A/N: I FORGOT YESTERDAY WAS WEDNESDAY. I'm so sorry. I don't even know what happened yesterday. Nothing, honestly.
Have a chapter. A day and a half late (I'm sorry!)
When his phone rang in the middle of the night, Clarus usually expected to find Weskham on the other end—perhaps even Regis, at a stretch—but never had he expected to find Cor. If it wasn't enough that he did, tonight, there was the added surprise that Cor was asking for his help.
"Clarus. I don't know what to do and—Gods help me, but you are better at this than I am. I'm concerned for Regis."
Clarus sat up, pushing back blankets and rubbing sleep from his eyes. "Better at what? What happened, Cor?"
"Spero Perdita is dead."
Dead? That couldn't be right. Surely Clarus' sleep-addled brain had confused words. Cor must have said… bread.
That made less sense.
"Dead?"
"He killed himself and Regis was the one to find him," Cor's voice said.
"Gods all…" Clarus swore and swung his legs out of bed. Beside him, Fidelia was already awake, sitting up. Perhaps the word 'dead' had caught her attention, even half-awake. He would have to take a moment to explain it wasn't Regis—though they had just left his company a few hours before and he had been in high spirits. Then again, so had Spero.
Now he was dead.
"I'll be there directly. Stay with him—or send Wes or someone, but don't leave him alone."
"I won't." It was the sort of staunch determination that Cor always held, but somehow Clarus was surprised at how willing he was to admit he was out of his depth. Thoughts for another time.
Clarus made a hasty explanation to Fidelia and left. He wasn't certain what to expect to find in the Citadel, but he planned to charge in head-first all the same. First Aulea, now Spero. Of course, Spero hadn't been anywhere near as close to Regis as Aulea, but he was…
Really, Clarus wasn't sure what he was. What he had been. A kindred spirit, perhaps? Another man who suffered the same pain and therefore, understood Regis'? Or had he just been someone to save? Regis always did have to save people. It was in his nature. That, Clarus suspected, was one of the reasons why he had fallen in love with Aulea—or perhaps the love had predated the complex and it had formed due to her. Either way, it seemed likely that was a contributing factor in Regis' connection to Spero. Now he was gone.
The Citadel, when Clarus arrived, was quiet. Deserted except for the night watch of the Crownsguard and the chance servant or two.
The light glowed under the door to Regis' study. Two crownsguards stood outside, confirming Clarus' suspicion that this was where Regis had withdrawn to. He knocked on the door and Cor answered it.
Without a word, Cor stepped aside and admitted him.
It wasn't all that surprising to find Regis seated in an armchair with a short glass of scotch and an empty look in his eyes. He didn't look up when Clarus approached, but he did speak, after a moment.
"I am growing weary of telling you that you should be home with your family, Clarus."
That was not what Clarus had expected. The firmness with which he spoke—it was the strength that the king wielded, not the floundering grief that had followed Regis for months, in every quiet moment. Indeed, it was very nearly a command to turn around and return home. The sort of command that one did not disobey.
Clarus froze. He glanced toward Cor, whose expression suggested he was caught off-guard just as badly as Clarus had been.
"Someday you may lose the choice. You will regret these nights spent carelessly abandoning them," Regis said.
"I would regret losing the choice to come to you, as well," Clarus said.
Regis looked up at him at last. His expression wasn't as sharp as Clarus had expected from his tone. He looked almost fond, if only for a moment.
"I know," he said.
"And I'm already here. Would you send me back to them?" If he did, Clarus would go. But he would go with his heart still heavy on concern.
Regis considered him for a moment. Eventually he shook his head, turning his eyes back toward the empty fireplace and taking a drink from his glass. "I suppose not."
Clarus let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. He crossed the rest of the distance and sank onto the lounge. A violin rested on top of the coffee table; Clarus hadn't noticed it before. He also hadn't noticed that Regis held a single page of paper in his other hand. It was spattered with something dark reddish-brown.
"A violin?" Clarus asked.
Regis' eyes flicked toward it. "Spero's," he supplied.
It didn't really answer the question, but Clarus didn't prompt him further. Had Regis wanted to explain it, he would have. Even so…
"Do you want to talk about him?" Clarus asked.
"No." Regis shook his head, still looking at the violin. "Not tonight. It is too near to me."
Clarus nodded his understanding, but inside he felt a great sinking. Would it be too near for nine months, as it had been for Aulea? Would they do the same thing over again? Some things were already different—Regis' demeanor and all—but that didn't mean this wasn't a setback. How could it not be?
