Regal [h.s au]

45. Polar opposite

AMELIA

No one ever told me how easy it is to lose a huge part of yourself, how quick it is. No one ever prepares you for the possibility of your life becoming a mere existence, filled with basic life routines such as breathing, eating, and sleeping. And all it takes is one single moment for everything to come crashing down and for all your happiness to fade away. When you experience a death as devastating as I did, it changes you as a person; the person that you once were is gone. Crumbled into ashes and carried away with the wind. And you are forced to live in the world where someone you loved the most is no longer present.

I didn't shed a single tear on my son's burial. I was absolutely spent that day, physically unable to cry and mourn, my body was tired and my spirit completely broken. I don't even know if the emptiness I felt can even be described as a feeling, but that is how I was; bland, empty.

Harry and I decided to bury him on the Golden Island, beside my mother's grave. I still remember the day as if it was yesterday, I remember the smells, the people, I remember how dirt felt between my fingers when I threw it to cover Adam's little coffin. King Henry made it for him; his palms were bleeding from splinters and his face was wet from tears by the time he was done with it.

Niall had dug out a small hole beside my mother's grave and I took it upon myself to place the tiny coffin inside. To this day I have no answer where did I find the strength to do it. Henry, Niall, Harry, and I were the only ones present, I didn't want anyone else around. All of it was peaceful and quiet. I was the first one to throw a handful of dirt to fill up the grave and the three of them followed until my baby boy was beneath the ground instead of smiling happily in my arms.

Harry made a gravestone for him, carved the words in it and placed it over the grave. It simply said: Adam - whose light stopped shining, leaving us in darkness.

God, my heart could have shattered all over again had it not been turned into dust already. Unlike me, Harry cried that day. I had to watch him mourn and weep, kneeling in front of the grave, clutching the freshly piled dirt in his hands. He kept crying on our way back to the ship and the entire night when we had continued our journey.

Now, it's been five months since Adam's death, and it is almost equally painful. The only difference is, I've now accepted I won't ever see him again and am trying to live day by day, forcing the air into my lungs over and over again until it becomes easier. I think about him every day, from the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep. However, I also think about one more person; the one we are certain is responsible for his untimely death: Edgar. And I feel hatred burning inside me, growing stronger with each day.

I have changed a lot during the past months, forgetting how to smile and laugh, pain being my constant companion. But the one person who has truly been pushed into darkness when we lost Adam is Harry. I never thought someone could change as much as he did, become a polar opposite of themselves. Everything that was once pure and innocent is now disfigured, shaped into this other persona, one I don't recognise and didn't fall in love with. But I cannot blame him for becoming the way he is now, pain does that to people.

"You see, I was told you are one of Edgar's generals," Harry says to a man kneeling in front of him, clenching his gloved hands into tight fists, craning his neck from one side to the other. "Now, either you tell us what you know about the event I've mentioned or..."

Harry grabs the man's injured hand where one of the fingers is sticking out in an unnatural angle. Two armoured soldiers are holding the man down while Harry grasps another finger, narrowing his emotionless green eyes at the weeping man. "And to think I was debating to give you the right to choose the next finger."