration with water had drained any energy I had had left after training with Riviera and talking with my father.

The sun rose early the following day. I could hear my father already making a racket in the kitchen, meaning he most likely had the day off as he was here. Normally he was gone before the sun came up. Doing who knows what. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes before getting out of bed. Because as much as I wanted to lay there for the whole day I had work to do, work that included reading more about the gaps in history that had been uncovered for me.

The history book lay on my desk, open to the blank pages from where I left off. At the start of the war. It was drawing me in, but I couldn't do my research yet, my father had to be out of the house. I was not going to take any chances with him. I did not know where he truly stood, his faith in the military had dropped since they couldn't find my mother. And he had begged them to continue the search but after a week of nothing, they gave up. I had too. Making my way down the stairs, there he was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in front of him.

"What's your plan for the day?" I sat across the table from him, looking at the book he was reading. It was the history of one of the neighboring kingdoms. Interesting.

"I have some work I need to do this afternoon so I thought we could spend the morning together. Maybe go to the water..." He looked at me with hope in his eyes, I nodded, "great, if you're ready we can go now."

My eyes drifted down to look at what I was wearing. My father's eyes followed, "I should change" I smiled at him before rushing up the stairs. We hadn't gone to the front in years, I was maybe thirteen the last time. But my aunt had died soon after and her favorite spot had been at the water. My father had faced loss many times in his life, from his parents, his sister and his wife. Some would say that he was protective of me, bhut he comes from a place that if he were to lose one more person, he would lose himself after.

"This path hasn't changed, has it?" I shook my head at my dad. It could have changed for him but it was the same as it was last night. However, in the daylight it was much easier to see where we were going. I was scanning the path to make sure no plant looked to disturbed from my run back earlier today. None of the foliage looked to messed up. I don't think he would notice anyways.

I wasn't surprised he had asked me if I wanted to go, however I was surprised that he wanted to go so close to his sister's death anniversary. Normally he was sullen for the week leading up to it but this year he clearly was not. It was possible that he simply had stopped grieving or had accepted that she had died and he could not have prevented it. I was doubtful of the latter, as I believed that he would always carry around that guilt.

Her death was something I remembered little of but what I did remember was graphic. She had put herself at risk when defending a possible wielder only for them both to be put to death. There had been no evidence that the person had magic except for the words of someone saying that they saw. And instead of looking into it the guards did as the king had said and killed them, along with anyone who defended them as it was taken by the king as treason.

The guilt that my father held on to was that he could not hold his sister back from confronting the guards. And he had just stood and watched, almost frozen in time. He had stayed still even when she had died, her blood pooling on the ground beneath while he stood just feet away. My mother had to pull him away from the scene as the guards started yelling at everyone to leave. A public execution hadn't happened in the years since, but the image would haunt his mind forever. And mine from peeking out from behind my mother as I had heard the gunshots go off.

In the weeks after were when my mother left. Two things my father believed he could have prevented but could not have.

"Look at that view," my father pointed towards the shoreline, it was clear today meaning you could see miles, and at some points on the horizon see the shoreline of a neighboring country. The kingdom surprisingly had no enemies, but we also did not have any full allies because of King Malcolm. We had trade partners, but no one trusted the kingdom fully because of what he had done.

We sat on the end of the shoreline, the docks a few feet away from us. I was nervous, constantly surveying the surroundings wondering if the person from last night was going to come back.

I jumped when I felt someone touch my shoulder, "Rowan, you're shaking, is everything okay?" It had only been my father, I needed to calm down.

"Yes, I'm good, I promise. Just thinking about a lot"

"You need to stop researching so much, it brings ideas that have no right being thought about."

I was confused. He had never said not to research but he had always told me to study what I wanted. It's why I had dozens of notebooks filled with notes on certain topics were scattered across my room. It's why I had been top of my class in school, the academic achievement came with the need to learn so that no one could tell me that I was uneducated.

"I like researching," I stated softly, he knew this but maybe he had simply forgotten.

"I know, but I've heard rumors that King Malcolm is going to change what people are learning and going to be banning libraries."

I shook, "he can't do that. It goes against everything we are supposed to have here. It's... it's... it's..." I couldn't get my thoughts fully together. I was shaking, my fists clenched with my knuckles turning white.

My father sighed while he looked at me, "But he's the king."

This was the reason we had advisors of the king, so that he wouldn't do something like this. It goes against the most basic of what the original king had written when he originally wrote the laws. My father had just given up, but this was my future. This would change the entire kingdom's future. And someone had to do something.