That door still haunted him.
It sat there, just in the same place it had always been, except now it was always closed and unguarded. The Crownsguards who had once been stationed outside had moved across the hall to the vacant room where Regis slept most nights since recovering from his illness.
Just walking past it was uncomfortable—knowing what lay on the other side and what didn't. It made his stomach knot every time, like a rag wrung out to dry. Sometimes he stopped and just stared at it.
He wanted to go in, but he didn't know how. He didn't think he could face it, still.
How could he? Not just now, but ever. Behind that door, she was lingering. If he went inside it would all come flooding back, uncontrolled, with nothing to stop it. He didn't think he could face that. There wasn't a good time and there wasn't ever going to be. Too soon and everything was too fresh and sharp. Too late and it would just be ingrained.
Regis sighed and turned away from the door, walking the few feet across the hall to his new room.
Temporary room, he corrected himself. Someday he would go in. But not today.
Aulea had been dead for well over four months. Nothing had changed.
Clarus thought he was doing better—Regis could see it in the way he smiled in the mornings—but Clarus was wrong. It was true, he no longer had such difficulty concentrating; the glass wall that had blocked him off from every choice, no matter how small, was broken and crumbling at his feet. He ate regularly, now, though that was mostly Weskham's doing, and every now and then there was some food that didn't sound as terrible as the rest. Furthermore, after his crazed, work-fueled stint, he had been more cautious about taking the rest his body needed.
Or, at the very least, he tried to.
His mind still didn't want to let him sleep. During that week when Clarus had refused to let him get out of bed, everything had been alright, more or less. Someone was there at all times. Their company was like a candle in the night, holding back the dark so he could rest.
Now they were gone and the sleepless nights returned. He couldn't possibly ask them to continue to do the same for him while he was well. Both Clarus and Weskham had other needs to see to; they deserved their own full nights' sleep.
So he suffered through it, forcing himself to return to the vacant room at night and lay in bed. Most of the night he would lay there, struggling to keep thoughts of her from his mind. He didn't want to think about her. He didn't want to miss her. He didn't want to feel empty and terrible inside anymore. He just wanted to see to his duty and do what he was meant to do.
That was his intent, when he returned to the vacant room across the hall from his own, that night. Inside, the room still looked unoccupied. Across the hall, the room he had once shared with Aulea was full of memories and reminders of life: there were books in the bookcases, plants in the windows, keepsakes in the drawers. Here there was nothing but the generic. A guest room.
The linens on the bed matched the black and gold paneling. The nightstand was empty, save for a lamp and a glass of water. There were no shelves, no books, no possessions. The only contents of the closet were a scant few suits that Weskham had taken from the other room. It was neat and tidy and completely devoid of interest.
Regis sighed as he shut the door behind him. The room didn't just look empty; it felt empty. The chair that either Weskham or Clarus had occupied for the better part of two weeks was pulled away into the corner. Servants had been in to tidy and made up the bed until it looked as if he had never slept there before.
Not that he did much sleeping. He intended to try, however. He got as far as striping off his suit and changing into a loose shirt and a pair of drawstring pants before a knock at the door interrupted him.
Surprised, Regis crossed the room and opened the door to find Clarus outside.
"Clarus." Regis raised his eyebrows. "You should be home."
"Very soon," Clarus agreed. "There were a few things I needed to tidy up."
Not one to make his friend stand out in the hall, Regis stepped aside, holding the door open for him.
"How are you feeling?" Clarus asked as he stepped inside and Regis shut the door.
"Well enough," Regis said. He was assuming Clarus was asking after his health. Otherwise the answer would have been 'I feel like utter shit and you know full well.'
Clarus scrutinized him for a moment. It was a look that made Regis wonder if Clarus hadn't meant to ask how he was feeling emotionally.
"Look, Regis." Clarus paused, running his hand over the top of his head before deciding to push on. "I know you haven't visited Aulea's tomb since the funeral."
Ah. So they were talking about that, after all.
Regis dropped his gaze, turning and walking across the room to sit down on the bed as he cast about for some way to sidetrack the conversation. Anything would do. Anything would be better.
"I thought… if you did want to go, I would be only too willing to accompany you." Clarus persisted in spite of Regis' efforts.
How can he know me so well and not at all? Regis thought. I cannot go back there. Surely he must understand that.
That tomb housed what he hated most: the empty shell of his beloved. It wasn't her, closed up in that cold stone box. It was just a ghost. How could Clarus ask him to face that?
