The Suns Heir: A War of Two Kings

Aislinn: A Family Fractured.

The lower city was lively with noise. Wagons were being loaded, men were shouting, soldiers were gathering, horses were saddled and prepped for the journey ahead. Whispers filled the streets; wives were in an uproar. They did not wish to see their husbands off to their potential deaths. The soldiers were none too eager either. The packed with hesitance, though none of them was bold or foolish enough to proclaim that hesitance to their lord governor.

Right in the centre of it all, of all the madness. There stood Aislinn's lord husband. Barraging commands at his men.

She had noted that her husband seemed different of late. Angrier, his temperament seemed to have changed. He was almost entirely a new man.

"My love, I have brought Dash and Zanna to see you and Rainer off." Aislinn looked around, searching the crowd for her firstborn. She had expected to find him beside his father. The two had been inseparable since the day Rainer had been old enough to hold a sword.

"Rainer will not be accompanying me. His place is here, governing Sunwharf with you." Her brow shifted at her husband's news. Her eldest son had always accompanied Warner on his journeys, and she was left to see to the lands with the aid of a steward. Something wasn't sitting right with the lady Sunbarrow. Her mind flashed back to dinner that previous night. Her son and husband had fended off a raid on a village. They had returned with prisoners, prisoners that had birthed this peace mission.

The dinner had been taken in silence. Rainer had seated himself far from his father. Neither of them had regaled them with tales of combat. It had been most unusual.

"I imagine he is none too pleased. Our son is not one too stray from the action." Aislinn chuckled slightly, hoping to find the man she had stood beside but a few days ago. The one who laughed and smiled. Instead, she was met with blankness. The face she once knew and could read seemed to have vanished. In its place was a mask that emitted coldness.

"I do not know my son. He seems a stranger. Disobedient, soft. The raider islands are no place for such a pup." There was no humour in Warner's tone, it was flat and emotionless. At first, she thought it a jest, but the coldness in his voice said otherwise. These were not the words of a loving and proud father. This man was not the man she shared her bed with, the man she had brought three children into the world with and soon to be a fourth.

Aislinn's hand found itself cradling her belly. She hoped the man before her would be lost on his journey and her husband would return. This was not a man she wished to raise her children with.

A half-smile was also she could manage. One that was wrought with confusion. "Say goodbye to your father." She beckoned the twins.

Zanna was the first. She bounced toward her father and wrapped herself around his leg. Warner did not kneel; he expressed no discontent leaving his children. Aislinn had expected her husband to pick their daughter up, to spin her around, but there was none of that. Only a slight ruffling of her hair. Dash was met with the same treatment.

The twins looked heartbroken. They two felt the change. The fracture of their familial bond.

All was ready for the journey. The knights sat atop their horses; the supplies had all been loaded into the wagon.

"Safe travels, my love." Aislinn leaned in to plant a farewell kiss on her husband, but he had already retreated away and was mounting his steed.

As they rode away, he did not look back to wave goodbye at the children or his wife. She had to wonder what had happened the day past to drive him to be so cold. He had treated their children as if they were strangers, and the love he had borne her, the passion they had once shared seemed to have vanished. Though these things had not struck her as harshly as the words he had used to describe their firstborn. Rainer had been Warner's pride and joy, his heir. There was no denying it, Rainer had been his favourite and she believed that it would remain that way until her dying breath. She could have given him one hundred heirs; none would replace his firstborn. The bond that they shared was beyond father and son, they were best friends.