It stopped raining.

I softly touched the droplets of rain with each of my fingers, popping out the bubbles. The small watery circles ended their splatters onto the railing, easily letting me caress them.

But how could it stop?

How could it stop, just like that?

I shut my eyes tightly, knotting my fingers together.

"Elijah? They're waiting for you." Lia whispered from behind me, placing her palm on my shoulder as we looked out at the borders of our villages, from the balcony.

I stayed silent; staring up at the plain clouds that had cluttered together, forming their own families.

"Eli...you have to come out. They're going to take the body out to complete the final rituals, it's only respectful that you're there."

I held in the breaths that were prepared to become ragged, rapidly blinking away the moisture threatening the corner of my eyes.

The little calluses on my fingers shivered as I parted my hands and left them to the side.

Do not break.

"L-let's go."

Lia's glance curved down to sympathy but I denied it by shaking my head.

"Please don't say anything. Let's just go."

She nodded her head, turning away as she walked forward and held the door open for me.

I exited my chamber.

Some things were inevitable.

The languid slow steps were noticed too well by the servants around.

The dragging hesitation in every pace forward bleared everything out too well.

And the perpetual sway that tried its hardest to take us away from accepting the reality.

The reality that everything comes to end, whether it was supposed to or not.

Nine minutes passed, and we reached the place where everyone had quietly gathered.

My father's arm was tightly hung over my mother's neck - his other arm weakly limping at his other side - as she supported his crumbling and bruised stance.

The soldiers were compulsively stationed at every pillar, still seemingly recovering from the blackout they had been forced under, the previous night.

Eyes drooping, bodies almost pathetically slumped, but still attempting to appear as if they had enough strength left in them to consciously pass into the next week.

Atleast, they're still alive.

I nodded at everyone acknowledgingly, and we all straightened ourselves, somewhat prepared.

The brown door of one of the many guest chambers opened.

The family stepped out first, and their face-

I could not look at their faces.

I swallowed and averted my gaze, staring straight ahead.

A body followed the backs of the people that gave birth to it - daringly arriving out with cold skin, closed eyes and conclusively dead.

A small body.

The body of the bravest, most beautiful little girl I ever knew.

Rain.

Lia grasped my arm, tightening her hands over it.

I couldn't stop staring at the little girl's face.

The traumatic raise of a shaky heartbeat, and the beginning of a failed tear.

I brushed it away.

Rain, rain, go away.

Come again another day.

Brother wants to play.

Rain, rain, go away.

I crouched down, unknowingly landing on my knees as I came near Rain's body - spread onto a long white sheet supported by a clean, thin bed.

The same place where her last pulse was found and lost.

Dark brown hair and a beautiful face with puffed out cheeks that had completely lost its colour.

I enclosed my hand over her palm that was so tiny compared to mine, and gently pulled it out of the bedsheets covering her front. I folded her fingers one by one, quickly shadowing mine over it - safe and secure.

I slowly bent down, going near her ears, and whispered, "The lullaby tells you to go away, but remember that everyone wants you to stay. I want you to stay," My voice broke and I tentatively moved my face to the side. "So, s-so, if there's any chance that you could come back to us, please fight, take it and come back. You don't get to leave like this, Rain. You have no right. No right."

No right at all.

No fair at all.

At all.

I didn't realise it.

I didn't realise when my grip on her hand had gotten so tight that I was pinching my way into the palm of her cold-blooded skin, so aggressive that I was screaming, so painful that I was aching.

My sister and Vladimir jumped in immediately, and pulled me away as they kept things to me that felt too distant, as if they were howling it from the far end in a canal that I could never reach.

I lost a little girl.

I lost her.

"Elijah? Elijah! Elijah!"

"Eli? Listen to me, come on, stay with me, start blinking, say something!"

"Just breathe, Eli. Breathe, son, just breathe, okay?"

"Prince Elijah."

You tell me.

