The ride down the hill was suffocating.
I sat in silence, staring out the window as the car hummed along the road.
I was alone with my thoughts, and with the guilt that kept creeping in.
No matter how many times I tried to subdue it, it roared back again and again, demanding answers, holding me accountable.
My mind felt too full, too heavy, yet empty at the same time... a feeling I didn't welcome.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Joshua stealing glances at me.
He thought he was subtle, but he wasn't.
I closed my eyes, drew a long breath, and said, "What is it?"
Joshua, my junior apprentice. I had taken him under my wing, helping him learn the work of our division.
As well as have some conversation, maybe the kid might help delay my thoughts for a bit.
He jumped slightly, startled. "Huh? No… it's nothing."
"Get on with it, kid," I said, turning my head just enough to catch the faint tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers tightened around the notebook on his lap.
He shifted again, hesitating before speaking. "Sir… you have to submit the report and…" His voice dropped, softer now. " I am curious about it all as well."
I leaned back, exhaling through my nose.
" Of course. A report. Always a damn report."
I rubbed my temples, then pointed at the notebook. "Fine. You will write it for me. I will talk, you will put it down later. You know what to keep and what to skip, right?"
He nodded quickly, pen poised.
"Good." My gaze drifted forward again, voice steady. "Start with name, Sirius by Wolf Lium... code name Toby."
I watched him scribble a few words before looking up at me, waiting.
I continued.
"I will fill in the dry details later. For now, just listen as I speak. I will tell you how it began when we met, what he was, what I learned over the years… and how it all ended."
----
I tried to remember how it all began, combing through the years like threads I had long tucked away.
"It all started with Allysane."
Joshua's body tensed. He snapped upright, pen hovering above the page. "Allysane? That Allysane?" His voice was quiet.
I met his wide stare. "Yes. The same Allysane you have heard about. The woman who carried the real heir. The one who ran away. She was the beginning of it all."
His pen slipped slightly against the page, leaving a small blot. He didn't stop writing, and I noticed the slight shake in his wrist. But he didn't interrupt.
"Allysane, the daughter of the matriarch of the House Oneir, and ...
The queen of this country."
My country.
Kallos.
I let the name linger in my mouth for a moment. Ironically, Kallos meant 'beautiful,' though that beauty had long been scarred by blood and politics.
"She sat beside King Theodore Valroth, ruling as his queen, until the day he died."
Joshua furrowed his brow. He had heard pieces of this story, like any child raised under Kallos' sky, but the full version… not quite.
The official version was refined and discrete than what actually happened.
"It wasn't sudden. He had been ill for two, maybe three weeks. No amount of healing could reverse it... only delay the inevitable." I let the memory settle, the weight of it pressing down. "After his death, chaos followed for many reasons, but mainly… because there was no heir."
I could still recall the whispers, spreading faster than fire across dry fields. Then the letter.
"A day after his death," I said, voice dropping, "a letter was found on his deathbed. Written a week prior, as if he'd already foreseen his end. In it… he announced what no one expected."
I watched Joshua's knuckles tighten on the notebook, noticed the faint exhale he didn't mean to make.
I read the words aloud, slowly, letting them hang between us...
I may not live much longer.
The healers are failing, and I feel my life draining out.
So before the end, there is something I must announce.
Something the queen and I planned to reveal once I recovered, but that doesn't seem possible now.
The queen is pregnant.
She carries your sole heir.
I remembered the uproar that followed.
I remembered the weight of it pressing down on my chest. I was young, still learning what it meant to serve, but even then I understood. Those words meant hope and chaos braided together.
Murmurs, accusations, questions without answers…
"It wasn't grief that hit me first," I admitted, eyes on the window, "but the weight of it all. The throne was empty. The heir wasn't even born yet. My eyes went straight to Allysane, her hand over her belly, and all I could think… if anything happens to her, it's over."
Joshua's pen paused, then scratched quietly across the page. Not like he was actually writing something as of now.
His lips pressed in a thin line. He was listening, really listening.
"I knew the vultures would come now," I continued. "Nobles who had been waiting for something like this moment, ready to tear Kallos apart before the king's body even cooled. Stability was nothing but a word, fragile as glass... and I could hear it cracking already."
I let the weight settle again, the hum of the car filling the silence.
Rain began tapping faintly against the windshield, a steady rhythm that matched my pulse.
"In that moment," I said, voice low, "I knew… unless someone held the line, hell was about to break loose. And indeed, it was the beginning of the end for a lot…"
Silence followed after that. It was heavy, and still.
Joshua blinked his pen resting, and his eyes wide.
"You didn't write any of this, right?' I asked, breaking the quiet.
This wasn't going to be part of the report. They would know the facts already.
This was for him to understand.
"No, sir,"he said, shaking his head lightly, fingers brushing the notebook.
"Good. We shall move forward then."
"Sir?" He spoke, his voice somewhat restricted. " Before that... What did you mean by beginning of the end? "
Like many others, Joshua had no idea about the story and reason behind the downfall and destruction of House Oneir.
And even less people know, that the Matriarch and Allysane herself were the center of it all. I understood their reasons, but I couldn't agree with it.
Most of it steamed from fear, from the apprehension of the future and... from the love of motherhood.
She was right about the greed of human kind, of course. We are worse than animals, and evil than devil itself.
So it was only natural that she took that step, but if it would cost the whole country... No maybe the whole world or not.
That remain to be seen.