Chapter 78 The Deville House "I lied."
The following evening, after taking the unconscious Ashley back to Foxtail Bay, Lucas met his mother.
All of this caught Queen Gracia completely off guard. She had only returned to her hometown for a visit when her husband died, the kingdom nearly collapsed, and her children were all injured.
Lucas didn't know what to think, he didn't know anymore. He felt weak all over and wished some magical spell would shut down his buzzing brain right now, or that he could just sleep until next year.
But he still had to lift his foot.
When he entered Elaine's room, Queen Gracia and Elaine were both sitting on the bed.
Only one candle was lit in the room, its flame struggling in the pale moonlight filtering through the windowpane, casting long shadows of the three people onto the cold stone wall, like three lonely ghosts.
In the dim candlelight, the older sister toyed with a small, exquisite medicine bottle in her hand.
He knew very well whose it was.
“So you were going to leave us anyway,” Elaine said, head bowed. “Is that so, Lucas? To gain magic and leave us, or simply go to the spirit world.”
Hearing her say that, Lucas suddenly felt that this behavior was even more foolish.
“I feel like I’m…an obstacle,” he admitted. “I don’t see any point in staying here any longer.”
"And what about us?" Queen Gracia asked softly. "Are we meaningless to you either?"
Lucas's eyes welled up with tears.
He went to the bedside and embraced them both, an overwhelming sadness like an ocean making it hard for him to breathe. He smelled the familiar scent of spices on his mother, mixed with the cool soapy scent in Elaine's hair, and the minty smell unique to her court dress.
The taste of home. He had desperately tried to escape this taste, but now he wanted to hold onto it tightly as if he were drowning.
"How foolish," he thought. The person who loved him most was right in front of him, yet he went to seek magic with only a 50% chance of success.
He didn't realize he was sobbing until water stains appeared on Elaine's clothes.
“I’ve done everything wrong,” he finally said, releasing them and taking the medicine bottle from Elaine’s hand with trembling hands, “but especially this one. I’m so sorry.”
A crisp sound.
He smashed the medicine bottle on the ground, where it gleamed silver in the moonlight, completely shattered.
The Empress Dowager looked at him in surprise.
Elaine stared at the shattered pieces of the medicine bottle for a long time before speaking.
“Elaine…”
She took a deep breath. "But until the very end, the one he saw and thought about was still you."
Neither of them refuted her, because they knew she was telling the truth.
“I know it’s not your fault, but…” Elaine’s voice broke, “Before he died, he only wanted you to inherit his throne and wear his crown, just because you are…you are…”
“...Prince,” Lucas continued.
This word was once important, but that's all.
"And what about me? I can't even get a 'You did a great job' from him. All these years, who have I been working for?"
Elaine covered her face and began to cry.
Lucas was shocked and saddened; his heart was no longer his own.
He had almost never seen her cry. In fact, throughout their relationship, he was usually the one who cried. Elaine had always been so perfect, so strong. In his mind, she was the opposite of crying.
He hugged her tightly again.
“You’ve always been working hard for yourself, Elaine,” he said firmly. “You’ve done a great job, and he doesn’t even deserve to say that.”
Gracia stroked Elaine's long black hair, echoing Lucas's words.
“Father… he died saving me.” Elaine said, looking at her mother. “I don’t know what to do… in the end…”
“What he said doesn’t matter,” Lucas said, then awkwardly switched to the past tense, “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“I didn’t.” Lucas raised his hand, his index and middle fingers overlapping. “I lied.”
Elaine smiled briefly, but the smile vanished in an instant due to sadness.
“To the people, Nicholas was a competent king.” Gracia gently stroked the two children’s shoulders, her eyes brimming with tears, “but he was far from a competent father. He couldn’t see your true qualities, your hearts.”
“Did you see clearly, Mom?” Lucas asked. “You didn’t stop him.” There was a hint of reproach in his tone.
But deep down, he knew he couldn't blame anyone.
Especially the mother.
“I couldn’t stop him,” Gracia said. “Yes. But… but do you think I’m not in pain, Lucas?”
Lucas closed his eyes in regret. "Oh, Mom. That's not what I meant. I never said that..."
“Watching him drive Elaine to become another version of himself, watching you wither away day by day, I can do nothing. Because I am just an outsider, a foreign woman in a foreign land. Every word I say will be magnified and misinterpreted by the nobles. If I openly oppose the king, we will lose not only my husband and father, but the stability of the entire royal family.”
There wasn't much love in Gracia and Nicolas's marriage; all their affection was built up little by little over time.
Lucas was never sure how they actually saw each other, and apart from the occasional garden dates his mother mentioned, there seemed to be no romantic story between them.
“I hate my own incompetence,” Gracia sighed. “But what else can I do?”
“None of this matters now,” Elaine comforted him. “He’s gone, and saying these things won’t bring him back.”
“Yes,” Gracia wiped away her tears, “but we have the right to sit here and not think about anything, don’t we?”
The moonlight and candlelight mingled. After a long, long time, they released each other and gazed at one another in silence.
In the past, Lucas sometimes wished time would stand still; but when it actually did, he wished it would run faster, much faster.
Author's Note: I admit, I separated this chapter to make the final chapter a round number of 80... it really is too short [laughing and crying emoji]
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