His Captive Sorceress

Chapter 61: Loved You

Thin green shoots peek through the piles of smooth rocks, each mound marking a grave. Two months have passed since the battle at the village, when sixty Versillian soldiers lost their lives. Some died at the front lines, others because they approached me when Nomier was in control.

I visit them in the Lystra palace graveyard every Saturday morning. Trevus says I shouldn't blame myself, but it's hard not to think about how people would be alive today if I'd made different choices. My decisions hold weight, whether I foresee it or not. I can't bring them back, but visiting reminds me to be cautious.

"If my queen does not don her regal attire, persons may mistake her for an ordinary citizen," Trevus calls. He's walking up the path, clad in his gold-threaded black oban with a thin matching crown.

"I don't remember having a coronation," I say.

Trevus closes the distance. "Merely because you refused to attend. I am the king, and you are my wife, thus by extension, the queen."

I trace his sharp sculpted jaw, his black wavy hair and short stubble with my eyes. A few months ago, I was forgotten in a tower, and now I'm married to a king, with some even calling me 'Queen'. My desire was always to belong, but noble status was never something I pursued.

"Maybe being mistaken for an ordinary citizen is my intention," I say.

He rests his hand on my shoulder, turning my attention back towards the grand white palace. "Today you must play the role of queen, or at least the First Versillian. The Mephian delegation shall soon arrive, and a fellow sorceress is more likely to win their cooperation."

"I'll attend dinner." Convincing one of the Six to where julite jewelry will also set my mind at ease – another barrier to keep Nomier contained.

His playful expression turns somber. "There is another reason I came."

I wait.

"The treaty has yet to be ratified. There is still opportunity to add a stipulation that Mephia arrests Lord Asarus on sight," Trevus says.

"I don't want him arrested," I say.

"If you prefer to meet him on pleasant terms, he may accept an invitation with the royal seal."

For a long time I imagined my parents had passed on, as if they'd lived, it would mean I'd been abandoned. It's unnatural for a parent to treat their child with such disregard, but the poisonous ideas in Asarus's mind laid judgement the moment I was born. If I were to speak with him again, what is even left to say? He believes what he did was necessary to stop Nomier. Of course stopping Nomier is necessary, but instead of trusting his own child, he locked me up like a prisoner. A decade has passed since I was sent to that tower, and he has yet to recognize his cruelty. Why expect that to change now?

"I'd rather just forget," I say.

Trevus looks over the mounds of stones. "Being a father is more than passing on one's blood," he says.

For so long I yearned for a family. But discovering Asarus revealed him to be nothing that I had imagined, nothing like the father I had longed for.

He wasn't a father that raised me, he wasn't a father that protected me, and he wasn't a father that loved me. He wasn't a father in any way that counted. I raised myself, I fought to protect myself, and I found new love myself. Even if Asarus showed remorse, I don't think I'd ever want to see him again.

Trevus's eyes settle on Tytius's grave. Only once did I hear Trevus call Tytius 'father', and that may have been insincere - an attempt to persuade him to spare my life. Two months have passed, and Trevus hasn't grieved for his father the way he did for his mother. He's yet to even speak about his feelings towards the man – saying only that the painful-looking scar on his chest was his father's sole gift.