"However, as you are already here and we have established I intend not to send you away, you may as well come with me." Regis drained the rest of his drink and rose, setting the empty glass down on the coffee table.
Clarus hurried to his feet. "Where?"
"Into the dark."
The door looked exactly the same as it always had: neither more nor less intimidating than it had been for months. All of it was in his head. Aulea's ghost was in his head. The shadows that hung around the door to their bedroom were in his head. The insurmountable incompetence was in his head. Just as Spero's ghosts had all been in his head, so, too, were Regis'.
But Spero was free from his.
Regis laid his hand on the carved wood of the door. He couldn't escape the way Spero had. Such was the burden on his shoulders that he could never lay it down; even death held no rest for the kings of Lucis. He would not meet Aulea in the afterlife. He would remain bound to this world, protecting his kingdom, long after he had drawn his last breath.
The only thing he could do was turn and face his ghosts.
He pushed the door open. It didn't stick, as he had half-expected; it opened as smoothly as it had every time before. The servants continued to maintain his quarters, nine months since he had stopped using them. As pointless as it had seemed, before, he was grateful for it, now. To re-enter his rooms was hard enough. To enter and find them derelict and unkempt, laden with dust and stale from disuse would have been worse. It was just like visiting Aulea's grave and finding it without flowers. His fault.
One step inside he paused, shutting his eyes and reaching for the lightswitch. Even when the room flooded with light, he didn't look, not right away. Behind him he could hear Clarus and Cor lingering in the doorway, unspeaking, but not entirely silent.
He could see the room through his eyelids. The armchairs by the window, one draped with a blanket where Aulea always sat. It was dark outside, but the city light and the glow of the Wall lit Insomnia just on the other side of the glass. She didn't often stay up. When he was late in returning, he would find her curled up in bed, fast asleep with a book still in her hands as if she had meant to stay awake to greet him but had drifted off instead. Tonight, he wouldn't find her there.
Regis opened his eyes. The room was exactly as he had envisioned. Everything was untouched from the day she had passed, saved to tidy up. He passed the armchair with the blanket, the stack of books on the end table, the unfinished needlepoint, and came to stand in the doorway to his bedroom. The bed was made, untouched, and completely empty. Through the doorway beyond, the bathroom was tidy, though the countertop still held all the cosmetics that Aulea had kept. In those last months, she hadn't gotten to use them much. Now, like so much else, there was no purpose to them.
Aulea, my love. I miss you so much. Regis shut his eyes, standing in front of the sink. It still smelled of her, here. That perfume she always wore, sitting on the counter beside the hand cream. So many scents that he would always associate with her and would never experience again. They were just painful, now.
"Regis?" Clarus peered in through the open bathroom door. "Are you alright?"
Regis opened his eyes and looked up. He forced a smile. "It is not a word I would use, no."
"We don't have to do this tonight, you know."
Regis shook his head, straightening. "No, it is time. It is time to let go."
For both of us, Regis added silently.
Clarus nodded. "Where do we begin?"
It was a long night and a painful one. Four rooms interconnected to form Regis' chambers and each one had to be combed through meticulously. With each of Aulea's possessions, Regis answered a question: keep or discard? It shouldn't have been so difficult to throw away items that were of no use to anyone.
His friends made their best attempts at distracting him. Sometime past two in the morning, Weskham joined them. Regis didn't ask how he had known. He welcomed the company.
They spoke of Aulea. Every little piece that was kept or discarded had memories associated with it and Regis bled them out. For each choice of 'discard' he second-guessed himself. Cor guarded the bags so he didn't go back through them.
"Aulea's clothing?" Weskham stood by the closet doors and looked toward Regis.
"No reason to keep them," Clarus said. "But they could be used by someone else. Donated, perhaps?"
She would have appreciated the sentiment of aid, but just as with everything else, Regis struggled to let go of Aulea's clothes. He sat on the edge of his bed as he watched them, gripping the edge of the mattress. All he needed was a plausible reason to hold onto them. "What of Reina?"
"It will be fifteen years before Reina could possibly fit into her mother's clothes—though there's no guarantee she ever will—and even if she could, she will have her own wardrobe made to her tastes and style," Clarus said. "Every piece you keep, Regis, is not bringing you closer to her. It is merely holding you back."
He knew Clarus was right, but he still wasn't prepared to admit it.
