Disclaimer: It all belongs to Anne Bishop. Quotes taken from pages 68-69 of Queen of the Darkness
This was written for the Two of us challenge fic community on Livejournal. The challenge was to write a fic based on an assigned snippet of 2-4 lines of Beatles lyrics. The lyrics for this piece are listed below:
That boy took my love away/He'll regret it someday/But this boy wants you back again. From "This Boy"
Rings
Daemon Sadi glanced once more at his brother's hand, as if to verify that he was really seeing what he thought he saw. As if to check that the gold marriage ring on Lucivar's finger was really there. It was.
He felt stunned, hurt, and devastated. He felt betrayed.
Something inside him screamed, and broke. All his years of waiting, for nothing. He had waited for Jaenelle for nearly all his life. He had always dreamed of her. And then, after Tersa prophesized her coming, he'd had seven hundred long years of hoping and searching. When he had finally found her, when she had still been a child, there had been that one exhilarating, agonizing winter in Chaillot. And thirteen years apart – eight years in the Twisted Kingdom and five of hiding and recovering, thinking that he had destroyed her, that she had died using the last of her power to lead him out of madness.
Seventeen hundred years of waiting. Seventeen hundred years of believing so many painful lies. And now, when he finally broke free, it was all in vain. The woman he had waited and fought and suffered all his life for had married his own brother. He had come too late.
He would manage, somehow. He always had. But it was the thought of her, the promise of her, that had kept him going, kept him fighting, for all those years. And now that promise was gone. If he could pull through enough to see her, one last time, that would be enough. That would have to be enough for his still fragile mind.
At this point, he could have killed Lucivar. No, Lucivar was his brother. He would never hurt his brother.
Yes, he would. He had, and he would. And with the life he'd lived, there was little he wouldn't do.
But he cared about Lucivar. He cared, and he would not be his brother's rival. If it had been anyone else, he would have done everything he could, but he would not be Lucivar's rival.
He moved through the day in a sort of haze, not completely aware of what was happening. But a few things got through to him. A few relieving words.
"Marian does me the honor of being my wife … Why would you think I married Jaenelle? … That was always your dream, Daemon. Not mine." Precious, relieving words.
He had lived a series of painful lies for nearly all his life. And that, that was just one more. He had just broken free of one more lie.
Lying in bed that night, he fingered the new ring. It was a gold ring set with a large, faceted ruby. It was the consort's ring that he had seen once before, in the Twisted Kingdom. It had been a promise then, and it was a promise now. This ring represented Jaenelle's promise to him. He slipped the consort's ring onto his left ring finger. He had waited seventeen hundred years for her. He only had a few more days left to wait now. He was here, and she was coming.