The Crimson King

Chapter 43 | Empty Space

Hi everyone!
Sorry for the late update, I was a away at a wedding and my flight was delayed getting back and then I have also been busy with my next essay which is due next week.

I cried so much for both of my babies in the chapter. So to make it worth it, you had better cry too. There will be an update on Sunday. And it will be a better (wanted to write happier but ... yeah, I can't move on that fast) one.

Love Daisy

Trigger warning: Intense grief/bereavement, emotional damage, hallucinations, depictions of gore

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Chapter 43 | Empty Space

*

'After you left,
nothing made
any sense: it felt like
the world was ending.
Yet the sun kept rising
day after day'

-faraway

*

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Four days passed before Iris woke.

The moment she swam into consciousness, she was hit by a crippling pain. It made her gasp, her eyes flinging open to stare up at the familiar ceiling of her room. She was alone, and everything was as it had been. She could have almost believed that Arlo would rush through the door at any moment, to collect her in his arms and tell her it had only been a terrible dream.

But he wouldn't because he was dead.

'Beauty, I'm sorry.'

Her spine curved with grief as she hunched in on herself, dry sobs scraping out her throat. She had no desire to find out how she had gotten back to her room, nor did she care to find out what had become of Aether as she slept. Perhaps the shifter attack had been warded off completely, but either way Iris didn't care. The one person who could never be replaced was gone, and she was to blame.

She slumped back on her pillows, staring lifelessly at the ornate ceiling, and turned that horrid truth over in her mind. With each swollen thump of her heart, she relieved the moment of his death, over and over again.

The shifters that had surrounded them, the fierceness with which Arlo had fought, the look in his eyes when he had found her gaze, when she had hoped- however fleetingly- that he would make it through ... the despair she had felt when she knew he would not.

And Eros.  That cruel laugh. Those black eyes.

Her hands fisted in the sheets, clenching until her knuckles turned white. If only her fingers were wrapped around his throat instead- she would squeeze until the life choked out of him. She would kill him in a heartbeat. She would kill him. She will kill him.

But vengeance would not return Arlo to her.

It seemed as though Arlo was already fading from her mind. His warmth, his presence, his voice ... none of her memories seemed quite as distinct as she felt they should be, and she was at loath to admit it- that someone so important to her could become blurred so quickly. Yet every time she tried to picture his smile, all she could see was his empty stare, awash with the blank look of death.

Silent tears spilled from her eyes, running raw tracks down her cheeks and into her hair. She lifted her hand and stretched her fingers high above her head, as though she could somehow pluck the face she saw in her mind out from the realm of dreams and bring him back to reality.