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“What’s the last part of my title?” Amethar asks, his breathing still heavy from his trek through the castle, the dead sprint that had overtaken him from the moment he saw Calroy Cruller running along the tops of the castle walls.
“Amethar, I-” Calroy starts, raising his hands and flashing Amethar that wry smile that had wormed it’s way into his heart so long ago. The one that he had seen countless times across ballrooms, a secret shared between them.
“What’s the last part of my title?” He asks again, raising Payment Day, leveling it at Cal, who balks, and tries to step backwards. He runs into Cumulous, who kicks the backs of his knees and makes him kneel before the King.
Amethar looks down at Calroy, his sword still pointed at the man, and feels the flare up of the betrayal sting again.
“I have survived too much for this to be the end, Calroy. You know that. You used to tell me so. You loved to say my title. Make it ring through the rooms of this palace,” he lowers Payment Day and takes a step towards his former right hand man. “Go on, say it.”
“Amethar,” Calroy begins again, but Amethar is done hearing him talk.
“On the battlements. Jet died that night. Did you know that, Cal? Of all the things to live through, I had to bury my own daughter,” Amethar leans in close to Calroy, an unreadable expression on his face, “Did you feel nothing? For twenty years? Not even for them?”
Calroy’s eyes sting. He says nothing, but feels the white hot rage of ambition stir within his chest, even still. The weight of the years that he tried to keep the Rocks family out of his heart and all the moments that he failed flashing before his eyes.
“You could kill me, Cal,” Amethar raises his voice now, taking his eyes away from his love to look out over the fires and dead lying strewn across the fields of Candia, mourning heavy in his heart. “You could kill me, but I would haunt you, in your darkest moments, in that crown you want so badly. I would haunt you around every corner and in every room of this castle that we ever shared. I would grow in these gardens and I would still be sitting on that throne,” Amethar’s breath falters. He takes a deep breath before saying, “I could have gone anywhere in the world, but I could never come back here without feeling what you did to me and my family. You would feel the same way if I were gone. I am a part of the land that you live on. I would have loved you forever, Calroy.”
He turns back to Calroy. He looks at him deep in his eyes, unwavering, unafraid, “Of all of the things that I have survived, that fall was the easiest. What is the last part of my title?”
“Amethar. The Unfallen,” Calroy chokes out before lunging. When he dies, his last words linger in the air for long after their owner has perished. The Unfallen once more.