Wildfire

Sixty Four

"Y-You're frightening me, Emrys! P-Please!" I know I need to stop my pacing... That I should climb into bed and hold my wife so that he might find some semblance of feeling safe in the wake of my father abandoning the throne with such an ominous parting message... But I feel as though my rage is burning hot enough to leap out and burn his delicate skin in a much less productive way than last night... I absolutely hate the thought of hurting him, so I keep my distance, the path I am wearing into the tile in front of our bed one worn out of anger and concern... Both for his safety and the safety of our Kingdom. 

"Emrys, He's right. You need to calm yourself so we can discuss how to move forward... We need a planned approach for both addressing the fact that your father has just declared himself a traitor... But also how to announce the two of you as King and Queen without looking as if anything has gone awry with his sudden disappearance." I know Cho means well, but it's still hard to tone down the unintentional glare his words are met with. 

There have been so many downfalls when it comes to my father's character that this really should not have come as a surprise to any of us... But somehow I had truly convinced myself that the old man wanted nothing more than to be released from this place so he could wander into the mountains to live out the rest of his days settling into what I had suspected would be his final resting place... I had thought maybe he would crave peace and be willing to finally give his soul some kind of forgiveness so that he might not spend the rest of his life festering like an unkempt wound, so full of poison and pus that no one can stand to be around him. 

...

Rayne

...

My husband does not come fully back to me, but he does come close enough to perch on the edge of the bed in order to confront Cho and my father as they both sit listlessly in the chairs that they had thought to bring in for this impromptu war meeting between the four of us... Well... More like the three of them, myself only included because everyone has agreed that the safest place for me is next to Emrys's side, both for my sake and his own so that I might serve to steady him in this turbulent time. 

"Surely the people know I am not so much like Xiang that I would make him disappear when the wedding was already so close... I should hope that they are aware enough of his character that they would see that his disappearance is nothing but his own doing." The pain in Emrys's voice hurts my very soul, the look on his face that I can make out having the same effect... All he had ever wanted was to be happy... And for some reason, Xiang had felt the need to sap as much joy out of my husband as possible, both now on our first official day as a married couple when we should be jubilant and carefree... And throughout his entire life, every memory after the passing of his mother tainted with the grief and agony of a man driven to be cruel by his own pain... 

"It might not come across that way with how sudden his absence is... Though I suppose we could always introduce the parting note he left to the public...That actually might thwart any following he might try to amass... Between that and possibly circulating the rumor that he himself may have called upon the Hirai's to attack Rayne the night of the ball I say we should have a fairly easy time swaying the opinions of the public to lie entirely in our favor... I just worry that Xiang might take his frustrations out on the people if left unchecked." Cho seems more than reasonable with the points he makes, though it is hard to watch the way his words make my husband seem to crumble, his shoulders slumping with the weight of protecting not only me...But all of our kingdom from his own father... And I cannot imagine the pain he might feel at this moment...

This should have been a happy occasion... For all of us... But instead of being joyful over the fact that his only son has found love and married fully ready to release him from the pressure of leading the country and the court, something that has clearly not been easy for him in the years since his wife's passing... Xiang had chosen to be bitter... He had had so much hate build up in his heart to mask his pain that he could not find it in himself to overlook my birth station or lack of blood lineage to any of the families he had deemed worthy of the becoming Branch families, the claiming of them something he had seemed to do with such carelessness... Because I had not come from the mostly poisonous stock he had surrounded himself with I am simply not acceptable... And this is how I know that when Emrys had told me he had no part in the purposeful spiting of me that he was and still is telling the truth... 

My husband had not cared, and in fact, has not mentioned on his own my background, and I dare say he has never given it a second thought... He has only thought of how much he cares for me, and the fact that he is still capable of love at all with how horrifically Xiang has behaved towards not just me, but Emrys himself, is absolutely astounding to me and makes me appreciate him even more... Combating both Xiang and Shen may be the darkest undertaking either of us have ever taken... But as my husband moves himself closer to me in order to take my hand in order to steady himself... I know that it is one that we will survive if only for the help of those who have imagined what it might be like to no longer live in darkness inside these obsidian walls, Emrys more than ready to finally be able to protect the people his father has abused for so long, "Tell me what we should do."