KINGMAKERS EPILOGUE

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Submitted Date 06/03/2019
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Epilogue

Amelie


The moon is already high in the sky when we stumble wearily to the farmer's door.

I wipe my dirty, sweating palms into the fabric of my pants. And I raise my fist and knock.
"The One Shot Lady, knocking." Yanic snorts. "Never thought I'd see the day."
I shoot him a look of annoyance, but I'm too nervous to retort.
The King's body hasn't been cold a day, but a year has passed since I set out from my tiny cottage across the world. A year since I've seen my son smile. A year since I've heard his laugh.
My ears pick up a shuffle on the other side of the rough-hewn door. I hold my breath at the slide of the latch. The door cracks.
"Can I help you?" All the woman reveals is her eye.
I look down at Yanic, unsure.
"We've come for the boy," said Yanic. "Lord Quentin sent us."
Her eye looks Yanic up and down before she does the same to me. Good. She is careful. Quentin chose her well.
She holds the door wider and gives me a smile. "He has your mouth. Please, come in. We've been expecting you."
My heart flutters as I duck through the doorway, Yanic following behind in his chair.
The house is small but warm and bright. Windows line the far wall, letting in the silvery light of the moon. The walls are washed with white and the floors are swept and polished. Fragrant bread cooks in a great brick oven and jars of golden honey sit nearby.
The farmer smiles when I catch her watching me examine her home. "Lord Quentin, forgive me, but is he—"
"Dead," I say.
And because I promised to watch over his grave, I say no more. He loved his household as he loved his family. I will not besmirch his name.
At least, not today.
The lady blinks and frowns and nods, but she says no more about her master. "If you could wait here, I sent the boys to sleep in the barn tonight. Tea?"
I shake my head.
Yanic smiles and opens his mouth. I shoot him a glare and he closes it.
"No, thank you," says the old man. "Just the boy."
The lady curtseys and rushes out the back door.
When the door slams behind her, the old man speaks. "Should I be afraid?"
I take a seat beside him and jiggle my knee. "Of me?"
"Aye," says Yanic. "When last we spoke beside the rebel graves, you told me my days were few. Unless the deaths of our merry band of friends have swayed you otherwise?"
When we buried their bodies just before coming here, I didn't tell him it was Quentin who killed them. I don't know for sure— How could I? But I feel the truth of it in my bones.
Yet I still don't tell Yanic now. That Quentin plotted to betray them just as I plotted to betray him.
So instead I say, "I swear on the breath of my child, I will never again go after you or the lives of the ones you love. But in return, you must give me one thing."
"Christ and spirits damn you, Amelie. Can't you ever do a thing for the sake of simple kindness?"
I smile and, to him, it must be like the slash of a knife. Yet to me, this smile is filled with hard lessons and harder consequences and the hardest year of my life. Which is why I must make him agree.
"Promise me you'll do to me what we did to Julien and the Queen before him," I say. "Promise me you'll take me down if ever I become so lustful for power, that I forget about the boy I love who will one day be King. Can you promise me that?"
Yanik looks at his lined, scarred hands. For a while he is silent and we listen to the faint rustle of wind through the fields outside. The wheat fields that will soon feed more than the people of this kingdom alone.
"Remember the story I told you when we first met?" Yanic finally asks. "Of the brothers who went to war and whose descendants couldn't remember why they fought anymore?"
"The tale a spirit told you on the battlefield."
Yanic waves away my skepticism. "My point is, I made a promise to myself that day that I would stop fighting. And though I tried, I broke it when you came to my club those years ago." He sighs when I lift a brow. "What I mean to say is, I'm no good with promises."
"Then make it a vow," I say. "We shall seal it with your blood and mine."
"An unbreakable oath," says Yanic. "Through which we would protect the kingdom, its future king, and the rest of the hungry world from tyrants." He rubs his bearded chin. "I like it."
I smile and shake the old man's hand. "We will arrange it come sunrise tomorrow."
Suddenly, there is laughter outside and running feet pounding against the back deck before a boy with sunshine in his hair and love in his eyes bursts into the kitchen.
"Mamere!"
I open my arms and he runs into them.
His bones aren't as jaunt as they once were, the softness of him bringing tears to my eyes as I hold him close. The icy fingers squeezing my heart let go and I can feel his warmth on my skin again. I pull away to look at him.
"Mamere," Rueben says. He touches my face. His fingers come away wet. "Why are you crying? You're not happy to see me?"
"Of course I'm happy." I wipe my eyes with the sleeve of my cloak and clear my throat. "This is your Uncle Yanic. Say hello."
Rueben peers around me. His eyes pop wide with interest as he takes in the old man's chair. "I've seen you before, sir. In the woods, by the little cemetery on the hill."
"Indeed," Yanic says, wiping a tear of his own. "I remember that I saw you, too."
I quell the anger in my gut that this woman let my boy run a little too free. But I push it aside because he's here. He's here with me and I'll never again rely on the kindness of strangers to keep him safe.
"Are you ready to go home, my Rue?" I ask him.
Rueben's face falls and he glances over his shoulder at the farmer's young son. "I suppose," he says sadly. "But can we come back and visit?"
I straighten, biting my lip to keep from smiling. "Only in the afternoons when you're done with your schooling." I bend to meet his eyes when he looks at me, confused. "I'll explain everything when you're a bit older, but for now all you need to know is we're staying here."
"In the citadel?" He shouts.
I nod. "Yes, in the citadel."
Rueben whoops and lopes across the room to catch his young companion in a quick embrace. I watch them play a short while longer before we take our leave.
As we walk along the cobbled road, I take my boy's hand. His hand in mine, I guide him home. And, for once, I am not afraid of sending my child to bed hungry.

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