You should talk to her, you know, Spero's voice whispered in his ear.
Regis shut his eyes and blocked out the sounds of his own mind.
"I am very tired, Clarus," he said. It was true, but he wasn't likely to get any sleep.
By the door, Clarus sighed.
"I mean it, Regis. I think you know you need to face her. I'd like to help, if you'll let me." Clarus took a step forward, his first since Regis had moved away from him.
"What is there to face?!" Regis snapped, lifting his eyes at last and settling his fiery gaze on Clarus. "My queen is dead, and with her my life. All I can do it carry out my duty to the best of my ability without that."
Clarus froze, his eyes widening in surprise. Regis didn't lower his gaze, this time. At length, Clarus spoke again, though his voice was quieter in the wake of Regis' ire. "Is that what you're doing?" He asked. "Just surviving for the sake of duty?"
"Everyone requires something of me." He wasn't complaining, not really. It was just the truth. That was the nature of his position.
Everyone in Lucis looked to him for guidance and leadership. Everyone in the Crown City required his strength to uphold the Wall. In the Citadel, every decision required his approval. Even his children, Gods bless their flawless souls, required his love and affection, his attention.
It was Clarus who dropped his gaze, this time.
"We all miss her, Regis," he said, subdued. "I know nothing can come close to what you lost, but there are other things left… other people."
Regis didn't respond. Across the hall, that door was sitting shut and untouched because the one person who never made him feel as if she expected something from him was gone. And she was never coming back.
"If you decide you'd like to go… I'm going to visit her tomorrow, regardless." Clarus turned toward the door. "Goodnight."
Don't talk about her like she's still here, Regis thought as he watched the door shut behind his friend.
She's never coming back.
Clarus was uncharacteristically quiet the following day. Regis felt remorseful for having snapped at him that way, but he wasn't sure how to remedy it. He wasn't even sure if he wanted to remedy it.
What he wanted was for everything to be the same as it had been a year ago. He wanted Aulea back. He wanted to be the same man that inspired such devotion from his friends and subjects. He wanted to stop pushing people away when he needed them the most, but every time he meant to let them in, they turned around and proved they had no idea what he was, inside.
Regis tapped his pen against his desk. He sat with his forehead in his hand—an undignified position for a king, perhaps, but no one was around to see it. Cor had the Crownsguard to see to, Weskham the household, and Clarus had disappeared an hour ago with some faint excuse about meeting Aldebrand. More likely, Clarus simply didn't want to face him. Regis could hardly blame him.
Outside the shut door, a commotion broke out. Regis looked up, his brow furrowing.
"Sir, I'm afraid I cannot let you enter without permission." That was Avunculus, surely.
"Well why not?" The second voice was also familiar, though Regis couldn't immediately place it.
"His Majesty is very busy. He cannot be expected to meet with every person who wanders in off the street."
"My dear man, I did not simply wander in off the street. I strode in with dignity and purpose. Well. Purpose, at least. And that purpose is to see the king. Now let me see him. He's in here, right?"
There was a thump on the door, not quite a knock, but it cut off before the door opened.
"You cannot go in! Now I must ask you to leave. If you do not do so voluntarily, I will have you escorted out."
"Come, now, there's no need to get testy. He's my king, too, you know."
Regis rose to his feet. He was beginning to think that second voice sounded a little like the one that whispered in his ear, some nights.
"No—no, please don't drag me. I'm very fragile. Your Majesty! I am being man-handled on your doorstep!"
Regis was already to the door before his unannounced visitor decided to address him directly, closed door or no. He yanked it open and the chaos outside halted as if someone had pressed pause on a video.
Spero Perdita stood between two Crownsguards; each held one arm and faced away from the king's study, in the direction they were endeavoring to escort him, though they had both stopped to look over their shoulder at the sound of the door. At Regis' right hand stood Avunculus. He was as composed and upright as ever, in spite of the unexpected encounter.
"Your Majesty, I do apologize for the disturbance—"
"Ah, there you are." Spero smiled at him and it was just as unnerving as it had been months ago. "Might I trouble you for—" He broke off mid sentence and coughed, turning his head down. Somehow he managed the last two words, in spite of the fit. "—My—freedom—?"
Regis gestured to the Crownsguards to release him and it was so.
"My thanks—" Spero coughed, lifting a hand to wipe a line of blood from his lips.
