Nocturne

☾ Chapter Forty ~ Nocturne ☽

Fate is cruel.

Your plans never go the way you expect them to. To some, it turns out better. What you need, not what you want. To others, everything falls apart, carefully crafted goals left by the wayside torn to shreds by the wild animal that is destiny.

I do not think it matters, either way. Destiny has its own agenda. It does not care for your hopes and dreams, nor does it care for your struggles and fears.

But that is neither here nor there, is it?

When Arun was lead away with his head hanging, he had little room in his grieving mind for thoughts of fate and destiny. But many hours later, when he sat on his single bed in a simply furnished palace room, repurposed entirely for his containment, he had all the time in the world to ponder.

Betraying your people has a high price, and for a king, even a former one, that price was even steeper. Not only that, but Emmie was dead. Emmie, a friend and skilled guard of the Lunars, had died by his hands, and to make that worse she was his daughter.

Treason may carry an extreme penalty, but blood killing was far, far worse. It was said that even Aster, the Dead God of Starlight and Balance, rose from Their slumber to punish those that killed their kin, including by accident.

He shivered on his bed. The white sheets crumpled around his searching fingers. It was so rough compared to what he was used to, in his old luxurious life. Had he ever considered what he was sacrificing? Had he bothered to think about the future? Even if he had won, had he thought about the cost?

Everyone he had ever loved he'd lost the moment he chose to lead the attack on him. No, he had lost them the moment he chose to form the Sanctimonium. Everything was taken from him at the instant he chose to seek out anyone he could convince to turn to his side.

And now they were gone. Gone forever. In Emmie's case, gone far beyond where any mortal could ever reach alive.

How many lives had he ruined, he wondered, in his hatred and his greed?

Giving up his crown had been the best thing he could have done, he realized now. Power had a cost, and the burden of it had broken him. Aelius would rule well in his stead.

At the time, he'd been so angry.

His birthright was being stolen from him as he watched helpless as he was forced to give it all away. His old grandmother's words echoed through his head again and again. How could a true Ruler of the Light let everything he held dear be taken from him by the filthy lunatics, those desecrating children of the Darkness. How could he do anything but fight?

Even his beloved son had become nothing more than a betrayer to him. So he rebelled, of course he did. Tooth and nail and claw, he fought to take back what he had believed was his.

And his daughter had died because of it.

Emmie. The last reminder of his once-loved Effie in this terrible, cruel world. When disease had taken her away from him, he had been distraught, of course he'd been. Rage and grief had lead him astray, and so he told himself that he cared nothing for Efugia, and even less for their child. But now he saw that his faithful Efugia had been something special, and so had Emmie.

She was gone. They both were gone. His son and his wife both hated him now. All the beloved people of his dear Apollo loathed him, and for good reason.

Everything was his fault.

For the first time in many long years, the Lion of the Noonday Sun hung his head, and he cried.

King Aelius stared down at his father, who lay curled up in a fragmented fetal position, his cheeks and sheets damp with tears. Arun had yet to notice his son. He was too caught up in his own guilt and self-pity.

"Effie... Emmie... Surya...Aelius..." He whimpered. "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry... Please...I'm sorry!" His entire body shook as he wept.

It was almost enough to make Aelius feel sympathy for the limp shreds of a once-proud man that now lay before him, totally weak and vulnerable. Almost.

Emmie's expression as she lay dying surfaced in his mind's eye, and he turned and walked away. The thump of the door closing awoke Arun from his waking nightmare and he turned, an exclamation already rising to his lips, but it was too late. Sounds of clicking echoed briefly through the wood, and there was the telltale noise of a deadbolt sliding into position and footsteps beginning to walk steadily away.

Instead of an exclamation, it was cries and screams that emerged from Arun. Some crazed fervor overtook him and he threw himself against the door again and again.

He was trapped. He'd be here forever. He was stuck. They would kill him. He knew they would. It was was he would do. It was the merciful thing. The right thing.

His shoulder throbbed as he finally sank to the tightly woven rush mat covering. Rushes bit into his skin as he leaned brokenly against the unyielding wood. Fingernails broke as he clawed at the door but he continued, crying out in vain for someone to help him, for some way to escape.

Grandmother was long dead. Forgotten by most, even all. Her name was struck from the books, statues crumbled, and even now those that remembered her had her face and her name wiped from their minds. Not only was she dead, it was like she had never been. Her words, too, were long dead everywhere but in Arun's mind. Why, oh why, had he obeyed their call?

Bloody, broken, and bruised, the disgraced former king crumpled to the ground in an exhausted bundle of scrap fear and torn pride.

If this was the right thing, why did it hurt so much?