"I can handle it," Bryn finally replied when she shook herself from the stupor the Shadow King's voice put her in."I don't want to leave her."
"As you wish."
The silence stretched between them as the King took a seat at Maude's side, his eyes searching her slack face like he was looking for something.
"She has your nose," Bryn offered quietly, her words a lifeline thrown toward the male struggling with some internal crisis.
The Shadow King nodded almost imperceptibly, his movement strained as he continued staring at his daughter. Not wanting to disturb the moment further, Bryn sat silently, hoping to fade into the darkness if it meant the Shadow King could have a moment alone with his lost daughter.
Just as she was about to nod off in her exhaustion again, the Shadow King's melodic voice rumbled through the room again.
"I have something that belongs to you, Brynna," he whispered, voice catching. "Something that belongs to both of you. Sylvi's journals."
Bryn sat straight in her chair. "You have her journals? I hid them in Logi."
The Shadow King turned to face her, a twinkle of amusement in his upturned mouth. "Sylvi was an avid writer for most of her life. When she left for Logi all those years ago, she left her journals here for safekeeping. As her children,they belong to you and Maude."
At some invisible signal, the door opened behind them on a silent wind before shadows that writhed with muted elegance ushered in box after box of journals. The King willed his shadows to set them down next to her chair before he absorbed the waves of shadow into his outstretched hands. She watched, mesmerized, as one tendril broke off from the rest and curled around her ankle curiously before retreating again.
The King chuckled before he said, "The shadows of northern Ahland have a mind of their own most of the time."
Unable to form a coherent response, Bryn shakily chuckled before peering over her armchair to see the piles of black leatherbound journals that her mother seemed to favor. Her eyes widened at the sheer amount. Did her mother write down every single thought she ever had?
Turning back to face the King, Bryn found him looking over Maude again with a tenderness that she had only seen on their mother's face before. Was this what it was to have a loving parent? Bryn was so young when her mother died that she remembered very little of that tenderness. Recalling that affection felt foreign— it was like the difference between feeling an emotion and having someone explain what it feels liketoyou.
"Did you love her?" Bryn asked as she glanced between the journals he had kept for her mother all these years, all the secrets her mother must have harbored in them. "Our mother, I mean. Did you love Sylvi?"
The Shadow King was quiet for so long that Bryn thought he might not answer. Just when she thought he would hold his silence, he said softly,
"Yes. Very much."
Liv hoisted the Prince's almost unconscious form over her shoulder, slinging his arm around her neck while she strained to keep him upright. She dragged his large body through the sitting room of the chambers he had been staying in and into thebedroom, where a sizable bed lay untouched. At this late hour, Liv had figured that Hakon would have fallen asleep, but he seemed to have found himself at the bottom of another liquor bottle instead.
"I'm really ok-kay, Liv," Hakon hiccuped as she threw him onto the bed, fully clothed and stinking of whiskey. "Just reeeally tired."
"Whatever you say, Your Highness," Liv muttered as she tore his boots off and swung his legs into the bed.
"You're angry with me," Hakon whispered, his caramel hair sticking up in a way that looked as if he had run his hands through it all night.
His eyes were swollen and red—he hadn't been sleeping much lately. His beard had grown in, and its darker brown hair made the Heir of Rivers almost unrecognizable. He wasn't in good shape, and Liv didn't know how to pull him out of it.
"I'm not angry," Liv sighed as her heart strained at the sight of her broken friend. "Get some sleep, Hakon."
Liv quietly made her way out of the bedroom when she heard his soft snores rumble through the room. It was late, almost three in the morning, so he should be able to get some decent sleep and still wake before the sun set in the evening. Sitting on the couch Hakon had just vacated, Liv hung her head in her hands. She hadn't been in Nida for years and was having a hard time adjusting to her lack of glamour as well as the shorter days being so far north.
She had never minded the cold weather, even if being a Light Elven made her crave the sunshine. At the thought of her kingdom, so long forgotten now that even her lies had begun to feel real, light sparked at her fingertips. This was also hard for Liv to get used to— hergaldercoming alive under her skin again. Light pulsed between her fingers and began to swirl up her arms, illuminating her dark skin that was fairly uncommon in the north until their kingdoms had merged after the war.
She spent so long lying to everyone she loved about who and what she was that the need to hide hergalderwas strong, instinctive. Before she could second guess herself, Liv let the light inside of her blood pulse once, twice. She let the warmth of her inner light caress her soul before dulling it. Next, she sparked a flame above her pointer finger, feeding it moregalderso it wouldgrow brighter and burn hotter. Coaxing a wind from the open windows, Liv blew out the flame and let hergalderrest.
While it was common knowledge that the Elven preferred certaingalderdepending on their kingdom, they could control all the elements. It made them more powerful than mortals, who only had enough power to control at most three elements. If Maude ever woke, she would have to find out if she could control more than just her fire and wind. While her father was Eleven, Maude had a mortal mother and Liv didn't know which half controlled hergalderor her lifespan. She could live a thousand years and never age like the Elven, or she could grow old like other mortals.
So much needed to be explained, so much had to be processed, for all of them.
But with all that needed to be absorbed, Liv worried about the moment she would have to confront Maude about her true heritage; not because she thought Maude would be angry with her, but because she would understand Liv's need to protect her identity in a world that thought her people were long extinct. Liv wouldn't be able to stomach the sympathy that Maude would show her. She wanted someone to be angry with her for her secrets. Hakon was helpful in that regard when he wasn't drowning in his sorrow.
And then there was Herrick. Shame threatened to swallow her whole when she thought about how he had run towards the soldiers who had been intent on capturing them all just so that they could have a chance to run. He thought his life was forfeit because Maude had died. No one could have prepared them for the sight of her sleeping, chest whole and healed, in the Midnight Palace. He had no idea that she was alive.
Well, that she was breathing at least.