He may have been upright and out of bed, but Regis noted he still wore bandages. They were visible at his neck, beneath the collar of his shirt, and at his wrists; it seemed likely that they spanned the full length of his arms, beneath his sleeves.
Regis' mouth twisted. Had the doctors just given up on him? He clearly wasn't well.
He motioned, holding a hand out toward the open door of his study to invite Spero inside.
"Your Majesty—" Avunculus stepped forward, perhaps to make an apology or an objection. Either way, Regis didn't allow him to finish.
"Please bring Mr. Perdita some water and see to it that we are otherwise not disturbed."
Avunculus hesitated only for a moment, then bowed. "Yes, Your Majesty."
Regis withdrew, following Spero into his office, and shut the door behind them.
"Please, sit," Regis invited, motioning to the leather wingback armchairs that stood apart from his desk, closer to the fireplace.
Spero dropped into one of them, not needing telling twice. He hunched forward, drawing a bloodstained handkerchief from his pocket and coughing intermittently into it.
"I must apologize for their treatment of you." Regis took a seat in the remaining chair. "Alas, as you have found, it is not easy to simply request to see me."
"Why not?" Spero asked when he had control of his lungs for three consecutive seconds. He leaned back in the chair and leveled his gaze at Regis; the intensity of his stare made it clear his comment wasn't merely flippant. He didn't mean 'why don't you take time out of your busy day to meet with every person who would like to see the King of Lucis.' What he meant, Regis guessed, was something harder to answer.
Why can't you meet with the people who need you?
Regis gave him an unamused smile. A servant knocked on the door, then entered to bring a pitcher of water and two glasses on a tray. She set it on the coffee table between them before withdrawing.
"Because life is imperfect." Regis sat forward and poured a glass, pushing it across to Spero, who accepted it gratefully.
"And we know it better than most." Spero lifted the glass of water, as if to toast the sentiment, then drained it in one go.
Regis pursed his lips: neither a smile nor a grimace, but something in between. Just that morning he had been bemoaning not having anyone who understood. Now there was Spero.
"How are you faring?" Regis asked at length. "I perceive that you are not entirely recovered."
"Mmm… and never will be," Spero said.
He didn't elaborate. Did he mean the doctors expected his body would never heal entirely? Or something much more ominous?
"And yet, you have been released. Do you intend to return to Phoenix?" Regis asked, pushing cautiously.
"Oh no. I can't. I've been relieved of duty," Spero said, unconcerned.
Regis' brows snapped together. "They fired you?"
"In a manner of speaking," Spero said, rolling the empty glass between his hands. "I worked in the warehouse, moving crates, but this…" he gestured vaguely to himself. "Has left me crippled. If I can't do my job I can't keep it."
Regis fumed. He thought they had prevented that. Hadn't he signed an order to halt exactly this sort of thing?
"I must apologize. I had no idea—I meant for no one to lose their livelihood, through this," he said.
"Bit late for that."
Regis considered the remark—yet another comment that didn't mean what it said—and set it aside. He would make this right or, at least, as right as it could be made.
"I will see to it that you are provided for at Phoenix's expense. Do you need somewhere to stay?" He couldn't give Spero his wife back, but he could see to the rest.
Spero leaned forward to refill his glass but he paused halfway through the motion to look up at Regis. "Me, stay in the Citadel? Perish the thought, Your Majesty!" He set the pitcher back down without filling his glass. "No, thank you. It'll be bad enough as is. Can you imagine, staying in a castle with hundreds of people knowing your business and fussing over you all the time?"
"Yes," Regis said dryly. "I can."
Spero grinned. Most times when someone smiled at a wry comment he had made, it gave Regis the impression that he had caused their amusement, but the smile Spero wore gave a very different feeling. It looked as if he was smiling at his own private joke that he had allowed Regis to share in, and the expression was his way of saying 'I'm glad you got it.'
Spero shifted the subject, leaning forward to resume his attempt to refill his glass. "I came to ask a favor."
"Of course. What can I do for you?" Regis responded without hesitation.
"I want you to condemn the bastards that killed Elaisse." He looked up at Regis and his eyes blazed with something unfamiliar. Anger? Hatred?
Admittedly, Regis had only known Spero for a short time and only met him once before. In spite of that fact, he found the ferocity on his face jarring. Here was a man who smiled months after his wife had been taken from him. They were dark, terrible smiles, yes, but it was as if he found a twisted sort of humor in the whole ghastly affair. In their brief time together, Regis couldn't say for certain that Spero had ever made a truly serious remark. Until then.
