Regis had thought sitting in court, reaching for words that had once come so easily to him and struggling to focus on just one simple thing in the present was trying, but it was nothing to what awaited him at the end of the day.
He halted outside the doors to his chamber, just far enough away that the crownsguard outside, who had placed her hand on the doorknob in anticipation of opening it for the king, hesitated. The last time he had been inside, Aulea had been in there with him. Though he knew without a doubt that she wasn't waiting for him beyond those doors, he couldn't help the flicker of hope he felt: subconscious, an automatic feeling of relief like he always felt when retiring to his rooms after a long day. Aulea would be there. She would ease his burdens and soothe his worries.
Except she wouldn't. Not that night, nor ever again.
"Your Majesty?"
Clarus was at his elbow, wondering why it was that they had stopped so suddenly. Regis spared him a sideways glance and picked himself up, standing a little straighter. He could do this. He would do this, no matter how it hurt. He would make it through because there was no other choice: not for him.
He closed the last of the distance down the hall and the doors opened for them. The king stepped inside with his faithful Shield ever at his side, steeling himself for what lay beyond.
I will prevail, he told himself.
The doors shut behind them. Inside, the room was just the same as ever: the walls were lined with the same black and gold paneling that covered the whole castle, the floor the same black marble tile. But it wasn't the walls or the floor that drew his attention; he hardly paid note to the signs that servants had been about, tidying up and setting a fire in the hearth. What his eyes settled on were the little details.
The sitting room attached to his bedroom was empty of people, save himself and Clarus, but all the indications that another had once been there were still present. There was the armchair she always sat in by the tall windows in the back, the woven blanket cast over it as if she had just stepped out for a moment and would return shortly. There was the table with a tiny hoop of needlepoint sitting on top, unfinished and destined never to be. There was the little stack of books on the coffee table, some of them marked part-way through; she had never gotten to discover the end of those stories. Her own had come too soon for that.
His feet took him through the room. With the merry fire and the city lights twinkling outside, it should have been warm and welcoming, but he found it cold and painfully empty. His fingers brushed the unfinished needlepoint—a basket of roses and an elegant black cat—before he turned away.
I cannot do this. Whatever brave lies he had told himself in the hall outside, the truth came crashing down on him, regardless.
He ground his teeth together and turned toward the window, his eyes shut. Behind him he could hear Clarus, just out of reach, waiting to see what he would do. Regis did precisely what he had done all day: nothing at all.
"What is the point, anymore, Clarus?" He asked bitterly, as he opened his eyes and looked out the window. "What is the use, if there is nothing but nothing from here until forever? Why shall I continue?"
Anyone else in the city might have paid a considerable sum to have views such as he did. Floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall windows stretched throughout the sitting room and his adjacent bedroom. An endless view of Insomnia.
To him, it was a perpetual reminder of everything riding on his shoulders. Outside that window there were hundreds of thousands of people looking up at him, watching, waiting, expecting. Above them the Wall shimmered, a constant barrier shielding his people from the threats beyond, fueled by his strength alone. It pulled at him every second of every day, like a fish hook stuck in his soul and being tugged, tortuously slowly, for whatever remained of his life.
That would have been enough. All of those were things that he had known would fall on his shoulders eventually and, even if he had never relished the thought, he had been prepared to accept it. But that had been before, when Aulea still stood at his side: a breath of fresh air in a stuffy Citadel conference room, a cool whisper in the dark of night. How could he do it without her? How could he do any of it?
"Regis…"
Clarus' hand fell on his shoulder. Regis shut his eyes, blocking out the view once more.
"I know," Regis sighed. "I continue because I must."
That was all there was to it, wasn't it? If he set down this burden there would be no one left to pick it up. Lucis would fall. The Crystal would be unprotected. His people would die.
"But I have tried. I have tried so hard and everything I used to be is just out of reach. So much of me died with her, Clarus. I thought I should be able to pick myself up and carry on as I always have done. Now I find it impossible." The glass of the window was cool against his forehead, Clarus' hand warm on his shoulder.
"I don't know that this is something you can rush," Clarus said.
"What choice have I?"
Clarus was quiet for long enough that Regis opened his eyes to look at him. His friend stood with pursed lips, looking reluctant to say anything in one direction or the other. Clarus knew as well as he did that there was no time for him to mope about. He didn't want to mope; he wanted to work, but even that seemed impossible.
"Let us return downstairs. I cannot bear to be in this place without her," Regis said, pushing away from the window and turning toward the door again.
They went, leaving the crownsguards outside looking mildly confused, and returned to the king's study. He dropped into one of the padded armchairs and cast about dejectedly for something to think of that didn't remind him of Aulea. In a few more minutes Weskham found them there; he entered, followed by servants bearing dinner, though Regis felt no more inclined to eat than he had been that afternoon.
