CHAPTER 2

King Byron of Albion passed away in the middle of the night two weeks later. Walter didn't hear many details from the staff, except that Queen Illandere and Jasper had been with him to attend to his last needs. The King probably couldn't have been conscious enough to appreciate the gesture, but he would have, Walter was sure. And if he hadn't appreciated that, then the damn well would have been impressed with the funeral. It was a closed-casket ceremony, where the coffin was placed on an ornate table in front of his throne. Those who wished to come and pay their respects gathered in one long line that stretched all the way down to the front gates, and these well-wishers left flowers, folded notes, and other assorted goodies right there at the coffin's feet. What would happen to all of them Walter had no idea, but he knew nothing bad would go on regarding those. Illandere was fair and generous, and despite the loss she continued to be the model hostess, being firm and polite when she had to be and excusing herself when she knew that her fabled self-control wouldn't last much longer.

Walter had figured the poor woman would snap on more than one occasion, but nothing had happened. It was refreshing… though worrisome. He stayed a distant figure in the processions, though, leaving her emotional well-being to Jasper as he scoped out any possible threat within the crowd. With the extra security near the front, Walter doubted anybody would try and force their way in through there, so he focused on the secret passageways Sir Rowle had pointed out during his first tour. He stationed five of his men to guard the general area of each one, and the rest were with the Prince and Princess in the gardens.

Near the end of the day when the sun was casting a golden gradient throughout the sky, two of Byron's guards took the casket to the patio and laid it down in front of that fountain he and Illandere had dined at before. The children were allowed one last look at the King before the coffin was again sealed and placed on a high stone table.

All was quiet in the night as they all watched, transfixed, as they set the coffin just right upon the table. Stillness hung in the air, and then, with a few, quick footsteps, Illandere walked forward dressed in a practical pair of riding clothes. She bowed her head and stroked the top of the coffin with gloved fingers, whispering words that couldn't be heard. The hand stroking the coffin began to glow with a soft, luminescent blue light and Walter heard the coffin catch on fire.

"Goodbye!" Illandere shouted suddenly, and the entire coffin was wreathed in flames. Smoke billowed up from it and towards the sky, casting a black, black shadow upon the sunset.

Walter moved without thinking of the ramifications of his actions. Reaching out, he placed a hand on the Queen's shoulder as she stood there, head bowed, still as a statue, as her husband burned before her. "Hey," he whispered. "Come here."

Illandere melted underneath his touch and pressed into him, her shoulders shaking with the sobs he knew she wouldn't cry out loud. He hugged her until, a few seconds later she gained control of herself and drew back. She didn't even look at him as she squinted towards the flames. "And now he is gone," she whispered.

"It's not your fault. You couldn't have fixed it." The words were heartfelt and true, but they still felt hollow coming from his lips. "And the only way you can bring him back now is unethical. Let the dead sleep."

Illandere turned away from the burning pyre and went to her children. Darrina hid in Logan's shoulder as she approached, her chest heaving up and down with sobs of terror, and Logan stared up wide-eyed at his mother like he'd never really seen her before. "No, go away!" he yelled, stumbling back. "Go away!"

"Logan?" Illandere questioned. She extended her hand forward. "Logan, come here, honey. It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you."

And then, in front of all of the onlookers, Logan yelled, "Stay away from us!" He took Darrina's hand and sprinted off through the crowd. Walter gave chase, slipping through the assorted peoples with easy grace. Sir Rowle called out something from behind him, but he paid no heed.

He followed the two of them into the hallway and was surprised when Logan whirled around, his face streaked with tears, and pointed an accusatory finger at him. "Go away!" he ordered in a shrill voice.

"Now, now, don't be hasty," Walter said, spreading his hands out shoulder-width apart. "It'll be okay. Let's talk about this."

Darrina was crying softly at Logan's side—he wasn't sure if she truly understood what had happened, but she was smart enough to pick up that something had enraged her brother. "G-go away!" Logan repeated, backpedaling several steps.

They were in one of the outer hallways, close to the pavilion, and Walter could already hear some of the guards beginning to jog their way. Walter, following his instincts, knelt down on one knee and extended a hand, holding Logan's eyes seriously as he tried to project an outward aura of calm. "Let's talk," he said quietly. "I just want to talk. Explain."

"I want Daddy," Darrina sobbed.

"Daddy isn't coming back," Walter said quietly, his heart twisting painfully in his chest. "Let's go to your rooms and talk. Okay, Prince Logan?"

Logan's lower lip trembled and he finally sniffed, nodding. "F-fine." Walter got up slowly as to not disturb the young boy too much and took his free hand.

