Reign

29. The God of Blood

Note: Warning! This chapter is intense. If you are reading the story altogether, please stop for a while, take a breath and continue later. If you are waiting for updates, take a deep breath and savior it! This is a quick update, because it's Holy Week here and I will be really busy. So expect the next update at the end of the next week.

Thanks for the love and the comments people! What would I do when this story will finish? Should I start a new one? What do you think?         

This is dedicated to @TheWIzardGuy because he always supports me and he is by my side with his fresh ideas. Thank you so much! I believe you are very talented. 

    29. The God of Blood

“I should go quietly now,

For my bones have found a place to lie down and sleep.”

A signature. An action so simple and yet, so absolute and finite. There was no returning back. After the ceremony of dereliction, she would go back to her old life, away from the strict protocol and all the obligations. So many efforts to make this kingdom a better place for the citizens, so many sacrifices, both personal and political, so much pain. And suddenly, her future depended solemnly on a signature of the King.

Where would she go? What would she do? America offered the solution. An important law firm eagerly accepted her and she would work there two weeks after her settlement in the foreign continent. The home she was sharing with Jade all those years was still available. Not that all these were necessary. She was a golden heiress; her father owned the whole Redmonian north and his companies worth some billions. Her life could be a constant vacation, like the lives of the people of her same age and class. But she detested that life. She would return back to the U.S.A. and learn to stand on her own feet again, to heal her wounds.

A sudden flash from a camera forced her to close her eyes instinctively. The whole ceremony was covered by reporters from the kingdom and abroad. The concise procedure would take place in a luxurious room of the Parliament, were the Prime Minister, the leaders of all the political parties and a hundred more prominent politicians had already taken their places. For the majority, it was just one more boring event and for the rest of the world, one more opportunity to come closer to this unfamiliar institution called monarchy. For another proportion, it was a happy day, because for them she was a burden and an obstacle for their ambitions. Substantially, the only lives were about to change was his and Alexander’s.

Roselyn left a sigh escape her lips and clenched her legs together, as one of the Parliament Clerks declared the start of the ceremony. Alexander… Her decision had hurt him. The very same morning, she tried to talk to him, but he discouraged her and now he was sitting on the throne all gloomy and contemplative. The word’s of her parents, of Ellinor, of Jade, all pleading them to stay, didn’t touch her soul, as the things Alexander had said last night in the library. They had touched her most sensitive chords that for a moment, she thought to jump into his arms and never leave his side.

“Is this your last word, Your Majesty?” the Master of the Protocol asked after a while, signaling that the time had come. “Are you proceeding to the abdication of duty out of free will?”

“Yes,” she declared and her heart started beating faster and faster, as the King lifted from his seat and walked towards the wooden rostrum to sign the document. His lips were sealed, pressed to a thin line, as a parliamentary clerk gave him a pen. He looked disappointed, hurt and absolutely breathtaking in his dark grey suit and matching Kashmir tie. That man was her everything, her whole world. Her words and actions all this time were hurting him, while all he needed was to have her back. She was seeing clearly now.