"I do intend to," Regis said, choosing his words carefully.
"I'll stick around for it." The fire was gone. One of those twisted little smiles sat in its place.
"Will you, in return, do something for me?" Regis sat forward in his chair, hands gripping the arms.
"What could the King of Lucis want from the likes of me?"
"I want you to find a reason to keep going. Some light in this darkness."
Spero choked on his water. He leaned forward to cough into his handkerchief. "You want me not to die? I should have thought you of all people would understand what a tall order that is."
"My understanding is precisely why I ask it of you," Regis said severely.
"Well, I'll hold on to see that justice, like I said." Spero coughed a few more times before rising to his feet.
"I say this with the utmost seriousness, Spero." Regis rose, as well. "What of your book?"
Spero looked up at him, tilting his head to one side. The look on his face, pensive and curious, seemed to say he had never met anyone quite like the king, before.
"It'll keep," he said.
"Not if you never see the end of it." Regis took a step forward, then stopped himself. Wasn't he doing exactly what his friends had been doing to him for months, now?
Spero continued to study him. He stooped to pick up his glass once more and drained it a second time. Again, he dodged the conversation. "Have you spoken to your wife?"
Regis blinked, taken aback. Spero couldn't know that those words had stuck in Regis' head all this time.
"I thought not. You should talk to her," Spero said.
Now it was Regis' turn to avoid the topic. He turned, moving around his chair, and returned to his desk. "She is dead, Spero."
"Well of course she's dead!" Spero cried. "That's the point! I hardly think I'd have to tell you to talk to your wife if she wasn't dead, now would I?"
Regis paused, halfway around his desk, and turned to look at Spero more. There was something peculiar about him. Something Regis had noted the first time they had met, but hadn't been able to put his finger on. Now it seemed a little more clear: Spero Perdita, whoever and whatever else he might have been, was not quite right in the head. The only thing more mad than him was the fact that he actually made some sense to the dark corners of Regis' mind that he had kept tucked away for months.
"You speak with your wife?" Regis asked.
"Of course. Would you like me to introduce you?"
It sounded crazy. It was crazy. But once again, Regis heard the question underneath the question. Earlier Spero had asked 'why?' and meant much more. Now he spouted nonsense, but instead, Regis saw a man reaching out to connect over grief and loss.
"Does she… speak to you?"
"That would make me mad." Spero flashed teeth in another unsettling smile, but he didn't deny it.
Regis sighed, turning and walking the rest of the way around his desk to sit down in his chair. Then he did what he hadn't had the courage to do, before.
"I have not even visited her tomb," he confessed. "I have not been back in my own room since the first night."
"You should talk to her," Spero repeated.
"Will it help?"
"Of course. Who else are you going to tell that stuff to?" Spero refilled his glass once more and sauntered around the chairs toward Regis' desk, as if without aim. When Regis didn't respond, he continued. "Not me. We've just established that I'm mad."
They hadn't, not really, but Regis took the confession in stride. At least they were both on the same page and aware of it, now.
"Talk to your queen," Spero said again. "Tell her everything you can't tell anyone else. And if she does respond… well… perhaps you should talk to a doctor about that."
"And what of you?"
"Oh, I'll be very busy." Spero stopped right in front of Regis' desk, drinking only half his water before setting it down, this time. He flashed Regis a twisted smile. "I have a book to write."
"Spero—" Regis half-rose from his seat as Spero moved toward the door. Spero halted and turned back to look at him. "There will be money in the mail for you, from Phoenix. See to it that you collect it."
"Cheers." Spero turned and put his hand on the door handle.
"And one last thing—"
Again, Spero stopped and looked back at Regis.
"If you find yourself in need of someone else to talk to, besides Elaisse…" Regis braced his hands on his desk, now standing fully. He let the suggestion trail off without finishing his offer. Spero would understand.
Spero studied him with that curious look again, head cocked to one side. "Do your friends fuss over you like this?"
Regis straightened, taken aback. "I suppose they do. Do yours not?"
"Who knows?" Spero gave a bark of laughter, short and humorless. "Haven't seen them."
He pushed the door open without waiting for Regis' response. "Farewell, Your Majesty. I do hope you find the time to talk with her."
And just like that he was gone, slipping out the door and past the confused Crownsguards and attendants once more, and leaving Regis with enough food for thought to keep him sated for weeks.