CHAPTER 1068: LOVE’S END (PART ONE)

By now, Loman felt like there wasn’t much left that could shock him, and the fog that shrouded the Ancient Fortress had given everything happening in the courtyard a hazy, dreamlike quality. But when his sister-in-law called upon Sir Tommin’s wife, he realized that he’d been wrong about ability to be surprised as he watched the simply dressed pair of women making their way across the courtyard to join Ashlynn and the fallen Templar.

Loman didn’t recognize the woman with Rosie, but he’d seen Tommin’s wife at a number of festivals and feasts in the years since his return from the Holy City, and the combination of her delicate features with long chestnut hair was striking enough to be instantly recognizable even if she’d abandoned the finery and jewels of a knight’s wife for a simple, though incredibly well made, tunic and skirt.

"It’s really her," he breathed, turning to look at the flame haired knight standing protectively near Diarmuid for an explanation. The young man, however, only shook his head, pressing a finger over his lips and gesturing for Loman to watch things unfold.

Rosie advanced slowly across the courtyard, clinging to Sionid’s hand as if it was the only thing in the world keeping her on her feet.

"Don’t let me go to him," she whispered, squeezing Sionid’s hand to reassure herself that the constable’s wife had a firm grip on her. "I don’t know if I’m strong enough to hold myself back when he’s suffering like this, but..."

"I won’t let go," Sionid said gently. "Say the words you need to say, her Dominion will keep you safe. Pour it all out there."

"Rosie?" Tommin asked, turning to face the pair of women as he heard their approaching voices. Tears stained his cheeks and his eyes stared sightlessly at the women, feeling each muffled foot fall as though it was a blow from a hammer on the most tender part of his heart. "How? How are you here? You shouldn’t be here..."

"I shouldn’t be here?" Rosie said, stopping herself two paces short of Tommin’s kneeling figure. "My husband has been gravely wounded in battle, he’s lucky to be alive at all... If I shouldn’t be here at his side, where else should I be?"

Looking at him now, broken, sobbing and wretched, there was very little left of the heroic figure she remembered from the past decade. The face was the same one that had smiled at her from inches away when she woke in the morning, and his lips were the same ones that told her that he wanted her face to be the first thing he saw every morning, but seeing him now...

It was like looking at a stranger, wearing a mask of her husband’s face, and not the man she’d promised her life to. After her conversation with Constable Daithi and Sionid, she’d been prepared to see the man whose strong arms once held her close transformed into a raging, wounded beast.

She’d prepared herself for his rage and his hatred, to see a man who had never raised his voice at her in anger consumed by the darkness of his injuries and his failure. Even if she didn’t think it was likely that he would allow himself to be overwhelmed by anger, she’d at least expected defiance.

She expected him to stand tall and proud as he always had, unflinching even in the face of certain death the way he’d been in so many of the stories his soldiers told about him when he wasn’t present to hush them in a display of knightly humility.

But nothing could have prepared her to see her husband like this... A hollowed out, broken shell of a man that bore little resemblance to the knight who had won her heart.

"That’s not what I meant," Tommin said as somehow, he found the strength to hold up his hand, reaching out for the woman who had captured his heart and held it gently in her hands for so many years. "They told me that you’d been poisoned. That Lord Owain schemed against you and Tonnis. Tonnis," he said, his voice cracking with a combination of emotion and strain. "Where is Tonnis? Is he here too?" Tommin asked, his head turning back and forth as his ears strained to hear any sound of his son’s presence.

The last time he’d seen Tonnis, he’d told his son that he would have to step up sooner than most to become the man of the house. At the time, Tommin had presented the sword he’d carried into battle at Lord Owain’s side to his young son, and he listened to Tonnis swear solemnly on the hilt of his father’s blade that he would grow into a strong knight to protect his mother and the people of Hurel.

It was too much of a burden to place on a lad who should have been learning his letters and listening to his tutors, but Tommin had no choice. If he stayed, he’d only expose his family to more danger, and so he passed on his sword years before his son was strong enough to take it up, in the hopes that one day, Tonnis would grow into the kind of man who could wield the blade to keep his mother safe. And maybe, if he was as lucky as his father had been, to protect a family of his own.

If he was here now... If he was watching as his father crumbled before his eyes...

Tommin had thought that he’d lost everything before, but now, confronted by the idea that his son would bear witness to his final, most shameful moments, something deep in his heart cracked, exposing the last few remaining bits of pride that he had left.

Was this really how he was going to meet his end? Kneeling like a beggar before a woman who manhandled him as though he were a small child? But maybe... maybe if Rosie would take him back... if he could return to his family somehow, then perhaps there was still hope. Perhaps Lady Ashlynn wouldn’t be cruel enough to execute him before his own wife and child.

There wasn’t much faith left in Tommin’s heart, but what little he had left, he placed into the hand he held out, hoping against hope that Rosie would take his hand so he didn’t have to face the eternal darkness of the world alone, even if these were his final moments...