Her Royal Highness

Chapter 45

From their bedroom, Ben could hear someone calling his name.

He'd managed to return to the master suite even though Mal's absence continued to rip at him. In her absence and with much of his former work now being taken up by the kingdoms, Ben tried to find simple ways to busy himself. He read - something he hadn't really done since he'd started preparing to be King, dabbled a little more in the laws that had meant so much to him before he'd left for war, and then went down to the storage rooms to pull out all the old boxes of his things. Photos and awards from Auradon Prep, favorite books with white post-it notes lined up in the margins, old clothes from when he was younger and toys he'd enjoyed as a child.

In the north, Auradonian soldiers picked their way around cities, surrounding them and smoking out enemies. Rabbit holes opened direct portals to the Isle of the Lost. There was some unrest in the city as monsters and villains appeared on the other side of the barrier, but Evelyn kept the peace well. Ben knew that Mal had divided the war and Auradon would only storm strongholds on the west coast while her moorlands would take the east coast. Sinbad and King Triton had teamed up to rule the seas together. None of Eris's creatures were any match for the two of them combined. Outside of the weekly death counts and the mounting missing numbers, not much else came from up north.

Ben turned against the covers and buried his face into Mal's pillow. The covers were tangled all around his frame. If he kept his nose buried deep enough within the pillow and focused hard enough, he could catch her scent. It was going on almost three weeks she'd been gone. He was going to go absolutely insane at this rate. He kept his face covered, knowing the room was slowly growing lighter around him, but also knowing there was no reason to get up early because there wasn't anything to get done. Someone called his name again from the distance, and Ben grumbled as he began freeing himself from the mess. His feet hit the ground with a soft thud. He passed by his closet to grab a shirt before passing into the living room. No one was there.

Apparently, he was hallucinating as well as going insane.

He heard the sound of someone hitting their head against something echo through the bathroom and suddenly realized what he was hearing. Ben ducked into the bathroom, suddenly wide awake, and saw the reflection of a head full of purple hair with her head down on the edge of the basin as she took deep breaths. "Mal?" He asked, pulling up a chair beside the sink. She looked up with a gasp and he saw her face was streaked with tears. Immediately, everything in his head was flung out the window. "What's wrong?" He asked, furrowing his brow as he leaned forward.

"I'm sorry - I'm just..." Mal waved a hand at her eyes in a fanning motion to try and dry her tears. "Sorry. I just... we lost a lot of people today. Pitch and Eris... they have things we didn't know about and I'm just reeling, I guess."

"What happened?" Ben asked, stomach twisting as he stared down with mounting horror. "How many?"

"I think about one thousand people are dead," Mal hiccuped. "There's these stupid, stupid birds that eat human flesh. And she let them lose on one of your armies as they were going past a city. I'm so, so sorry, Ben."

Ben exhaled. "It's okay, Mal," he whispered. "I know you would have done something if you could have."

"I was on my way..." Mal shook her head. "But when I showed up there was just... bones everywhere. I just don't know anymore. There's so many people to protect and I can't keep everyone safe, Ben! I couldn't even keep Stewart safe and he's practically part of our family!"

Ben flinched. Stewart had come home early. From what he'd heard, his right eye couldn't be restored. It was too complex and too mangled. Even Mal had tried and failed - her magic wasn't in conjuring. She'd been able to heal Harry and fix Uma's back, but those things had already existed. She hadn't been growing back nerves and body parts. It seemed she couldn't. Ben hadn't seen Stewart more than twice while he and Sophia walked around the library or the grounds, but he was here.