Blink or breathe?

~~~

"Her heart stopped beating."

I slowly turned my head, meeting Zyanna's calm scrutiny fixed at the tall roses and thorns.

I rested the back of my head against the wall and breathed out lightly. "What?"

She stood near the door that opened up to the gardens, and folded her arms. "A family history of heart disease. Nothing could be done. They didn't know when it was going to happen or how. There was no cure. Her parents just waited it out until...until it happened."

"Is that supposed to be reassuring?" I questioned, vainly forcing a smile.

"I know you think the female that threw a knife at her yesterday is the cause of it all. I wish she was too."

I rubbed my eye, flicking out the arrogant dirt sticking to the edge of it.

"The word you're looking for, Zyanna, is a fantastic and pure coincidence." I gave her a sardonic look, rocking my head back and forth against the wall.

"I'm not trying to disregard Rain's death here, Prince Elijah."

"That's not what I said."

"Didn't you?"

I sighed and fully turned around to face her. "Zya-"

"You're sitting here, surrounded by well-kempt, watered flowers and plants but drowning yourself in nothing but the same thoughts. Rain died because of you. Rain could have been saved if you were quicker. Everything could have been stopped if you were a better prince. A better king."

She came down to sit next to me, leaning her back against the wall too. "I don't know much, but I do know that it's incredibly easy to blame yourself. It's even more easier when you're actually not to blame at all. We always find a way to blame someone."

It was disgustingly true.

The moment I was informed of Rain's death, every bone in my body was prepared to hand the dancer her death penalty sooner than later. No questioning, no more investigation, just death without a single warning.

Because that's what happened to Rain.

Who can we blame now?

"She was just a little girl, Zya. She was exactly like my sister, too. Playing around, embarassing her parents, making everyone laugh and so stupidly brave." Words fell as my voice slipped into a tremble and cracked.

Zyanna silently brought her knees forward and settled them under her chin.

"She was definitely much more prettier than you too."

An unexpected burst of laughter collapsed out of me and then it shattered, leaving a fragmented debris.

I feel so tired.

I felt a stray tear gently fall on my hand and it wasn't mine.

I pulled in a breath, and slid an arm around Zyanna's shoulder, pulling her close.

She forced out a chuckle, wiping the wetness her single tear left.

"I was with her last night. She told me her heart's different to everyone else, literally," She coughed and breathed at the same time, struggling to speak without flinching. "We were just taking a walk. She shouldn't have ran into the hall. I should have protected her better. I should have done something."

The next moment, she pushed me away, stood up and swept the dust off her skirt.

"It's me, Prince Elijah. I'm the one to blame for her death. I may not be the cause of her heart failure, but she should have been able to go peacefully. She shouldn't have had to take her last breath with blood wounds and blisters. I let that happen. That was all me."

She exhaled as her lips lightly quivered.

"Blame me. Just blame me, and move forward. You're about to be King, and you cannot leave your people in anarchy. You cannot break now. Because if you do, then you can happily blame yourself for the rest of your life for everything that happens from this moment."

With that, she walked away.

~~~

"Wake up, Father. It's time you started to wake up."

His sleeping self started to shudder and stretch, his eyelids slowly but carefully opening up to the partial darkness. The only light that came through was from the slightly opened curtains, and his eyes seemed grateful for it.

I slid the scrolls I was holding over each other, neatly bumping the papers together against the table. With a hand-cut goose quill in my hand, I dipped it inside the ink pot, completely prepared.

"Eli? What are you doing here? Are you... are you feeling okay now?" He asked hesitantly, clearly tempted to dwindle back into his dreams.

I smiled and snapped my fingers in front of his face, getting his complete attention.

I sat down on a chair in front of him, and placed both my feet on the ground firmly.

He tiredly chuckled, sitting himself up on the bed. "Just because you're about to be the King soon, doesn't mean you can snap your fingers at your current King like that, Elijah. It can be misunderstood as a gesture of disrespect very easily."

I tilted my head. "You don't need to misunderstand anything. I very much meant it. Making sure to respect you isn't one of my topmost priorities today."

Silence.

This silence wasn't gold. It was an ugly shade of a rusty, dying bronze.

His face morphed into the structure of a stone, and the clench of his jaw was too palpable.

"Did you just-"

"I did."

The fatigue in his eyes escaped like a knowing ghost, and the realisation sunk in.

The realisation that I wasn't here to enquire about his health, set a sure date for my unfortunately delayed coronation, and leave like the sincere son I usually liked to be.

"I'm not here to be your dutiful son. I'm here to be the heir - the heir you chose - to the throne. If you have someone else in mind - ready to descend with the kingdom's hard-to-earn approval - go ahead." I leaned back on my chair, placing my chin on my closed fist.

His face visibly reddened.

"Your sister-"

"-has an extremely polluted reputation amongst the masses. You can certainly use me as your source for reference, Father."

A new voice had entered the area as Lia stepped inside the chamber, closing the doors behind her with a smile.

I rolled my eyes at her to which she simply shrugged her shoulders.

I turned back to my father. "Your options are closed for now. At this moment, the sub-rulers, the royal council, the people, have almost fully accepted me as their future King. Any change now, won't be received too well. You're not in the condition to convince or negotiate with anyone except me."

