Chapter 166: Tales of a King (6)

The memories after that became quieter.

Misha saw Russel holding the newborn princess weeks after the queen’s death, seated alone in the room that had once belonged to his wife. The chamber had not been changed since the night his wife died; brushes remained aligned on the dressing table, a half-used bottle of perfume stood beside a silver backed mirror, and a shawl still hung over the back of a chair as though its owner might return and complain that someone had moved it.

Russel looked strangely out of place there.

He had fathered enough children that holding an infant should not have been difficult, yet he supported the little girl with the stiff concentration of a man convinced one wrong movement might break her. The princess slept peacefully against his chest, one tiny fist curled against the dark fabric of his coat while Russel stared at the empty side of the room.

He did not cry again.

Misha thought that was somehow worse. She had seen him break at the queen’s bedside, had watched a king who once faced armies without lowering his head beg one dying woman for another breath. Now there were no tears, only silence that had settled so deeply into him it looked almost permanent.

’Yeah... this is worse.’

Crying at least meant something was getting out, but this looked like everything had stayed inside.

The memory moved before Misha could linger on it.

Foreign courts began proposing another marriage before the official mourning period had properly ended. Noble houses suddenly discovered an impressive number of unmarried daughters with impeccable educations, excellent health, useful bloodlines, and apparently a lifelong dream of comforting a grieving king they had never met.

Russel refused all of them.

He did not dismiss his concubines either.

Some of those women had shared years of his life. Some were mothers to children he loved, some had grown old within the royal household, and Russel did not suddenly pretend those relationships had meant nothing simply because his queen was gone.

But he stopped visiting their chambers.

No proclamation announced it, and no dramatic vow was made. He simply stopped.

None of them became queen, none inherited the queen’s seal, and none sat with him during council.

Eventually, one minister gathered enough courage–or enough stupidity–to raise the matter directly.

"Your Majesty, the realm would benefit from another queen." The man stood at the end of the council table with the careful posture of someone who had rehearsed the sentence several times before deciding it was survivable.

Russel continued signing the document before him.

"The realm expects continuity," the minister added when no answer came.

"The realm has heirs."

"A queen provides stability."

The king’s pen stopped. For several seconds, he stared at the page rather than the man. Then he looked up. "I have had one."

The minister fell silent.

Russel lowered his gaze to the document again. "That is sufficient."

No one raised the matter before him again.

Misha watched the memory recede and felt something unpleasant tighten beneath her chest.

Russel did not live much longer after the queen’s death.

He continued ruling because grief, unfortunately, did not suspend tax disputes.

Misha saw him attend councils, correct military reports, argue over irrigation routes, and irritate ministers with enough consistency that, from a distance, nothing seemed to have changed.

The difference appeared in the spaces between those obligations.

He ate alone more often, he remained in council after everyone left, sometimes staring toward the empty chair the queen once seated on without seeming to realize he was doing it.

Once, late at night, Misha saw him stop outside the queen’s chamber. He lifted one hand toward the door, his fingers hovered against the wood, then he lowered them without knocking.

Because who the hell was going to answer?

Misha immediately regretted thinking it.

By the following seasons, the gray in his hair had spread until very little darkness remained.

One afternoon, his youngest daughter was carried into the council. Russel continued hearing petitions with the princess sleeping against one shoulder as though babies and land disputes had always belonged in the same meeting.

One elderly minister kept staring.

Russel eventually noticed this.

"If you intend to object," he said without looking away from the document in front of him, "choose your words carefully."

The man lowered his head. "I was only thinking that the princess resembles Her Majesty."

The king stopped, his eyes dropped toward the sleeping child. For several seconds, he said nothing, then a faint, aching smile touched his mouth.

"Yes." His hand settled carefully against his daughter’s back. "She does."

Misha saw him kiss the little girl’s hair.

The memory faded soon afterward.

Russel died before another year could fully turn.

===

Every street was filled, families placed their shoes upright outside their homes with white flowers beside them, and for the first time since Misha had begun watching Russel’s life, she understood the custom before the dream explained it.

Every doorway carried the same message: You are welcome. Come home.

Thousands crowded the ceremonial road stretching from the palace to the Bell House, and ten thousand hands waited for their king.

Russel’s body could not touch the ground. Part of it was tradition, the rest came from something darker.

When Russel destroyed the Qorcovane’s heart decades earlier, the creature had cursed him with its last breath. Uiylin eventually discovered that the curse was never intended to kill him while he lived.

It had been waiting for his death.

If Russel’s corpse touched the unblessed earth before the Bell of Homecoming acknowledged him, whatever remained of the Qorcovane’s power could seize his soul and drag it back toward Nareth. Worse, the curse could use the king’s body as a vessel, returning something wearing Russel’s face to the kingdom he had spent his life protecting.

"Well, that’s fucked." Misha stared at the shrouded body. "Even dead, the guy can never be at peace."

Uiylin had spent years building a counter-rite.

Living hands would carry Russel from the palace to Bell House, and the funeral rhythm could never break. His body could never touch the road.

Once the Bell of Homecoming rang above him, the kingdom itself would acknowledge his return and sever Nareth’s remaining claim would be severed.

That was why so many volunteered.

Misha watched Russel’s bier rise until the dead king seemed to float upon an ocean of hands. People who could not reach him knelt along both sides of the avenue, clasped their hands, and bowed their heads while children scattered white flowers beneath the bearer’s feet.

Near the Bell House gates, Misha noticed two pairs of royal shoes standing upright together among the flowers. One belonged to a man, and the other was smaller, belonging to a woman.

Misha stared at them longer than she meant to.

The queen had gone first, and now, the kingdom was waiting for its king to follow her home.

The drums began.

DUM.

Blue banners swayed above the crowd.

DUM.

The Bell House came into view.

Misha recognized it immediately despite the living city surrounding it. The same dark structure waited at the end of Floor Twelve.

Only here it was whole, no cracks, no dead road, and no Hushers kneeling between ruined walls.

The enormous Bell of Homecoming hung beneath the tower, bronze polished bright beneath the afternoon sun.

They were going to make it.

Misha knew that thought was stupid the moment it entered her head.

’Of course they’re not.’

She had already walked the corpse of this road, and she remembered the First Mourner’s comment. The king’s body never reached the Bell House.

Then... the sky split.

There was no thunder, no warning, just a thin black line appearing across the blue. Misha watched it widen, reality opened, and something moved on the other side.

Her body reacted before her thoughts did, every instinct screaming at once even though none of this could actually touch her.

"What the... what’s that?"

No one gave her the answer.

The first creature dropped through. It landed upside down upon a rooftop, four limbs bent in directions no living skeleton should permit. A human face hung beneath its throat, eyes closed while its mouth moved silently.

Another followed, then dozens.

Some unfolded wings divided into black translucent strips covered in blinking eyes. Others fell without wings and stopped before hitting the ground, hanging unnaturally in the air before changing direction.

People screamed, soldiers drew weapons, but the things ignored most of them since they were moving toward the Bell House.