"There is one that Her Highness may find particular interest in, some day." Weskham reached into the closet and drew out a white dress sealed inside a garment bag.
Aulea's wedding gown. It was the sort of thing little girls liked, wasn't it? Their mother's wedding dress? It was just as well Weskham intended to save it. Regis didn't think he could accept that one joining the bags of possessions that he would never see again. He also couldn't find his voice anymore, so he only nodded.
The wedding dress was returned to the closet and, one by one, he watched Aulea's other dresses disappear into bags. The white and black dress with the flowers that she liked to wear in the garden with a wide-brimmed hat vanished into a large black bag; next it swallowed the simple, yet elegant, gowns she had commissioned for sick days; then the loose satin robes she had favored over her sleepwear disappeared, never to be seen again. Among the constant flow of fabric and gems, Regis caught a flash of black chiffon.
"Wait—" That was the dress she had worn for his birthday the year before, made specially for that occasion. At the time it had struck him how beautiful she looked. Even today he could see her in it, elegant and smooth like a black waterfall. "Not that one."
Weskham paused, still holding the dress. It was Clarus he looked to for confirmation, however.
"Are you going to argue for every other garment?" Clarus asked.
"No. Only this one and the wedding dress. I swear it."
Clarus considered him a moment, then nodded. "Then it stays."
Regis sighed, watching the black gown return to the closet, tucked safely away. Perhaps it would never see daylight again. Perhaps it would never be worn again. At that moment, he didn't even care if it ever fit Reina or if she even showed interest in it. He merely wanted it safe.
The remainder of the night passed in a similar fashion. The four of them picked through everything Aulea had owned; most of it was designated to be discarded or otherwise donated. Often there were disagreements about what was worth keeping and, though Regis knew that each time Clarus was correct, it never made the next step easier.
Dawn found Regis and Clarus passed out on top of the bedspread. Weskham sat in one of the armchairs, which had been carried in from the sitting room to the bedroom, and Cor stood wedged against the fireplace trying to keep his eyes open.
They had accomplished a great deal. The servants who had come to carry away the bags of clothing and miscellaneous possessions had brought a tray of coffee, though it seemed likely Weskham was going to be the only one to enjoy it. One would think, after all those long council nights, that Regis and Clarus would have been better prepared to deal with low sleep. Then again, the night had been hardest on Regis and next on Clarus. Physically, they had done little more than sit up, but Weskham knew better than to think it wasn't work. Regis fought a war. Tonight he had won a battle that had long been in the making.
The results were a room that was now Regis'. Some keepsakes remained: in addition to the two dresses, most of Aulea's jewelry remained, along with—of course—personal letters and all the pictures their search had turned up. Her books had all been sent back to the library. Her cosmetics had been discarded, all but an unopened bottle of perfume. A few of her projects had remained—the needlepoint, cross stitch, and embroidery that she occupied hours with—and had been sent to be framed or otherwise preserved. The most difficult thing for Regis to give up had been the unfinished work.
Eventually, Weskham suspected it would be good to convince him to have those things he had kept—the dresses, the jewelry, and the perfume—stored elsewhere. Ostensibly, they were the sort of things worth passing on to the princess once she was old enough, but Weskham suspected that was only an excuse. Regis wasn't ready to let go of everything and that was only to be expected.
"Is this it, then? Is he ready to move on?"
Weskham looked up from his cup of coffee as Cor spoke. It was a peculiar question but, then again, Cor was a peculiar person. He had grown up too fast, or tried to. He knew his sword as if it was an extension of his own body, but he didn't know human nature from peanuts.
"It is one more step on his recovery from loss," Weskham said. His eyes drifted to the bed where Regis slept, still clothed in his suit from the day before. It was a small blessing he had fallen asleep at all. "But there is no moving on. Not like you're thinking. He'll carry her with him for the rest of his days."
"You're saying he'll never get better?"
"No." Weskham looked back at Cor. "That's not what I'm saying. As time passes, you'll see more and more of what you expect from him: your king and leader; the man who can move mountains for his people and hold back the dark. But we never lose sight of those who leave us. He'll remember her—in the little things and the big things—and he'll never have that again. He'll get better at understanding that, at accepting and living with it, but that doesn't mean it will ever be in the past."
Cor shifted, putting his back against the wall instead of his shoulder against the fireplace. "How do you know so much about people?"
Weskham smiled. Outside, the sun was rising above Insomnia. The city was waking up.
"That's my job."