-Katherine- I was eating by myself in the dining room one night. It didn’t surprise me that neither Acan nor Silver had joined me. Their boys had, though. They were eating with me, not their parents. A servant had come to tell me they were waiting for their parents to bring them to dinner, but no one had. So I did it instead. They smiled at me as we ate dinner together. They at least didn’t hate me or had been turned against me by their parents. Maybe Silver had tried. I was unsure. "How are your studies going?" I asked them. "Boring!" the youngest said, making me chuckle and nod. "Yeah, they can be, but you will need them to grow up and outsmart everyone else." "Like you did with Mother?" the eldest asked. I looked at him, surprised, not sure what to say. So Silver had been trying to turn her boys against me. Making them think I was the evil one who had tried to hurt her. I was not surprised, but I would make the truth clear to them. I would not hold anything back. These young
-Katherine- I screamed my lungs out as the child wanted out. I tried pushing as hard as I could, with the servants around me supporting me and assisting the physician. He kept telling me to push, but I was so tired. This baby was not making it easy for me, and all I wanted was Darius by my side. I couldn’t believe I was actually having this baby without him. He would miss such an important moment, and it made tears spill from my eyes for different reasons. "My Princess, you must push harder!" the physician said. I knew I wasn’t pushing as hard as I could because I hoped that if I waited a little, Darius might burst through the doors and finally get to be here to experience the birth of our child. But I was only making it harder on myself and the child. "No… Darius isn’t here," I breathed. "Your Highness, the child can’t wait," a servant said by my side. "It wants out now." "But he needs to be here!" "He is still fighting. He isn’t coming home yet," the servant reminded me, strok
-Darius- Travelling back with so many men and having to stop at each place to make sure they came home all right again took longer than expected. I wanted to write back to Katherine, but I was so focused on getting home. It was all I could think about. All that was on my mind was to get back to my wife. I needed to hold her again and make sure nothing bad could ever harm her. I needed to make sure she truly came out of the incident all right. I needed to see it with my own eyes, or I wouldn’t believe it. I barely slept. I barely did anything else but think about Katherine and how she was. I was pacing my tent all night and riding hard during the day. I couldn’t leave the army, though, or I would have been home much faster. When she finally appeared, though, it was like a dream come true. It was like I saw her again for the first time when she appeared here at the capitol, ready to marry my brother. Or in this life, me. She ran to me, jumping into my arms and shaking like a leaf in th
-Katherine- I had been so happy when I saw Darius appear. I couldn’t put it into words, but then Darius told me he had not even won the war. He had left! I had never heard of such a thing unless you, of course, decided to desert, but if Darius was the leader of this war, then could he desert his post? I was unsure what to think. He spoke of packing and getting out of here, but my head couldn’t keep up with what he was saying. It was making me so dizzy that I wanted to go lie down. It didn’t get better when all those guards appeared, wanting to bring Darius to Acan. I feared Acan was already suspicious of Darius, finding it weird that he would come home without notifying us, and I could see how it was very confusing. But it also made me scared. Could Acan make a deserter out of Darius? Would he do it? He had chosen Darius to fight his war for a reason. Darius was a Dark One, and Acan believed only Darius could handle the other Dark Ones. So would he kill him? My heart was beating fast
-Katherine- I was unsure what to make of the scene in front of me. Did Darius need me? Was Acan the one in danger? I noticed the gloves on the table soon after I stepped in, and I was surprised to see them lying there. Darius didn’t wear his gloves when he was with me. He could touch me without any problems, but he rarely took them off if we were with other people, and now that he had them off his hands, I noticed something about his skin. Dark veins crawled up his hands and disappeared beneath his clothes. I had never seen anything like it before. I had noticed there was something different in Darius’s eyes. There was something swirling in there that I had not seen before. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on but that I couldn’t deny was there. Maybe something dark. Something a little wrong. I couldn’t quite put it into words, but my husband had definitely changed. I shouldn’t expect anything less considering where he had just come home from, but I did feel worried. I was uns
-Katherine- Darius stormed into our bedroom, and only when we were inside did he let go of my hand. I watched as he began finding more of his stuff and helping the servants pack, but I stayed in my spot watching him and not moving while I rocked a little back and forth with our son. Darius didn’t notice at first how I stayed frozen, but as he suddenly glanced at me, he noticed I wasn’t moving. He looked at me, confused, then came over to me, his soft eyes appearing again instead of the cold and hard ones. "My Queen, why aren’t you packing?" he asked. "Darius, wait," I told him. Darius looked confused, but I didn’t want this conversation with other people listening in. I told the servants to leave and just let everything stay as it was, even though we had quite a mess in here now. I told the guards and servants to wait outside and handed over our son to one of them. I was unsure where this talk was going, and I didn’t want him to wake up from his little nap. He had become so tired.
-Darius- I understood Katherine wanted to stay. I heard everything she was saying, but I simply needed her away from the court. I wanted her to be safe, and I didn’t think she could ever be safe here. I wished I could make her see that, but Katherine was still holding onto her wish for revenge. It wasn't that I didn’t get that, and I wanted to punish my brother as well. I wanted to hurt him and Silver, but there had been so much blood. I was tired of blood, and when I was finally allowed to meet our son, all I could think about was getting him and my wife somewhere safe. Somewhere, they would never feel like they were wrong for being who they were, and no one would want to come after them and hurt them. I needed to feel safe too. I needed to feel calm again and like I didn’t have to look over my shoulder all the time. I was getting so tired of it. I had barely slept for so long, and now that I was home, I didn’t even feel very relaxed because of what had almost happened to Katherine.
-Katherine- The place Darius had chosen was amazing. It was in the countryside, far away from any cities, but there were villages and towns nearby that Darius owned. He owned all the land. His father had given him all of this, making sure he still carried a status even though he was born a bastard. Darius came up beside me as I watched the big mansion in front of us. It was incredible, and I knew there would be lots of room for him and me. Servants stood in long lines already waiting for us, and he explained to me that they were there to take care of the place even though he did not live there. He carried our son this time. Darius refused to put him down, which was incredibly adorable. I knew I had to learn to let go of him a little. I had been so on edge while in the castle that I simply didn’t have the ability to let him out of my sight, but it was time I gave him his own room. We walked inside, and I looked up at the ceiling, seeing the beautiful pattern that had been made, and th