The Reckless Reign (Book 3, The Culled Crown Series)

Chapter 42

Reubinon Market, Pellarmus.
Eight days after the attack.

I stood on the dock next to a pile of trunks and boxes and waited. The sun eased over the horizon and I just watched, wondering if this was the last sunrise. I'd thought about last sunrises so many times, but not often had I considered it when it wasn't my life. My last sunrise.

No.

Today, I thought about my brothers. About how Ambrose would fight till his breath for Ellora—for their unborn child. I thought about Kace and how we hadn't been given the time to talk. And there so much left to say. There hadn't been time for him to really ask for my forgiveness. And there hadn't been time for me to tell him that he already had it.

I couldn't even get myself to think past those three people. Ambrose. Kace. Ellora. If I thought about Deidre and her son, Sam, I'd start to spiral. And I couldn't allow that. I was hanging on by a thread as it was. I needed to stay calm. I needed to be ready to plead my case to Darragh today.

The planks of the dock creaked as someone stepped up to my side. Isla. She shoved her hands into her coat pockets and glanced my way. We didn't speak. There wasn't anything to really say.

We were mourning different things—together.

Annalise had not come to the docks to say goodbye to Isla. Of course, it wasn't too late. I could almost see the thought in Isla's gaze as she watched the sailors preparing the ship that would take her away from her home.

"Is he nice?" I asked, my voice hoarse from the tears I'd shed in the darkness of my bedroom last night. After everyone else had gone to sleep. After Nadia had come to talk to me and she'd said it was miscarriage. Britta had had a miscarriage.

She'd known, Britta had known and so had Darragh. According to my friend, Britta was as fine as she could be expected to be. Broken-hearted, both of them. Britta was between the bathing room and her bed. Weeping. Darragh had locked himself in his study and had forbidden anyone but his wife—who wanted to mourn alone—from entering.

It seemed that today was a day full of too much heartbreak.

When Isla didn't answer my question, I asked, "Do you think you could learn to care for him?"

She didn't tear her eyes from the rising sun as she said, "Justinian...He is kind to his servants. And he doesn't talk down to me. He doesn't treat me like property. We—Last night, he told me that he wanted ours to be a marriage between equals."

"And what do you want?"

She hesitated. "I wish—I wish she would at least come and say goodbye."

"Maybe she will."

Isla shook her head. "No. No, she won't." She sighed heavily and shoved dark curls from her eyes as she explained, "She left yesterday morning. When I told her I was leaving and marrying the king of Haniver, I gave her enough money to allow her to go wherever she wanted. She's—She's always sort of wanted to go south and set up a clinic in one of the smaller towns—somewhere without so much noise. Now..." she shrugged, "Now she can."

"Did she say goodbye before she left?"

She sniffled and shook her head. "I got a note. The servant delivered it to my room after she'd already gone. That's it. A damn letter."

I didn't have the heart or the right to ask what Annalise had written, so I just told her, "You did the right thing by telling her, Isla."

"It hurt to tell her, but..." Those green eyes slid to me. "But I'm glad that I did. You were right, she deserved to know I was leaving. And—And there's at least some close—what is the word? Ending?" she said it in Pellarsh and then shook her head, "close...?"