Page 108 of A Crown of Lies

“Unless you want me to stay?” Ieduin offered. “I’ll stay as long as you want me to.”

“No.” She pushed away a tear that escaped. It was the wind in her eyes, making her cry. “I think I’d like to be alone with him for a little while.”

“I understand.” Rowan leaned in and kissed her cheek gently. “If you need us, either of us, please come find us. I’ll check in on you later if that’s all right.”

She nodded, and Rowan and Ieduin left her alone on the hill with her father’s body.

Rixxis stared at the fire and smoke for a long time, her mind and heart empty. The sadness of losing him seemed to have worn off, though the grief came in waves. She thought of all the things they’d done together, all the small memories she thought she’d long ago forgotten.

It was her father who first taught her to fight. If she was going to be on ships with men, he thought she ought to learn how to defend herself. She’d taken to the sword well enough, but it was the war hammer that she truly loved. She loved that it was big, and scary, and heavy. Men twice her age would look at her with it and laugh, thinking she couldn’t pick it up. Then their faces would blanch when she did. She’d never be beautiful, not like the other girls, or graceful, and so she had chosen to becomepowerful. Her father had never once tried to talk her out of it, never asked her to be something she wasn’t.

Except when it came to Lewis. He’d agonized over it after Lewis’s proposal came, because he knew she didn’t want to marry him. Then, one night, Rixxis came downstairs to find him asleep at his desk, the ledgers laid out before him. She saw for the first time the debts her father owed, and how the business he was so proud of was one bad day away from failing. She saw how exhausted he was, just trying to keep it all afloat, and how much he had sacrificed in the service of his dream. Surely, she could give up something to help.

And so she’d married and hated every moment of it.

When she wanted to leave, she had to be careful not to implicate her father in her disappearance so that Lewis didn’t demand his investment back. Her father had even helped her fake her own death. He’d done so much for her, made her who she was, and she’d never truly been able to repay him for everything he’d done.

Perhaps that is the burden of a father, of a mother, she thought.To give everything for their children. In a way, Greymark is like Rowan’s child, isn’t it? I know he would give everything. He’d give his own life if he thought his blood would buy freedom for a few more.

But then where would they be?

He could’ve solved this line of succession business easily. Insisted they marry before the battle, even try to put a child in her. Yet he hadn’t even brought it up. He should have, but he didn’t.

Is that even what I want?She touched a hand to her stomach, trying to imagine a world in which she would raise children with Ieduin and Rowan. She’d never seen herself as a mother. Mothers were matronly, feminine, soft.

Or maybe that wasn’t right either. Eris wasn’t any of those things, and Martha was a warrior of a different kind. She’d fight for her children if she had to.

If they were more like Ieduin or Rowan, I don’t think I would mind, she thought. Ieduin had beautiful features and a perfect smile. If they had a child, he’d be madly in love with it and never stop shirking his duties to play. They’d get into all sorts of trouble, the best kind. There would be so much laughter, and the world needed more of that, didn’t it?

Though Rowan could be rigid sometimes, and proud, he would adore the chance to shower their children with gifts from all over the world. He was the sort of man who’d put everything on hold to sit by the fire and read a book to his children, to make his advisors wait while he took them on walks around the courtyard and taught them all about Greymark’s history.

As for her, she thought maybe, in a way, it would be an opportunity for her father to live on. She might get to see him again in the corners of their children’s eyes, or the shape of their noses. She’d have someone to hold and tell all about their adventures at sea, and what a great man he was, someone who wouldn’t care that he was just an old sailor who moved boring cargo from one city to another.

Most of all, it would give her a purpose beyond endless fighting. Perhaps that was enough for Ieduin, but she didn’t want to fight until she got unlucky one day and fell. Nor did she want her entire life dedicated to building a kingdom. The one thing she had always wanted and never had wasfamily. In some ways, the Crows had become like a family for her, but she was starting to want more than that sort of camaraderie. She needed to matter, to be needed by someone the way her father had needed her.

Or maybe she was just grasping to hold on to life in the shadow of death.

It barely seemed to matter as her feet carried her away from the pyre, through the castle, and all the way to Rowan’s private room. She paused at the door, hearing him shuffling around the room and the skittering of Hamlet’s hooved feet following. He was probably packing for their long march. Maybe she shouldn’t interrupt.

Fuck it. I’m going to be his queen. This is my home as much as his now.

She pushed open the door without knocking. Maybe that was rude, but it seemed they were past such formalities, weren’t they?

The sitting room attached to his bedroom was a mess. There were several piles of papers in messy stacks, and gear was strewn everywhere.

Hamlet let out a low squealing snort and charged out of the bedroom. He broke into a sprint at the sight of her and came to sniff her boots, weaving around her legs excitedly like a cat.

Rowan appeared in the bedroom doorway a moment later. “Rixxis.” He sounded surprised, but not unhappy to see her.

“If Ieduin saw this mess, he’d have a heart attack,” she said, picking a thread from a pile of clothes.

“Thankfully, he’s busy packing his own way. You know, they say genius is just chaos directed. If that’s true, I’m smarter than I look.”

“Maybe,” she said. Her heart was pounding in her chest, but it wasn’t fear. She knew what that felt like. This was something else entirely.

She made her way around the room, slowly working toward him, running her fingers over all the fine things. What would he be taking with him, and what was he leaving here?

He put aside the stack of papers he held. “Is there something I can do for you, Rixxis? Do you want to talk or…”

---