Darrina detached herself so she could stand in front of him and raise her arms expectantly. Walter bent down to lift her up with one hand, and she gripped tightly around his throat like she was expecting to be dropped. "Why was Daddy in the box?" she whispered in his ear.

Walter sighed and didn't answer, and Darrina began to cry again. He led them back to their room on the second story, grim and determined, nodding shortly at the guards who eyed them suspiciously. The two standing in front of their room saluted quietly, and Walter merely opened the door and led Logan over to the bed. He sat down heavily and put his head in his pillow to cry freely. Darrina unwound herself from around his neck and permitted herself to be dropped gently on the soft mattress.

With another sigh, Walter sat down on the edge of the bed and massaged his temples. "Your father is dead," he said quietly. "He's been sick for a while, remember?"

Logan nodded against the pillow.

"He didn't want to leave you," Walter said. "He never would've wanted to leave you, but he didn't have a choice in the matter."

"Why not?" Logan argued. "Who does?"

"His body gave up," he said simply. "The body and mind are two separate things, you know. You have your mind, which is you in essence, and then you have your body, which is just basically some… crazy way for us to express our minds. Right?"

Logan didn't answer.

"So," Walter continued, "even though he wanted in his mind to stay, he couldn't because his body had reached the end of it's term. It happens to everybody."

"It's unfair," Logan whispered, his voice muffled against the cotton.

"Death is fair and unfair," Walter said, and then, softer, "I'm sorry for your loss. The King wouldn't want you to be sad, though."

Logan sniffed loudly. "Then why'd Momma do that? Why'd she set him on fire?"

"Because there was a chance that the disease could still be transferred to somebody else," Walter said quietly. "We wouldn't want anybody else to get sick. Like you, your sister, the people at the funeral…"

"How did Momma do that?" Darrina asked, crawling on to his lap.

"She's a Hero," Walter said. "She can do those things."

"But she set him on fire without a match!" Darrina argued. "She asked somebody to do it."

"She didn't have to ask anybody," Walter said, shaking his head. "She can call on that power whenever she wants because she's a Hero."

"She burned up Daddy because she asked someone," Darrina reiterated.

"Well what do you mean?" Walter asked.

"She didn't ask anybody," Logan muttered miserably. "She just went and did it because she's a Hero."

"But…"

"Just shut it!" Logan burst out. "She burned him up, okay?"

"Now you just wait one minute," Walter said quietly. "Your mother didn't kill Byron."

"I know, but she still burned him up!" Logan said. "Why couldn't we bury him?"

"Because burying him wouldn't have done any help," Walter replied. "Somebody could get sick from the body."

"But Madame Loretta and Jasper aren't sick," Logan shot back.

"Madame Loretta is keeping a close eye on herself and the butler," Walter said. He'd met Madame Loretta a few days prior to the funeral—the short, chubby woman was nice and easygoing, though being nursemaid to the two children seemed to require an extraordinary amount of energy. "They're both going to be fine."

"But why'd they burn him instead of burying him?" Logan asked.

"Because if you buried him, more people would be in contact with him," Walter explained. "It's easier this way. When you burn something, you destroy all of the bad things. That's why we cook our meat, see, and that's why we boil water before drinking it."

"Is that when the bubbles come up?" Darrina asked.

"Yes, it is," he said, cracking a small smile. "So instead of putting him in the ground, we just burned him to make the bad things go away."

"Why are the bad things there?" Darrina questioned.

"The same reason we're here," Walter said. "You want the bad things to not be there all the time? Some of the bad things are good."

"Like beer?" Logan asked unexpectedly. "I heard that do something to make it full of bad stuff."

"Why do people drink it?" Darrina asked.

Takes the edge off, Walter thought. "Because they want to," he said slowly. "Maybe you'll understand when you get older."

"Fine," she grumped. Her voice still sounded shaky, but Walter was concentrating so hard on trying to emit a calm, knowledgeable posture that she was beginning to look as though she were feeling a mite bit better. "Is Daddy gone forever?"

Walter pursed his lips and nodded. "Yeah, he's not coming back," he said gently, "but that shouldn't mean that you have to be sad. He's still with you."

"Where is he?"

"He's not here," Logan muttered. "He's never coming back, and Walter's lying through his teeth. Daddy died and that's that."

Walter sighed. "I understand what you're going through—believe me, I understand it. I've lost friends and brothers fighting for your mother all those years ago. Some of them went mad – some of them were killed. The fact of life and the fact of the world is that you can't control anything. You can try and influence the directions things are headed, but really you're as stuck up in the muck as the rest of us."

"How did they die?" Darrina asked quietly, looking at him with those serious brown eyes of hers – those serious brown eyes of his, though he was careful not to think of that too much. It would be better for all of them if he kept those dangerous thoughts out of his head. Darrina could never know – it was between himself and Illandere.

