DECAY LIKE GOLD

Chapter 2.5

**This chapter goes between Chapters 2 and 3 in FROST LIKE NIGHT**

Theron felt the memory roll out of him, the day of his mother's funeral. He felt his body play through the motions even as he knew this wasn't real, knew he wasn't ten years old, knew the crowd of dignitaries leaving the graveyard wasn't actually there. But they pushed against him all the same, bodies that shoved like the unrelenting sobs that beat against his young chest.

Noam had dismissed them, even his son, to be alone amidst the dozens of golden saplings that stood in perfect rows over the bodies of Cordell's past rulers. But Theron couldn't let his father be alone, not today, not ever. Because Theron couldn't stand to be alone himself now, couldn't stand to return to the husk of the palace behind him, all gilded halls and mourning courtiers and empty, empty, empty because the one person who had filled it up, who had brought color and life to a kingdom of money and opportunity, was dead.

Dead.

Theron hated that word; it was far too simple for all the agony it brought. She deserved a better word than that, something melodic that spoke of color and beauty and long hours cuddled together in the library, pouring over ancient tomes and brittle pages and words written decades ago. She deserved a word so entrancing that uttering it would force her to wake up.

But all she had now was . . . dead.

Melinda DeFiore-Haskar, Queen of Cordell, was dead.

A powerful sob throbbed through Theron as he stumbled free of the crowd that exited the graveyard. He clutched his chest, held his breath, forcing that sob back, back, deep into the chasm that his mother's death had opened in his heart. There it would remain until he called it forth, until he decided to let loose the storm roiling inside of him.

His father stood just ahead, shoulders slumped toward a grave marker that looked like all the other grave markers in the forest of death around them—a gold-encased maple sapling as tall as a man, a few leaves jingling against the branches in the wind. The freshly churned dirt at its base gave away the recent burial, and the name carved into the thin trunk signaled to all that the body of Theron's mother lay tucked beneath her Cordellan grave.

"Father!" Theron cried.

Noam didn't move, not as Theron hurried to stand next to him, his polished black boots kicking aside a few pieces of clumped dirt. He paused, the golden leaves clinking against their golden branches, dozens of saplings singing a sporadic melody that lit the afternoon air. The lull of the crowd faded until nothing could be heard over that tinkling melody, a hectic song that Theron's mother had loved—she had taken him on strolls past the graveyard and mentioned the painful loveliness of this place. How it spoke to her as a Ventrallan, finding beauty in death.

"I don't want to be alone," Theron whispered and instantly wanted to yank the admission back. His mother had encouraged him to speak his mind, to feel every feeling that blossomed in his chest, but his father . . .

Noam ran a hand down his face. "I dismissed you."

"No," Theron growled. Tears flew down Theron's cheeks, sobs gagged him, and all he could do was stand there, saying that over and over again. It was a horrible word too, a word undeserving of her, but he couldn't think of anything else to say. "No, no, no . . ."

Arms around him. A shoulder under his chin. The harsh bristle of a beard burning his cheek, and through it all, the sudden, engulfing sent of lavender and coffee and parchment.