In the Citadel, gossip spilled like scotch from a cracked cup: straight from the source and spreading without resistance, invariably making a stained mess of everything it touched. And it reeked. No one actually liked the smell of scotch. Arguably few even liked the taste.
As such, by the evening meal in the servants' mess, the story of the king passing out from drink at the foot of his wife's grave was everywhere. Those who hadn't heard it yet were regaled with the tale thrice-over during the meal. There were few things better than gossip and gossip about the monarch was the best kind.
"Master Amicitia, Master Armaugh, and The Marshal took him upstairs this morning. He hasn't come out, since."
Crea blinked, her fork halfway to her mouth and completely forgotten. "Is he alright?"
"Who knows. No one has seen him."
"That's not true! I spoke to Etgar who said that Abel was one of the ones attending His Majesty this afternoon. Apparently he said that the doctors said the king was fine, but that he doesn't look it. Said Master Amicitia came in and shouted at him, earlier—sent everyone except the king's closest away, first, and then gave him a right proper reaming. They could hear it in the hall."
Crea put her fork down and rested her chin in her hand, drumming fingers against her own cheek.
"Did he do it on purpose?" She asked, picking up her fork once more and prodding at her pie, noncommittal.
"Pass out in the mausoleum? I daresay—"
"Not that," Crea interrupted. Gyles would never shut up, otherwise. "He nearly killed himself, didn't he? If they had to bring so many doctors in? Was he trying to?"
The others at her table exchanged looks, as if that possibility hadn't occurred to them. Really. Didn't anyone ever think past the surface, here?
"I hadn't thought of that," Gyles admitted. "But you don't think the king—"
"He hasn't been right since the queen died. I know I'm not the only one who has found him sleeping at his desk with a bottle in the mornings," said a wispy old woman who Crea knew only as part of the cleaning staff.
Crea took a bite of her dinner, finally, and considered. By his own admission she knew His Majesty hadn't been sleeping in his own quarters. Sometimes he fell asleep in the nursery and she was always careful to let him sleep. But she hadn't heard about the bottle, before. It seemed the binge in the mausoleum wasn't the first time he had reached for alcohol to dull the pain, but he had certainly never come to see his children while under the influence, before. That was something.
"What happens if the king dies…?" asked one of the younger attendants—a boy that Crea had only seen around for the past month.
"I suppose that rule falls to Master Amicitia," Gyles said, stirring his soup with his fork before trying to take a bite and finding nothing there. He paused, momentarily distracted by the mystery of how his spoon had sprouted tines, before putting his thoughts in order once more. "The real problem isn't who rules, but what happens to the Crown City without a king on the throne. You know they say that if the king falls, the Wall falls—and that only a member of the royal family can hold it. If he kicks it now—with the prince and princess not even a year old? We'll all be toast as soon as the empire comes knocking again."
And with that uncomfortable thought, the conversation ceased. It picked up again later, turning to other topics, but Crea paid them little heed. She was still thinking about the king.
When dinner was through she tracked down Abel and found out what room His Majesty was in. Abel was only too happy to give her more information than she needed; it took her fifteen minutes to excuse herself from more speculation on King Regis' state of mind, and by that time she was late for her shift. The fact that she took a brief detour to find the room didn't help her punctuality. It wasn't difficult to find: there were crownsguards standing outside the door and a pair of attendants idling in the hall.
With her mind made up and something resembling a plan, Crea arrived in the nursery.
Joyce, the nurse she had been meant to relieve twenty minutes ago, looked irked at her tardiness but seemed unwilling to scold her own boss. It wasn't difficult to convince her to take both twins down the hall to the room with the crownsguards outside.
"What's this?" Asked one of the guards at the door.
"The prince and princess to see His Majesty," Crea supplied, trying to sound like she wasn't making everything up on the fly.
She held her breath. The crownsguards exchanged glances and one of them shrugged.
"Master Armaugh only said not to let His Majesty leave; nothing about not letting the prince and princess in," he said.
They let her in.
Crea breathed again, hardly daring to believe her luck. Any elation she felt at her own cleverness, however, was washed away by the sight inside the room.
King Regis looked as if he had been chewed up and spat out. He lay sprawled among his pillows with his eyes open, but not quite focused as he stared up at the ceiling. By all accounts he was a handsome man, but it was certainly diminished by his current haggard look: his skin was a shade paler than it should have been, his eyes were hollow and his cheeks sunken, his hair was disheveled, his beard needed a trim, and he wore the previous day's clothes. To look at him, one would hardly believe he was only twenty-nine. Part of that, Crea supposed, was from the cost of upholding the Wall. People said it drained his strength. Few Lucian monarchs lived to see old age; Crea had only been thirteen when King Mors had died, but he hadn't even been sixty.
At the sound of the door, he stirred, turning his head to look at the short procession of nurses. When he did, the blank look vanished from his face, replaced instead with something like hope. He pushed himself up into an upright position, his eyes fixed on Noctis.
Crea nudged Joyce forward when she hesitated. Thankfully, she took the hint and brought the sleepless child to his father. The king wrapped Noct into a hug, shutting his eyes and exhaling like he had never expected to hold his son again. That was one question answered, at least. He hadn't wanted to die—or if he had, he certainly didn't anymore. No one who looked like that could have given up all desire to live.
It never seemed to end.
Regis remembered sitting in the mausoleum, drowning out the ache in his heart with more scotch than was sensible as he told Aulea everything he could think of about their twins. After that, everything was patchy. He remembered waking up in a bed in the Citadel with half a dozen people hovering over him. He had felt like shit then and he did, now. Nothing much had changed.