Weskham offered him the tray and Regis considered refusing it. Ultimately he decided that was pointless; everyone in the room knew he didn't want to eat, but they—himself included—also knew he needed to. So he took the tray, dutiful as ever, and forced himself to start on the soup.
"Is that bottle still on the sideboard, Weskham?" Regis asked, glancing up at his steward.
"Yes, Sire."
He motioned wordlessly, indicating that he wanted it, and Weskham poured him a glass of amber liquid. He drained it in one mouthful and held it out for more, which he received. Weskham didn't object. Indeed, he didn't even look disapproving; his features were too well controlled for that, but Regis suspected he felt it, anyway.
"Regis—" Clarus didn't have the same inhibitions. "You shouldn't drink on an empty stomach."
Regis looked at the second glass, emptied it as well, and handed it back to Weskham. "I know," he said regretfully, as he returned to his soup.
"Is there anything else I can do, Sire?" Weskham inquired.
The way he said it gave Regis pause; it wasn't just the idle question posed by a faithful steward to his king—though Weskham was certainly that—it was an entreating, hopeful plea from a friend: could he do anything to make life less unbearable, even if only for a moment? It was that tone that made Regis actually stop and consider, rather than dismissing offhand that there was nothing likely to make him feel better. How had he gotten through the night before? With a liberal dose of alcohol and his three ever-faithful friends, primarily, but…
"My children—Weskham, would you… if they are not yet asleep…"
"I will see," Weskham said, leaving the room with a bow.
Regis returned to his ash-flavored soup. He didn't much feel like going back upstairs, but the only thing he could think of that didn't sound terrible was spending time with his children.
In the time that Weskham was gone, Clarus folded himself into the opposite armchair and Regis made some decent headway on his soup. He discovered it was considerably easier to eat if he didn't have to chew—it meant tasting a little less. By the time his steward had returned, Regis had eaten most of the soup and a portion of the bread, but he set aside the unfinished dinner when Weskham arrived with one child in his arms.
"Little Noctis was fast asleep, so her nursemaids send Reina to keep you company," Weskham provided as he handed off the baby.
"Reina," Regis took her eagerly, wrapping her up in his arms and holding her tight.
The little princess squirmed but didn't fuss; she let Regis hold onto her as he leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes. It was the closest he would ever get to being with Aulea ever again; it wasn't enough, but he would have to make do. This was their daughter: if there was one thing Aulea would have wanted for him after her death, it would have been that he care for their children.
A little voice in the back of his mind insisted this wasn't entirely true. Aulea would have wanted him to be happy, but that was impossible. He could only hope he wouldn't disappoint her too much in his failure on that point.
Reina gave one more hearty squirm, along with a monosyllabic sound. Regis resettled his grip on her, holding her out in front of him and letting her feet rest on his lap. They sat crooked, like she wasn't sure what feet were for, just yet, but her eyes fixed on his face almost immediately and he couldn't help but smile. It seemed an age since he had held her; had it really only been that morning when they had been together?
"Hello, my dear," he said. "It has been a long day… though perhaps not for you. Or perhaps every day is a long day when it takes up so much of your life. Did you have a lovely day, Little Princess?"
She watched him as he spoke, as if captivated by his face and the way it produced so many different sounds. Her arms gave swift, jerky little movement, up and down, with no purpose that he could see but to test her ability to move them intentionally. He smiled and then he watched as—for the first time that he had observed, at least—her alert, open-mouthed expression blossomed into a true smile.
It was the most beautiful thing he could ever remember seeing.
Regis' own smile deepend. "She is smiling at me—Clarus, look at this smile!"
For a moment he feared it wouldn't last long enough for Clarus to see, but his fears proved unfounded; the toothless smile persisted even as Clarus rose and came to stand beside him. Reina's eyes flicked toward the motion, but lingered only for a moment before she looked at Regis again.
"She is beautiful, Regis," Clarus said.
"She will grow to look just like her mother," Weskham commented, at Regis' right.
"Is that so, Little Princess?" Regis asked earnestly. Though he hardly dared admit it, even to himself, he hoped she would. It hardly mattered, one way or another, his more reasonable half said; she was beautiful now and she always would be, regardless of whether or not she looked like Aulea some day.
"Do you have any old pictures of Aulea as a child?" Clarus asked.
"Not this young, I think," Regis said, never taking his eyes off his daughter. She gave a great yawn and he found himself imitating her; babies, it seemed, made people do all sorts of strange things.
"What's the oldest, then? We must have been… six or seven when we started off together," Clarus mused.
"You may have been six or seven. I suspect she and I were three or four." Regis laid Reina down on her back in his lap, letting her grab hold of his thumbs when she reached for them. Her knees tucked up and her little feet kicked, but she held tight to his hands and watched everything that moved and some things that didn't. "There may be one or two that has survived all this way from then."
"And you didn't join us until… well… we must have been nearly teenagers, by then," Clarus said to Weskham.
