Entwined in This Infinity

20. Dawn - Tadd

“It’s all your fault, you worthless little bastard.” Your father has a special gift for spitting insults in a stinging neutrality that sinks deeper than a roar.

It is acceptable in your society for fathers to kill their child, a son in particular, if they are a failure to their name. You don’t know why he’s held out for so long.

Anything to stop him from speaking of her.

“This was going to be world-changing, do you realize? An upper and lower kingdom family marrying? The chance of it happening was as likely as you growing a spine.” His fingers drum the wood of the table, a little metronome to keep the rhythm as he continues. “It would have meant something.

“Whereas now, you have ended up insignificant and unimportant once again. If you had actually wooed the bitch instead of falling head over heels, she would be sitting here branded with the good Yearick name. Truly, your pathetic behavior is enviable. You don’t try at all, no, it is your personality, pure and simple. No wonder she ran.”

“She didn’t run because of me.” Your voice is as even as his, though your gaze is downturned.

For months, she had been planning to escape, taking special notice of guards and their routes, of unmarked paths down the Stepping Stones. In the beginning, you had fantasized she would sneak to your rooms and pull you into the unknown with her, but it was a foolish hope from the start. Her thoughts are clinical, and even during diplomatic meetings where she stood next to you she didn’t spare you a glance. An arranged marriage was nowhere on her list of reasons to flee.

“She didn’t care about me.” She didn’t have an opinion on you, period. That is as uncaring as one can get.

“Ah, your poor broken heart. If you could have stopped acting like a fainting woman for half a moment, we wouldn’t be here planning for—” He pauses, a slow curl of a smile forming. “Tell me, boy, what are we planning for?”

She was cold, but she dreamed of thawing.

She was so incredibly brave to dream of changing the roots of what made her herself.

“I don’t see the point in saying it. We both know,” you reply, listless.

She planned for every possibility, and she hadn’t told a soul of any of it. The night would be her savior, escorting her to safety. You would have wished her well with a longing smile.

“Say it anyway for me.”

You would have.

But the unsteady rock that gave way under her foot was not in her plans.

You declare it loud. “Scarlett Blackwood’s funeral.”

Her broken body’s swan song will be the dusk, the quiet of drain of light that falls short of the expectation of dawn.