Wicked Chase

♛ Chapter Thirty-Five

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Something about witnessing someone you hold close to your heart die was strangely different from getting the news about their death. When I had watched Thorin slash that sword right through my mother's neck I hadn't a clue of what he had done but it made me do a very strange thing - it made me kill him, it made me lash out even when my mind couldn't process what I had witnessed until the blood of his wicked heart coated my hands.

Weeks passed by but I didn't quite feel like I was moving. People grieved for the Queen's death and sometimes I wanted to lash out at them and scream at them because they were all just faking it. They didn't love the Queen as much as I did so that had no bloody right to cry those crocodile tears for her but my hate and fury would quickly simmer down because I knew it wasn't her love and her motherhood that they were grieving for because that was what I was grieving for. They were grieving for the loss for the Kingdom. They were grieving for their King who hadn't moved a single inch out of bed and if he did move out of bed it was only to wash, eat and drink.

My father's life seemed to have lost meaning and I would have tried to help him had I not felt so stuck and disgusted by myself and my actions. Something about driving a sword right through Thorin over and over again like I was driven mad actually did drive me mad. Images would follow me everywhere and the feeling would bloom within me suddenly in the midst of doing something. Every time I tried to get intimate with Alastair I ended breaking down and sobbing into his arms, biting his ears off with my cries. He wanted to know what was on my mind, I knew, but I didn't want to talk about it because a small part of me didn't want to acknowledge what I was now - a murderer - but the other more prominent part of me was just selfish and didn't want Alastair to view me as the monster I knew I was.

It was over a week, a couple of days after the war, when things began to settle down and instead of grieving, the citizens of Deidrif began to celebrate. Alastair had taken me up to the balcony, my right hand fitting snuggly against his rough one as he whisked me up the even staircase and up into the chilly open air of the starry night. I hadn't a clue of what we were doing up here but I didn't mind because it was a welcome to my ever buzzing mind as I breathed in the fragrance of the fresh air. Something about being up here in the balcony always seemed to elicit something spiritual inside of me and I wasn't certain why that was but it made me feel grateful and mostly at peace, something I couldn't even grasp for more than five minutes lately.

Alastair led me towards the wall, his hand holding mine firmly. When we reached the wall he pulled our entwined hands forward until they were resting against the low raised wall. Silence filled in and Alastair stroked his thumb over my finger, his expression thoughtful and serious, giving nothing away. I stood right beside him, my leg brushing up against his jean clad leg as I watched him, trying to decipher what was storming around in his mind. He had his head bent forward, his dark soft hair brushing against his forehead and his silvery gaze was fixed on our hands, his thumb repeating its motion over and over again and the action was calming. His touch had never ceased to make me feel wonderful.

The silence was no longer comfortable as Alastair kept staring at our entwined hands, his Adam's apple moving frequently as he kept swallowing. "Alastair," I whispered, slightly pulling my hand out of his grasp and slipping it up his arm and gripping the hard muscle on his forearm. "Are you okay?"

"I'm okay," he replied, his voice a little hoarse and he gave me a small smile, tilting his head as he looked up at me, the starry night complimenting his slightly dark skin and bouncing off his features making them look sharp. "I'm just worried," he admitted, crinkles forming at the ends of his eyes as he smiled but I could see that his smile was fake.