Chapter Text
What did he mean?
What did he mean he didn't love her anymore?
They have three children together, three beautiful babies. And he… He was leaving?
"Radagon, my sweetling. What have I done to wrong you so?" The Carian queen asked, tears dribbling down her face. Her hand was outstretched, touching Radagon's shoulder.
"Nothing, Rennala. The feeling simply faded away." Radagon found it immensely difficult to look his wife in the eyes. He shrugged her hand away.
"Faded away? How ?" Rennala's lip quivered.
"These things just happen, sometimes."
"And you're going to run off to be with Queen Marika?" she asked. Saying those words felt like ice.
There was silence.
"Yes."
The ice pushed deeper into Rennala's beating heart.
What opportunity had he had to sneak off to play around with the queen of Leyndell? When had this happened? Was there a warning sign she should have seen?
"And what am I supposed to tell the children?"
Ranni was mature enough to understand, she was a sharp, independent thing; but Rykard and Radahn... They loved their father, dearly. All of the children did, but the boys especially.
"Tell them that I love them,” Radagon said.
"So stay. Stay and tell them yourself! Stay !"
The tears rolled down Rennala's cheeks in globs. Her whole body shook as she pleaded with her husband and the father of her children. They had been happy here.
Radagon caught glimpse of the amber egg Rennala set down on the vanity on the other side of the room. It was his keepsake to her to remember him by. He looked at it instead of her because he feared he would break down himself. He didn't want to break her heart. He didn't want to tear his family apart either, but the Golden Order called him. He was to join with Marika in holy matrimony and rule alongside her in the name of the Greater Will.
It wasn’t just that he wanted to serve his belief, he had to. When Marika called for him, it was like an instinct or an urge he was compelled to abide. Had to . Like he had to eat, drink, and sleep.
And he couldn’t rule with Marika and be wed to Rennala simultaneously.
“I’m sorry, Rennala. I’m leaving now.”
“If you really are leaving…” Rennala spoke, wiping the tears from her face. “Fine, but the wolf stays. I won’t have my children lose two members of the family today.”
Radagon was silent, then nodded, looking Rennala in the eye for the first time since breaking the news.
“As you wish.”
The flame-haired man took one last look at their bedroom, at the place he would never sleep again, never sire children again, and never wake up in the arms of the full moon queen again.
Then he took a brief look at his now ex-wife, with tear-stained cheeks and trembling shoulders, and he went out the door.
Radagon left Caria. He would never step foot in the manor’s halls, or the university’s, again. The place where he first truly felt accepted and loved.
He willed away the impending tears and the sight of his wife’s face, completely and utterly heartbroken.
And Rennala, still in the bedroom, collapsed on the floor, her cries loud enough that they were heard from miles away, and so many tears that, had the servants not rushed to her side, she would have drowned herself.