"In the thick of school," Weskham said. "I was thirteen, His Majesty twelve, which makes you fifteen at the time, Clarus."
"There are certainly pictures at that age," Clarus said.
"Indeed. I have a few myself with a very young Her Majesty braiding my hair," Weskham said.
Regis managed a smile at that, still looking at his daughter rather than his friends. "I had forgotten she used to do that."
"He got so used to it he just resigned himself to it," Clarus said, reaching across the back of Regis' chair and flicking one of Weskham's braids.
"She had style," Weskham said simply, "Even at thirteen I recognized it."
"She also had a way of getting others to do as she liked," Regis told Reina as the little princess yawned once more.
"You'll not find any who disagree with that. She certainly had you wrapped around her finger," Clarus teased as he rested his arm along the back of Regis' armchair and leaned against it.
"Do not act as if you were immune," Regis said, pulling his eyes away from Reina at last and looking up at Clarus. "Since we are discussing photographs, I have a lovely one of you wearing a flower crown that Aulea made."
"You were wearing one, too!" Clarus retorted.
"Of course I was," Regis said. He dropped his gaze back to his daughter once more. "We have already well established that I always did whatever she liked."
"That, at least, will undoubtedly be the same for this little one," Weskham commented.
Reina's hold on his fingers had slipped—as had her hold on her eyelids. She gave one final yawn and they drooped shut altogether, only to jerk back open.
Regis didn't even deny the suggestion. He just smiled and resettled Reina's blankets around her, watching her eyes shut once more. "Everything your little heart desires, my dear; if it is in my power I will grant it," he murmured.
"And when she misbehaves?" Clarus inquired.
"All she need do is fix me with that endless, blue-eyed gaze and all will be forgiven," Regis said, though he knew it was still uncertain whether her eyes would turn out blue in the end. He hoped they would be; it was a hope wrapped in another hope: Aulea's eyes had been blue.
"And when she brings home her first boyfriend?" Clarus pressed.
Regis shot him a glare. Clarus was smiling.
"Why do you taunt me so? She will not even know what a boy is for many years, yet," the king scowled.
"Now Clarus, do be reasonable," Weskham said, settling one hand on Regis' shoulder. "The child will grow up to be her father's little girl and that is that."
"I thought we were maintaining she would grow to be just like Aulea, in which case I foresee a great deal of trouble in your future, my friend," Clarus teased.
"Ah, but you have forgotten something very important about Her Majesty," Weskham said.
"What is that?" Clarus asked.
"That she loved Regis more than anything. And for all her mischief and her sly, persuasive streak, she would never have intentionally caused him trouble."
Regis' smile, warm from watching his daughter fall asleep on his lap, grew bittersweet at Weskham's words. It was true, of course. Some people might have found it in themselves to feel angry with a lost spouse for leaving them behind, but Aulea had always hated whatever perceived inconvenience she caused him. If she could have said one thing to him now, he wouldn't have been surprised if it was I'm sorry.
The three of them were quiet for a time. The fourth sighed in her sleep.
Eventually, Clarus cleared his throat. "Well, it seems it will still be some years, yet, before we can dig up the old photographs and see if our predictions ring true. Until then, it might be wise to take the princess' advice and get some sleep. Regis?"
"I cannot move," Regis said without regret. "I have become a bed, and I have no intention of making any changes until she is through with me."
"Already at her beck and call," Weskham observed.
"But your family is waiting for you, Clarus. You must return to them," Regis said, looking up at his friend. Clarus, at least, had a wife to return home to, still. "Far be it from me to keep you."
Clarus hesitated a moment, looking at Weskham, rather than Regis. The former gave a short nod: an affirmation that he would remain and look after the king. Only after Clarus had this assurance did he excuse himself to go, bidding them goodnight and farewell.
"Will you sleep here, tonight, Sire?" Weskham asked.
"I expect so." He might have said he intended to stay for as long as Reina slept, but in truth he had no plans to return to his room in the foreseeable future.
Weskham lowered the lights so that the only source in the study was the dying fire in the hearth. He threw more wood on the fire and stirred it back to life, then gathered up the remnants of Regis' dinner to take outside.
"Weskahm—"
"Yes, Sire?"
Regis hesitated, looking at his daughter for a moment before casting his gaze to his friend. "It will never be the same, will it?"
Weskham's mouth tightened in regret. "No, Sire," he said.
"And I suppose I never will be, either," Regis said, dropping his gaze once more.
"No, Sire. I do not believe anything—or anyone—will be. She touched a great many lives and it would do her great injustice to pretend that her passing changes nothing."
Regis nodded, throat tight, but didn't respond. Eventually he heard the door close as Weskham left to return the tray to the kitchen.
He slept in his chair, that night. It wasn't the first time and and it wouldn't be the last time, but for one night, at least, he had the excuse of being used as an infant's bed.