The room lapsed into a disdainful reticence once again, and I paid it no mind.

Lia steadied herself against the wall and I began.

"A frighteningly sharp rise in the number of dead enemies in the period just before Lia's birth. You went on a killing spree, resolved the kingdom's conflicts - that could have been easily dealt with a in a peaceful way - with nothing but blood and beheading," I circled the dates of every war with red ink, enunciating the names of the dead, one by one. "War after war, you never rested. The reasons? Remain a secret, gone unquestioned."

There was visual evidence, in the form of the actual dead bodies, aiding it all, in the Yelastindine, and scatter graphs were drawn up  by Vladimir to strengthen the conclusions.

Lia coughed and continued on from me, "Unless, the 'reasons' never really came with a plural. Perhaps there was only one reason behind all of the numerous deaths and battles, and you used it to cause chaos wherever you could. Justified because the enemies were, well, enemies, ofcourse, but... can I look at it from another angle? Where did all that anger truly come from?"

She folded her arms, her glance nearly plummeting into a glare. "And why doesn't your own wife have an answer to any of it? The very person that stood next to you, supported you, while you went absurd with your sword, know absolutely nothing?"

Her voice had lowered itself into a sinister, grim whisper but she had never sounded louder.

He, on the other hand, wore features that thickened into a fiery snarl, his entire sense of composure gone.

I fixed my gaze at him, and leaned forward. "So there is a dark secret behind the silence. Understood."

A correlation - found. The pair of variables - to be identified.

I unclipped the records marking the details behind that part of my father's life and placed it on the table, moving onto the more recent events.

The dancer's letters.

"You know it and I know it. The criminal very surely, without a trace of doubt, refers to you as someone she truly knows. Someone she knows enough - to freely threaten, taunt and blackmail despite the fact that she knows you're the mighty King of Yandestine."

I underlined the essential word, the name that seemed to mean something to both parties, in dark blue ink.

Rela.

The blue ink left broken dots in its wake as I finished the underline.

"It all leads to one thing. Who's Rela?"

The letter was violently snatched from my hold in an instant, the corners of it nearly being ripped.

"You have no right, coming in here and questioning me like I'm the criminal," His gaze sharpened, and the glower would have made me withdraw without a first thought.

It would have done so any other day.

"Who do you think you are?" 

I angled my head to the side.

"I'm the person that is supposed to deal with the aftermath you left, Father." I responded, sighing with a sad smile.

He stiffened.

I abruptly got up, straightening myself, and left the stack of papers and scrolls near his lap.

"The three essential values of Yandestine: truth, courage and compassion. I saw a little girl demonstrate all of that yesterday," I breathed sharply, holding the memory close to my tremoring heart. "That gut I saw in her, the fearlessness to fight and help me when she was bleeding too much to even get up - I'm afraid to admit that I still have never seen that in you or me."

I stepped closer to him, and bent down, meeting him at eye-level.

"It's time to face your demons, Father. Until you will, until you step up and give us answers, I refuse to take your place and deal with your ugly mess. Until the Prince decides to take the throne, the current King will make the rules. The coronation is postponed until I say so. We will wait, as long as it takes for you to gather yourself together and be the man you already should be have been, when you were crowned."

I spun away and crossed the chamber to stand next to Aaliyah. "Your daughter will be here, ready to call me when you're ready to answer us. And the clock's ticking too fast, Father. Count your seconds."

At those last words, his head jolted up to face mine, and there was a tinge of something swarming within his gaze.

It was painful to look at.

I nodded at my sister and left the chamber in silence.

A deep breath flew out of me, grateful to be granted an elude.

I walked towards the pillars, and calmly stood between a pair, as a harsh breeze of air snapped against my skin.

I looked up.

The skies above vehemently convulsed into packed clouds with no real colour; the bleak greyness getting thicker and thicker by the second. Watery droplets started to plunge to the ground, a slick thunder striking in the distance.

It started raining.

Just like that.

***

Hey. Hello. Hi.

Is everyone... is everyone good? *sees knives sharpening in the distance* hah, that totally isn't for me, I know it.

Your thoughts, whatever it is, even if it includes nice and soft feathery weapons, I want to know.

Thank you to everyone who have supported me, still sane enough to have read and come this far, seeing your votes and comments is basically like brushing and walking for me now, so I LOVE YOU ALL.

And to all the silent readers out there, I love you too! ❤️🎶

Stay blessed,
OceanaCamerons 🌹🌹🌹