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Allera moved to her husband’s side and took his hand. He pulled her closer even as he stepped toward me and narrowed his eyes. “Make sure the family has some privacy,” he muttered with a glance toward everyone crowded in the corridor. “To say goodbye.”
I gulped but nodded. From inside the dining hall, Nicolette called, “Brentley, hurry! He’s asking for you.”
Brentley turned from me so he and Allera could rush into the room with Vienne following behind.
I drew in a breath and turned to the worried soldiers and servants. I told them about the dead bodies littered around the castle and sent them off to clean up the messes. To the rest who remained, I said, “The royal family requests privacy at this time. If you’d all go wait in the entrance hall until further instructions…”
Nodding, they trudged away, some of them with tears in their eyes.
Once they were gone, I stepped quietly into the dining hall. They’d laid Caulder out on one end of the L-shaped banquet table as if he were to be his own last meal.
Brentley, Allera, and Nicolette hovered at his left side while Yasmin, Soren, and Vienne with little Anniston gathered to his right, almost as they did every night for the royal dinner.
Nicolette wept into Allera’s arms while Caulder turned his face toward his brother as he spoke. All the while, his wife buried her nose into the crook of the king’s neck, sobbing as her husband petted her hair gently with grey, blood-stained fingers. A solemn Soren and Vienne stood regretfully behind her.
I moved closer, spotting the stain steadily growing in the cloth covering his chest. Damn. A lung shot. They were probably filling with blood and suffocating him to death this very moment. His face was turning blue, his lips swollen as he gasped blood-laced words in halting jerks.
“Your throne…now…Brother.” He paused to cough, spitting up a mouthful of red froth with a gurgling sound.
“No.” Brentley shook his head. “I don’t want to be king. It was you. Always you. Stay, Caulder. You were meant for this. Not me.”
“Can’t,” Caulder gasped before his gaze slid slowly my way.
When our gazes met, he lifted his hand weakly and curled his fingers, beckoning me forward. Brentley looked up, and then backed away so I could take his spot at the king’s side.
I eased past both Allera and Nicolette, touching both their backs in comfort before kneeling next to the king.
“Your Majesty?”
“Behind,” he struggled to say, motioning his hand toward his neck, like maybe he was pointing to something over his shoulder. “From behind.” He shook his head slowly. “Never turned…back…enemy.”
I frowned, trying to make sense of his words when his eyelashes fluttered and he turned his face in toward his wife’s hair. “Yasmin,” he breathed out with his last breath, his eyes losing their light as he died.
The queen sobbed and shook her head. “No. No! You can’t leave me. NO!” She sat up, wiping at the tears that were streaming down her face. When she glanced at me, she gasped. “Maybe I can save him, like you saved Vienne, and she saved you. Yes. He has to be my one true love.”
No one stopped her as she pressed her mouth frantically to Caulder’s, but no one expected the kiss to work either.
“No,” she ordered, kissing him again, harder this time. “This isn’t fair. He was my one true love. Caulder, damn you, come back to me.”
Her desperation as she pressed her mouth to her dead husband’s over and over again filled my chest with a raw pain. I had to glance away, only to catch the gaze of Vienne across the table, tears streaming down her cheeks. She nodded, letting me know she felt just as horrible.
Next to me, Brentley wrapped his arms around both Allera and Nicolette as the three wept together.
Soren was the only one who stepped forward to gently take Yasmin’s shoulders in his hands. “My queen,” he said. “It’s over. He’s gone.”
“No,” she growled, shoving him away, only to sob and fling herself into his arms, where she let him pull her away from Caulder. “He can’t be gone. He just can’t be.”
As Soren held her, I returned my attention to Vienne, frowning thoughtfully as I contemplated Caulder’s last words to me.
She tipped her head to the side questioningly and mouthed, “What?”
I shook my own head slowly and shifted my gaze to the dead king.
From behind.
Never turned my back…to the…enemy?
Dear God.
