Author's Note:
This is a piece written for Men of Tortall's May challenge: carck!ship
I am not Tamora Pierce
His boots clicked quietly as he walked down the palace hall. Stone floors were illuminated by the bright flashes of lightning coming through the cracks in the heavy shutters. He had been away for far too long this time. Normally, when she was away from battles, he would rush away from almost any duty, if it was safe, and go to her side to face the viper pit of court nobles.
He stopped as felt the draft as the shutter broke open and a gust of wind hit him. The rain falling pelted him with water drops as icy as a Scanran winter. He shook his head at the servants that were supposed to be caring for that but he could not be upset about them, they were only human after all. They themselves had loved ones they wished to run off to embrace.
A burst of light flashed across the sky and he saw a horse trotting through the palace grounds. It could have been any late rider coming in but a long lock of fiery red hair escaped the confines of her hood. He smiled and heaved the wood shut before locking it tightly, hoping to prevent any scolding that would be thrust on the distracted servant.
He rushed to his rooms by memory more than sight, hoping to catch her off guard and pull her into his arms before throwing her into their warm bed for a heated night.
Shutting the doors behind him he rushed to his not so private study, the one kept to keep any suspicions down. He placed the document he had just received from his king into the desk drawer.
Smiling, he rested his head on his hand. A mischievous grin spread over his face as that twinkle in his eyes sparkled while he planned the night to come. He was ready to get this evening going, shoving away from the desk and standing tall, he stepped forward and…
He found his head spinning as he lied their on the floor, cursing himself, trying to remember what had escaped him. Then it hit him like the blunt object on the back of his head. The wardrobe behind his desk, it was a danger but he had never used this room.
He blinked furiously trying to make his eyesight clear and focus what was in front of him. He could feel his head throbbing and blood dripping down the back of his neck.
He tried reaching for the blades hidden on his person but a hard soled boot landed on his hand, breaking bone and bruising flesh. He cried out as his eyes started to focus on the door.
His wife, cold, wet, and in her full battle glory of chain mail and armed with her sword, stood in the door way leading to their bedchamber. Her eyes were unfeeling as he reached for her and received another blow to his side. He had reached out, and yet she offered no help. Her sword at her hip, and she waited for his death to come.
He felt the knife drive into his back as memories flooded his mind.
It all fell into place. Every wayward glance from her. Every time she wandered off to a different wing of the palace. Every time his name never fell from his lips like it once did. He had seen all the signs, he should have known. He was the man that should've known everything form here to Carthak and back. But this one example of unfaithfulness, this one moment of betrayal had slid helplessly from his grasp.
How could she do this to him? What had he done wrong? Why didn't she just tell him?
There were many things she could be mad at him for; never being home together.
There were reasons that she could have left him; that night he had spent with one of her oldest friends while she was away at war.
There were things he had done that she could've have wanted to kill him for; everything that his daughter learned at his knee in the dark reaches of the palace.
But he had never thought she would find out.
She was always the one to take one glance at a problem and if it couldn't be fixed by beating it with a sword, it should just be removed. He never thought she could have seen everything he had done.
He was wrong.
This was happening because she saw more than he did, and he remained blind to his own teaching.
She had reached for comfort, while he reached for another sinful pleasure of secrets and lies.
Now he looked up at her cold eyes as his were bright with betrayal. She had taught him one of his own lessons. One of the minor ones he had taught his daughter.
The knife twisted in his back, but the agony was nothing compared to what was going on in his mind.
He had taken away the little livelihood she had left in his actions and in return she had his life taken.
After all, the servants are always overseen and thought to be dumb. They are suspected of petty crimes. Nothing like this.
The blade was pulled from his back, each stone on the floor beneath him was framed in crimson streams that poured from his body. His life spreading away from his body, never to return.
The deed had been done. She had always suspected and her lover helped her to prove it. Now they could have each other without guilt.
They turned away from the corpse that was turning cold and he she took his hand in her own. Blood was smeared across his fingers, but that meant little to her. It was only her husband's blood after all. He had cheated, lied, betrayed and defiled everything she has held dear to her. He apid for all that with his life.
They locked themselves away in the connecting bedchamber, the heavy door shutting their murmurs away from the body on the floor. Her husband's blood was still warm on the stones of the floor; the betrayal replaced the twinkle that once found its home in his warm hazel eyes.
They had betrayed each other. One betrayed the love of his life to bring a beginning to it all. The other betrayed her soul mate to bring the end.
Between the cracking of the lighting whips, the booms of thunder, and the pattering of rain around them, the only sound left for the unhearing ears on the study floor was the few words that fell from her lips.
"Oh Gower."
A/N: I'd like to remind you all to review and be sure to answer this one question, ever expect gower?