Clarus had shouted at him, called him an idiot, agreed that his children were better off without him, and then left him with Weskham. Regis stumbled along, fixating on those words while the endless day dragged on. His head hurt. His stomach rolled. His mouth felt like he had swallowed a whole beach. But all of that was dwarfed by the pain and the guilt.
He should have been better. Didn't he love them enough to do better for them? To carry on? He wanted to. He wanted to be there for both of them when they grew up and all the while along. But to do it without Aulea… it just hurt so much.
And then they had come.
Somehow, without his asking, without him even knowing, Crea had brought precisely what he needed. He had no idea how she had talked her way past his jailers and he didn't even care. All that mattered was that she had gotten Noctis and Reina through to him. They were the only things that still meant anything in the world. Two bright spots in an endless darkness.
He held Noctis against his shoulder like some precious thing; he kissed the side of his son's head, heedless of the baby's fussing objection. Distantly, he registered motion at the door and the second nurse who had come in leaving, but the only thing he looked at was Noct.
"Noctis, little prince… you are growing so quickly." He was still undecided as to whether that was a bad thing or not. On the one hand, he wanted them to remain small forever, but on the other he wanted to see everything they would become in the years ahead. Already Noct could stand up in his lap with only Regis' hands for balance. He could crawl, pull himself upright, and take steps with support. Reina, meanwhile, had even been spotted standing—albeit briefly—without support. How long before they learned to walk on their own?
The bed shifted as someone else sat down. Regis looked up to see Crea there, holding Reina in her arms. The princess was fast asleep; only a tiny tuft of black hair over her sweet little face was visible among the blankets. Would that she always looked so peaceful. If it was in his power, he would make certain of it.
How could he think of letting them go? How could he ever wish for them to be alone? If he was gone he couldn't protect them, couldn't give anything and everything for their happiness. That was what he wanted.
His eyes settled on Crea. She was looking placid, not smug nor expectant nor even disapproving. There was even the hint of a smile turning the corners of her mouth, but there was a certain melancholy in the arch of her brows.
"Thank you," he said with feeling.
Her job was to watch the twins. It had very little to do with him and she had no reason to go out of her way to bring them to him. Yet, in spite of that, she had. She must have had to talk her way past several different people in order to get that far, people who commanded a certain amount of respect and—often—fear from the youth and the Citadel servants, of which she was both. How had she even known…?
"You don't need to thank me, Your Majesty," Crea said.
"Nevertheless, I do. And I quite mean it: thank you. From the bottom of my heart."
She smiled properly, then. "You're welcome… I thought it might help."
Noctis, still held out in front of Regis, took unsteady and unmoving steps. Regis turned him to face out, his gaze moving between the boy and the nurse.
"You have heard all, then, I gather…" he noted with some regret. It was just the sort of story he needed to have spread through the Citadel: that time the king got so drunk he nearly killed himself.
"Everyone has," she admitted.
Regis grimaced. "Of course."
"It's not so bad," Crea said, encouragingly.
Noctis babbled wordlessly. Crea made faces at him, drawing a musical laugh. That laughter was, without contest, Regis' favorite sound in the world.
In spite of everything, Regis smiled. Crea smoothed a hand over Noctis' hair, which had begun to grow in more fully in thick blue-black locks. When her eyes lifted to meet Regis' once more, she smiled as well.
"They'll all forget about it in a week. In a household this big, there's always something fresh to talk about and old news is no news at all," she said.
"I pray you are correct," he said, balancing Noct as the baby bounced up and down on his feet.
"If I'm lying you can always fire me." She gave him a wry look.
"I think not. Who will smuggle my children in to see me while I am confined to my bed, then?"
"You should make more friends of your servants—" She stopped abruptly and there was a stricken look on her face. "—that is—I don't mean to say—"
Months of regular contact and she was still vacillating between that servant who remembered she was speaking to her king and the sharp-tongued young woman underneath. Regis silenced her with a look, calming her doubts—or so he hoped—with an indulgent smile.
"Far be it from me to stand on ceremony with someone who has seen me at my worst and still wishes to call me a friend. I would consider myself lucky indeed to count you among mine."
Crea smiled, her whole face bright. Noctis gave a wordless squeal of delight.
"Noctis agrees," Regis observed, pulling the squirming child into a hug once more and planting a scratchy kiss on his chubby cheek.
"Thank you, Your Majesty," said Crea.
"Come now, we have just discussed this," Regis said, "I am Regis to my friends."
"Thank you… Regis." There was hesitation, but she managed quite well, overall.
"She makes a solid start," Regis told the wriggling prince.
Noctis babbled incoherently, a little furrow on his little brow.
"I know, Little Prince. I quite agree. But it is only her first attempt. I expect she will improve in time."
Crea smiled, her eyes sparkling with unreleased laughter. "I'll practice before I see you, next."
Against the king's chest, the prince continued his unintelligible stream of sounds.
"He says you have much to learn, yet," Regis told her matter-of-factly.
"I know, Your Highness, but I do my best," Crea told the still-chattering prince. "I know. I understand. I am listening, but—oh, very well. In the future I will try harder."
Apparently satisfied by this promise, Noctis desisted. The furrow was gone from his brow and he resumed his bouncing, this time punctuating each one with a raspberry.
"I'll take that as approval," Crea said.
"It is no use arguing with him. He will always get his own way," Regis agreed.
And he did, for the most part.