Bridging the Ancient ✓

Chapter 9

My throat closes up, my mind void of all words. What is the right thing to say in a time like this? I've consoled refugees fresh off the loss of their family members. I've told them everything will be all right once they're settled in. We're a family here, although those we love are gone, we can still feel loved by those around us.

Family doesn't always have to be blood, I told them. That was my favorite statement to use, it put many of the younger witches at peace. Although the older and wiser were harder to persuade, they came around eventually when they saw the community we built. No, we didn't have to be blood. We just had to come from the same background-haunting underneath the king's rule.

Even after all that, everything I did to persuade these people they belonged in Arego, I can't find the right thing to say here. Not as Renit blinks, waiting for my response. I've been searching for this information for months now, anxiously giving him the amount of time he needed to explain why the hell he was so punishing towards me.

I never thought much farther than his behavior or what he had gone through. But that name...to hear it be spoken and shared with the world, I realize Renit's gone through much more than what this is worth. The explanation, the heartbreak, reliving what happened.

"Renit, you don't have to-"

"No, it's time." He shakes his head and for a second, closes his eyes. Preparing himself for the battle he has to face.

Darlene.

Darlene.

I didn't know her, nor have I heard her name in the castle. Everyone keeps their secrets hidden, locked away, and nearby-Renit's take up a spot on the shelf.

It's time, then. Renit declared it so. I move to sit next to him, resting my shoulder against the wall and tucking my legs against me. This way he doesn't have to look at me if he doesn't want to, if the memories become too heavy a weight to bear. I want to take some of that burden for myself, I've always had, so I can see who the prince really is underneath the monster his father created.

"Her name was Darlene Chathier Marron. She was my wife," Renit goes on to say. Each word is laced with strain, with regret and I look down at my hands to avoid seeing the visible pain in his eyes. "She was a witch of water and worked as a servant in the castle for time, tending to my tower. After some time, we fell in love. Against my father's wishes...I married her when we discovered she was with child." His face hardens.

My blood runs cold. A wife. Renit was married before this and again, against his father's wishes. He's not as stiff as I believed him to be-always obeying to what his father wants. For Darlene, he did what they wanted and needed, to produce an heir.

Renit swallows before he speaks again. Never once do his eyes meet mine. "His name was Oisin Chathier Marron." With every word, I feel his heart break all over again. A silver sheen casts over his eyes, glistening in the golden candlelight and I resist the urge to wrap myself around him.

Not only did Renit have a wife but a child as well. A child that he produced with the woman he loved. The tip of my nose burns as I swallow down that lump in my throat. But my regret for treating him with disrespect does not come anytime soon, not today or tomorrow. This night belongs to Renit and the story he's been anticipating sharing.

"My life was amazing, Roux. I couldn't come close to comparing it to now, I loved every second of having a family of my own." The back of his skull rubs against the wall as he shakes his head. "I took pride in my son and honored my wife every day for bringing our child into the world and raising him as I would want him to be raised." He hesitates for a moment, as if wondering if he should say more, but continues as my own heart begins to crack. I intertwine my fingers with his, the outer shell of my gold band resting against his skin.