A/N Hi! this is my first fic, so reviews would be sooooooo appreciated! I'm not sure how frequent updates will be at the moment, with exams and all that :( but i will try :D Disclaimer: I don't own any of Kristen Britain's wonderful characters etc, I'm just playing with them :D constructive criticism is welcome (very very welcome :D), but please no flames :D
Zachary's POV
Pacing. Talking. Mindlessly fulfilling duties. Fulfilling – that's all. Any passion I felt for the kingdom disappeared since… since a part of me died. Since I gave up hope. That faint sliver of hope that everyone might be wrong. Surely, they couldn't be right? But maybe, just maybe – Blackveil had taken her.
After that, all my pent up feelings, feelings I had never been allowed to express, went into the battle against Blackveil. Against Mornhaven. Everyone was astonished at the venom I possessed – how could I not? They assumed I fought for Estora, for all the dead that Mornhaven's antics had claimed. Estora being one of them. They were wrong, but the battle I fought was equally personal: I was battling that evil creature, he who had stolen the one person who truly mattered to me, the person who made my heart sing.
Although I had never really loved Estora, I still feel a pang of guilt and sadness when I think of her. She had become one of my most trusted friends. Albeit one with whom I was required to share a bed with…
Perhaps thankfully, we hadn't managed to produce an heir. Although, he mused, perhaps I was to blame there… I had avoided her attempts at intimacy as often as possible, often spending whole nights in my study, planning defence strategies for the kingdom, for when the final battle against Mornhaven came. When it did, I was thankful that my frustration had been so positively and productively focused.
After the final battle, I was injured; and so too weak to do anything but lie in bed for nearly 4 weeks. 4 weeks of torture! To wonder why I hadn't died, why I couldn't have joined her. It would have been a relief really, but no: the Gods had decided to punish me further. So I was forced to continue with my pointless existence in this world. I wasn't even allowed the small privilege of being able to feel my grief alone. No. I was forced to continue as King. King? What was the point of being King, when you couldn't even protect the one you loved? You couldn't even tell her how you felt- well I did, but even then, I probably shouldn't have. I couldn't even take a wife of my choosing! No. I was coerced into the blasted arrangement. And what made the situation worse was my inability to fully express how I feel. What on earth is the point of life – of being the High King of Sacoridia if you can't even tell the one person who matters most to you that you love them? If you can't act upon these feelings and build a normal life for the two of you? Everything I had done to try and communicate with her had failed. Every note and letter I sent received no reply. Why?! And now, she is lost to me forever, and I will be forced to continue as this husk of a person, this shell. To rule over Sacoridia and its people, to spend every moment wishing, hoping and pleading for things to have turned out differently- but to no avail.
Karigan's POV
A tomb. It is strangely fitting to die in a tomb, and quite practical too. They won't even have to move my body. That is, assuming that they find it. I start to giggle, quietly. Bizarre, how my strange head can find hilarity in such a situation. I think it is escalating to mild hysteria now. This is probably the strangest, weirdest most peculiar situation I have ever been in; it is as if I am an outside observer, simply watching myself descend into madness. Or that could be the lack of air… It's getting harder to breathe. The regrets come now, as if they have been waiting in a line for this moment. First it's Zachary. How I never told you how you made me feel, in person, and I am truly sorry for all the pain I have caused you. I hope you will get my letter, I hope it explains some things. Then my father comes, how wish I hadn't held that grudge, is it too late to forgive and ask for forgiveness? Well I forgive you now, Da, and I hope you can forgive me, and I hope you too get my letter. Then Captain Mapstone, Yates, Estora, Estral, Alton, F'ryan, the line goes spinning on, like a spiral in a spiral. So many regrets, so many people I have hurt with my pride and stubbornness. I hope they can all forgive me. I suppose I might see my mother soon. The thought makes me smile through the tears I never noticed falling. Tears, salty and warm, each one a perfect drop, falling into the darkness. The tomb is spinning gently, it's kind of relaxing. Detached, floating off into the warm, dark oblivion.
A sharp, rhythmic sound interrupts the emptiness, coming closer, getting louder. Go away! I want to shout, I want to pound on the lid of the tomb, shout and scream, but nothing seems to be working; all that happens is a faint moan and the rustle as my useless arms give up. The sound stops: perfect. Then heads towards me, the sound of stone on stone, then a crack of light, cool, sweet air and then the world seems to fade into nothingness, with the heavy sound of wing beats in the air.
Brienne was on her usual journey through the tombs, but, as it sometimes happened, things had moved and this appeared to be a new place. She sighed; she would have to ask Agemon about it. Her boots made a sharp, ringing sound as she marched purposefully onward to make a brief mental inventory of the new area. After about 10 minutes of fascinating grey stone corridor, she turned the next corner and stopped and sighed again, while internally yelling at the castle for a moment, taking out her frustration: why would the Castle lead her to a dead end? Probably had a sick sense of humour… She was about to turn back again, ready to yell at the first person she saw for something they probably didn't do, when a rustle and a moan floated from the end wall. Slowly advancing, the shape of a tomb began to appear, with a stone figure lying peacefully on top. She stopped dead. The stone carving was an exact replica of Karigan.
A stone carving of Karigan on top of a tomb, which would make it Karigan's tomb, which would mean, as there is no one else here, that the sound came from inside the tomb! It took Brienne a minute to get her head around what she had just seen and heard, but once the confusion faded, she realised that she had to open the tomb. Quickly. Before whatever was in it suffocated.
After several futile attempts, she suspended herself between the wall and tomb and pushed as hard as she could. This time, she heard the groan of stone on stone as the lid slowly moved halfway off the tomb, and she fell to the floor. Quickly jumping up again, she approached the tomb, and looked in. There lay the bloodied and broken twin of the figure on the tomb: Karigan had returned.