Jovari the Blue

Chapter 36: A Missive

Kastali Dun

Merrian heard the slight snick just as a folded sheet of parchment appeared from beneath the door. Reyr startled awake, blinking. He looked dazed but didn't notice what woke him. She hesitated before rushing to retrieve the message. With a single cantrip, her mage light flared to read the contents. A gasp fell from her lips.

"Read it aloud, won't you?" Her gaze jumped to Reyr. He didn't bother to get up. After months, she found him sleeping more frequently. It was easy to become depressed in a place like this. With everything weighing on him, she understood.

Reading the note word for word, she said, "The king and queen have returned to Dragonwall." Ryer sucked in a breath. "Too dangerous to visit in person. Will send word when we know more. Signed, Feowen." She crushed the note in her fist, clinging to it like a lifeline.

Reyr stood. "Let me see that."

He read it over, his eyes darting across the short missive several times. His breath came faster and faster. She spotted a sheen of moisture in the reflection of his eyes when they caught the mage light.

"This is good, right?" she asked, then wanted to kick herself for failing to think of something better to say. "Now that they're back, they can put things to rights."

Reyr was still breathing hard. He clenched the note and began to pace. At last, he went to the wall and slid down it, sitting.

"Reyr?"

He put his head in his hands. She couldn't blame him for being overwhelmed. His shoulders began to shake. Was he...laughing?

"Reyr?" she asked again, concerned. A strangled sound wrenched from him. No, he wasn't laughing. She rushed to him, crouching beside him.

"Oh, gods," she breathed. "It's all right." But it wasn't.

He began to sob in earnest as she pulled him into her arms. In that moment, she forgot everything she'd ever disliked about him. After so many months together, he had mended some of his transgressions in the form of apologies, but she'd never truly forgiven him. Not until now. Seeing him like this, vulnerable before her.

His arms snaked around her waist, his face buried in her chest. His sobs were quiet, but she felt each one loudly through every tremor of his muscles. She clung to him and he to her. "Shhh..." she cooed. "Shhh. I've got you."

She began to rock him, combing her fingers through his dirty, matted hair. Their baths were seldom. Feowen and the others visited less and less oven over the months they'd been stuck down here. Nearly a year had passed since the king's departure and now he was finally back. He'd rescued the queen. They had returned to the kingdom.

"He'll never...never....forgive me," Reyr managed, gasping through each sob. "I don't...deserve...it."

"Stop that. Of course he will. You did splendidly—until everything with Kane, of course." That only made him sputter. "Besides, I have forgiven you, for how you treated me. So I'm sure he will do the same."

There was a long pause and then Reyr lifted his head to look at her, eyes red and inflamed. His arms remained firmly around her. "You...have?"

Seeing his broken expression cracked something open in her chest. "Oh, Reyr," she breathed. He looked at her with such hope that she couldn't help but reach forward and wipe at the tears staining his cheeks.

Reyr was one of the most powerful drengr in the kingdom, but here he was, overcome with grief. She didn't imagine the king's shields cried often, if ever. "I forgive you," she said, because she knew he needed to hear the words, if only to have one less weight hanging over him. "King Talon will, too."