The Stolen Throne

Chapter Sixteen - Worries and Woes

Lucy found herself walking around the castle in the middle of the night again. You would think that after a week of hard training and even harder planning for the attack she would be worn out enough that she would finally be able to sleep soundly. 

However, even with the added protection of having Vindexis in their mix, Lucy's sleep had still been troubled and she had found herself staring at the ceiling trying to sleep for hours on end. When she did sleep, she was plagued with nightmares over and over again.

She guessed that Edward had noticed, he seemed to be paying her a lot of attention from his obvious concern for her, even if he had been keeping his distance after her incident at the training ground.

After about two weeks, Edward had healed meticulously thanks to Miriana's herbal remedies. They'd worked wonders on him and he was back to his full strength. Thus far, Lucy had been successful in avoiding him when he was training.

When she couldn't avoid him was when they continued to have meetings regarding the plan to ensure that nothing would go wrong. She hated those meetings, not just because she was still fearful that she'd not be able to complete their mission but also because she found it awkward with her and Edward sat across from each other. She trusted him with her life, which scared her, but she wasn't ready to open up to him - or anyone - no matter how well she trusted him.

Pulling mindlessly on the end of her plait, Lucy walked through the castle gardens just as the sun rose. Watching the sunrise from the garden had become a habit of Lucy's when she was unable to sleep. It made her feel safe being glowed upon by the rising sun or - at the very least - safer.

*

Edward looked up from his desk in his office on the fourth floor. From his window, he could see the castle gardens and the city beyond it. 

Percival had woken him up in the middle of the night to give him new information on Esmeralda's forces and their whereabouts. He was still Percival's first point of contact, even with the other authorities currently residing in the castle of Silvestbourne.

Sighing, he rubbed a weary hand across his face in an effort to wake himself up. The sun was just rising, causing a golden glow that descended across the white city. He loved watching the sunrise. It was constant and reminded him that no matter how dark the night was, the light would always come.

A figure in a dark blue cloak caught his attention, the same blue cloak that seemed to be a frequent visitor to the gardens under his window over the past few weeks. 

Whenever he'd been awake early enough, he would see Lucy walking through the gardens. He figured that the reason why she had taken to walking around the castle early in the morning was that she had too much to think about to sleep. The same reason, he believed, that was causing her to avoid him.

That reason was also why Edward had chosen not to share more information with her than was needed. Obviously, he had shared some of it with the council - the numbers of Black Guards, where they were camped out, which of the Magonian Lords had pledged to fight and which had betrayed Lucy in her hour of need.

He'd chosen not the share with Lucy the number of deaths of her people he was hearing about. The rebellions of the common folk caused hundreds of people to lose their lives at the hands of the Black Guards. Lucy's loyal nobles that were being tortured because of their affiliation with her. The people that were still trying to get away from Eldemere and were dying in the attempt.

He couldn't tell her. He dared not for how she would react. How she would blame herself for everything that was happening, how she would let that guilt consume her. Unquestionably, she knew that Esmeralda was killing her people but she didn't know the numbers and it hadn't been confirmed even if deaths of civilians were inevitable in war.