Page 93 of Morfran, Dark Lord Reformed

She said nothing, and he felt like he was watching her fade, the usual bright light in her gaze receding like a star being covered by clouds. He knew what she needed to hear. What she’d stayed to hear. If this was all she wanted, he’d give it to her.

“I wasn’t lying, when I said it earlier. Arthur was brave,” Morfran managed to get out. “He was the only one on the field who ran at me rather than away. That rarely happened over my twenty years of ruling. And you’re right. I didn’t know him long enough to learn his name. But just know that now I’ll never forget it. And, Bronwen?”

She’d dropped her gaze as he’d spoken, but now she raised it again, clenching her teeth as if to hold back tears.

“I am sorry.” Not because his past actions had ruined his chance of ever being with her. But because he’d ended a life, and he’d ended a love, cutting it short. How many more lives had he done the same to? “About him.” He paused, then added, “About all of it.”

She studied him slowly, tracing the lines of his shoulders, the expression on his face. It was a particularly tender action, something he’d only ever seen a parent do to a child, or a lover do to their loved one only when the two of them knew they were alone.

He stayed where he was, however, even though all he wanted to do was tear across the distance and yank her into his arms, to ask her, against all wisdom and reason, to stay at his side, to come with him.

But even as he saw the tilt of a frown and the sad, dwindling light in her eyes, he knew he couldn’t ask that. She’d been tugged around by him, indirectly and directly, for a great deal of her life, and the last thing she needed was his constant presence redirecting her steps. She needed time to restructure who she was again: if she wanted to become the Red Rogue and hunt down the rest of his generals, if she wanted to become whoever she’d been before she’d picked up the assassin’s blade, if she wanted to become someone else entirely. She couldn’t do that if he was still in her life.

So instead he smiled. And even though it hurt to say the words, it also felt like a release. “I also wanted to say thank you,” he whispered. “For always chasing me down and dragging me back. For recognizing the good in me, even when all I saw was the bad. Without you, all of this”—he gestured behind her, to the city freed from his and Ravana’s evil reign, and the happy sounds of celebration from her people—“would never have happened.”

Her eyes were gleaming now. She continued twisting her skirts, her eyes on the ground. Then finally, she tipped her chin down in a little nod. “Do good,” she said. “Morfran.”

She turned to leave, and he knew he needed to let her. But a last smidge of selfishness he couldn’t quell made him ask it, made him call out, “What was my scent to you?” Quieter, he explained, “To me you were my mother’s wildflowers.”

She paused a step before she continued walking. And he thought that maybe she wouldn’t answer. That he’d never know. And he didn’t—for although she did turn her head and speak, the answer was so soft he didn’t hear.

30

A New Page Turned

Morfran had been traveling for a week straight and still had no idea where he was.

He would have thought that, once being a Dark Lord, expert battle strategist, and forced-into-goodness general for a rebellion that took him across the kingdom, he’d know where he bloody well had wandered into.

He lowered the map, frowning at the twisted trees writhing up and out like the broken stem of an umbrella. Just yesterday he’d resurrected a dead man who’d eaten an entire pie made out of boomberries. It was one of his more memorable resurrections as of late, namely because once the man had reverted to a body rather than a gazillion chunks of flesh and the breath of life filled his lungs, the man had said it’d all been worth it. Apparently, boomberries were the most delicious of the berry family, and he’d known what he’d been getting into.

Morfran had burned the bushes along the man’s cottage on his way out.

He’d, both surprisingly and unsurprisingly, become quite popular across the kingdom. Children would see him coming through the valley in his cloak, riding Dainty Stepper—previously known as Skullthrasher, his black warhorse—and dash back to their homes, screaming,

“He’s here! He’s here! Tell Ma to stop crying so much! Grandpa will be up and at it soon enough!”

He no longer resurrected those who’d died directly or indirectly by his hand. He’d already brought back all the innocent lives he could, though a surprising number turned down his offer. Apparently, the afterlife was one big party, and him yanking them back into the mortal realm was like that one buzzkill who demanded partygoers stop dancing on tables and put down that eighth mug of ale because they had to go muck the stables outside.

Those first few weeks had been tense, however; he’d been overwhelmed with the thought of failure, and what he knew would happen if he couldn’t bring someone back. But over time he’d gotten quite good at it. He resurrected the dead not for himself, but for them and their families and the lives they would have had if he hadn’t meddled with them. Begrudgingly, he’d even brought back the members of the kNighty-kNight Necromancers Club, which was an awkward occasion where neither party would meet the other’s eyes and which ended with the members formally disbanding the organization.

The months passed, and he found that people fetched him from his tent or inn room asking not to slap him in the face for what he’d once done but for his services: a child had fallen down a well and drowned. Someone’s uncle had gotten lost in a snowstorm and frozen to death. A woman was headbutted by a hostile billy goat running rampant. And so on and so forth.

The hardest resurrection, however, was bringing back Arthur. He wasn’t Bronwen’s true love, but she had free will. What if she chose to return to his side, despite the now-fourteen-year age gap? What if they joined together to murder Morfran in his sleep? Nothing would bring two people back together faster than the mutual desire to destroy someone they both despised. And did Bronwen despise him still? He hadn’t dared reach out.

In the end he’d accepted the possibility of being maimed by the two and resurrected Arthur in the man’s family mausoleum. Unfortunately, the blizzard of the century had blown in right as he was doing so and rather than wake the dead guy, stutter out an apology, and run away, Morfran was snowed in with him for the following three days.

During this time Morfran suffered through an excruciatingly painful conversation as he expressed his deepest sorrow that he’d beheaded him and that fourteen years had passed since then. He also confessed that he, too, was in love with Bronwen, who happened to be his true love, and who was now a famed assassin in Ruthven. Arthur, to his surprise, took it in stride. He only sobbed for three hours straight, after which he wiped his face, stuck out his hand, and said he forgave him.

By the end of the three days they’d bonded over Morfran’s wild plum jam and their shared trauma of Hugh’s idiocy. Afterwards, Arthur set out for Elmswood, and Morfran went back on his resurrection tour feeling fifty pounds lighter (though that could have been because Arthur had binged Morfran’s entire stock of jams).

A little over a year had passed since Warshire had fallen to the Elmswood Rebels. The replacement of the new ruler was still taking time—Rapunzo, many were quick to learn, didn’t want to rule but instead wanted to pump iron, name his ever-growing stuffed animal collection, and live next door to his friend he only ever referred to as Little Woman—so that had put a hitch in those plans. In the meantime they were in good hands. Brim stayed six months in Warshire, overseeing order and looking menacing whenever anyone tried to overstep boundaries, and spent the remainder of the year with his children down south.

Maybe one day, if they really needed him, Morfran would be asked to return to Castle Atrago, should they need someone with his expertise and experience. For now, however, he’d grown quite content raising the occasional dead cow or person and traveling the kingdom he’d never had the chance to visit when he was Dark Lord of Ruthven™.

Rolling his map into a small ball, he chucked it behind him in irritation. It hit something solid, and he made Dainty Stepper—all right, that was too stupid a name, he’d have to change it again—back up so he could see what he’d hit.

It was a sign, nearly camouflaged due to the overgrowth of ivy vines. When he cleared it away he saw the words Elmswood Village: Two Miles→