But she’d be proud of him, wouldn’t she?

His sharp onyx eyes fell on the black rosebushes of the former Y’shennria manor, properly trimmed and maintained. It was an orphanage now, for all the children orphaned by the War of Trees, with Lady Y’shennria managing it gladly and well and as warmly strict as could be. He could hear the children faintly shrieking, scrambling about in the yard as they played.

On the difficult nights, Lucien would wander over to the orphanage and pick a single black rose to put in his room, to let the fragrance fill the empty spaces in his bed.

“My apologies, sir.” He turned from the window and back to the ambassador. “I’m afraid I grow weary. Shall we continue this on the morrow? Does midmeal agree with you?”

“Verily.” The ambassador stood, his guards standing to attention with him. “I would appreciate such kindness thoroughly, your—sir.”

“Then.” Lucien nodded and smiled as he swept past him and out of the room. “Farewell for now.”

His boots clipped on the sawdust-strewn marble, joined quickly by another pair with a far longer, lazier stride.

“The Pendrons think they’re so big,” Malachite scoffed at his shoulder. “Just because Varia forgot to touch them during the whole thing.”

Lucien laughed. “To be fair, not even the valkerax want to cross the Redlands.”

“They could’ve just taken the ocean,” Malachite grumbled.

“The ocean is very, very big, Mal.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“So you’ve seen.” Lucien laughed louder. The quiet descended quickly between them. The ocean. He, of course, meant Rel’donas. The Black Archives. That little island full of fond memories. A tender place now in his heart.

Together they walked through the palace, nodding at workmen carrying great loads, chopping and sanding and refitting walls. The two young men passed a particular room being rebuilt—a room that once held old portraits of an older family, and then burned portraits of a family made suddenly much smaller. Lucien had started to forget their faces halfway through year two, his father’s face last, his mother’s first, nothing left behind of them but their blackened skeletons in their beds. They had been terrible rulers but kind parents. Forgiveness, and longing, and gratitude that they were gone enough for him to undo the damage they had done. His family had become but a dust devil in his busy mind—a tremor of a memory.

Lucien was glad, at least, that the ashen smell had gone.