Walter found himself having an issue finding the words. "It's not… nice," he said lamely. "When people die, you feel different. Like something's bearing down on you. If you see them die – see them die in pain, and in fear… well, it's something else entirely."

"They were 'fraid?"

"Yes, they were very afraid," Walter said. "Big, strong men with tattoos crying on the battlefield when they lost their arms. Lord Lucien was relentless."

"They were crying?" Darrina asked, her eyes widening.

Walter nodded. "Indeed they were. Everybody is allowed to cry now and then, you know. Even me! I cried just a few weeks ago when that idiot Variel hit me right in the balls!"

Darrina burst out laughing. "In the balls!" she crowed.

Walter glanced at the door out of habit and was unsurprised to see one of the guards smirking a little to himself. "You probably don't want to go around saying that to the guests, today, Princess," he remarked. Though it would be funny… okay, it would be downright hilarious. "Actually, I only think you should say that phrase around the soldiers."

Logan had started to cry again, and Walter had to turn around a little bit to get enough reach so he could pat the boy's back. "Go away," Logan sobbed. "That's an order."

Darrina crawled off of his lap and went to sit next to her brother, who turned away from her in despair so he was facing the wall. "Why are you crying?" she asked, concern apparent in her young voice.

"Because Daddy isn't coming back!" Logan exploded. "And if you loved him you'd be crying, too!"

He felt a shadow in his peripheral vision and glanced up, startled, to see that Illandere had appeared there, quiet as a specter. She merely made a motion with her head, gesturing for him to leave, and he took Darrina's jacket off of his lap as gently as possible. "I think your mother wants to talk to you," he said quietly, setting it over her shoulders. "I'll see you two later."

As he exited, he noticed that the two soldiers had disappeared. "Sparrow," he said quietly, tipping his hat in her direction.

She didn't answer, and merely walked past him into the room. The door shut behind her, and Walter was in the hallway, then… alone.

With a sigh, he went to find the rest of his men and get a situational report. He still had a job to do, after all, one that didn't deal with the whimsical wonderings of the Afterlife or politics.

He checked in with Sir Rowle and maintained his guard post, but he couldn't get the conversation out of his head. It was a bad thing for a soldier to be preoccupied at a time when so many people were within the castle walls, and even though he forced himself not to actively think about it, it still slipped past his mental walls. What was, he thought, the best time to teach a child about death so they weren't scarred for the rest of their lives? What was the step-by-step guide for bringing up a privileged boy and girl? The two of them were Heroes, of that Walter knew had to be true since Illandere was their mother, but just because you were a Hero didn't mean that you weren't privy to the highs and lows of every man in existence.

Hammer had gone on a rage when Lucien killed her father; Reaver had been a cold-blooded pirate; Garth had been a mystical man engaged in books and science to the exclusion of all else. Even Illandere had been driven by the urge for revenge against a death in her family – when Lucien had killed Rose all of those years ago, the death of her sister had caused her to nurse a deep resentment that had eventually manifested itself in the great quest that she undertook to dispose of him.

Illandere – and he would never think anything bad about her – had her own faults and her own issues to deal with, and he knew that she was just as lost in the world of parenting now as she'd been on day one. People would look to her to remarry and produce more heirs, but the poor woman was probably past that stage in her life, now. How old was she now, anyway? Thirty-five? Thirty-seven? She didn't look it, but the years weighed heavily on her shoulders.

Without Byron, the Queen was going to go through a great turmoil. People would leap at the chance to court her now, and the political pressure would be very strong indeed.

And if Illandere died, Logan would be next in line for the throne despite his young age. Walter was sure that wouldn't happen, though. First of all, Illandere couldn't die of anything less than old age. She was, after all, the same lady who defeated an entire army of Spire Guards at Bloodstone, infiltrated the Spire, and caused all-around chaos for the leaders of Albion. Secondly, even if such a thing did happen she was sure to leave instructions. Logan would probably not take the throne right away – the country would be handed over to the Queen's advisors who would make the choices, and then perhaps given to Logan when he reached manhood.

It was not a good situation. Not a good situation at all.

They watched the rest of the people finally trickle out, a guard's worst nightmare, and Walter instructed his group of men to go search the rest of the castle. They found three men, all there of their own separate volitions, and put them in the dungeon after confiscating the candle-stick holders and spoons they'd heisted. All in all, less trouble than he'd been expecting… and after living at Bloodstone, you expected a lot.

Darrina and Logan were not to be seen for the rest of the day, though Walter spotted Illandere bringing up a few plates of food around dinner time. They must have eaten in there, together and away from everybody, and Walter felt for her. He really did.