Throne of Bones

Chapter Twelve

A/N: I rewrote the entire chapter because I didn't like the previous one.

(Prythian One year Ago) Kana's POV:

Her heart was aching today, the poison finally settling in on her lifeblood. She watched the children scurry around from the shimmering glass of her office. Hava stood her greatsword strapped across the length of her spine.

"Hava," She murmured, the thoughts of distant fever dreams fogging her mind. "Am I selfish?"

She felt the warriors gaze pinned between her shoulder blades. Hava's voice was smooth whiskey, her words a burning truth. "Some would consider you selfish, yet you are most certainly not."

She hummed and her shaking knees stood from the chair she slouched in. In small steps, Kana leaned against the wall panting for the air around her. The children paid her no heed, none whatsoever. Care free.

What could she have been, should she have gone with Aldrich. Her sisters would be starving, barely alive. The fae and humans would still be mostly divided. She– she would have been able to recover.

From the pain.

From this cursed disease.

Hava came and stood beside her, the Golden Lady of Day. Helion would come to claim his top soldier back eventually. Kana whispered, "Hava."

"Hmm?"

"When I die will you burn my body and scatter my ashes to the eastern winds?" Her voice was calm, collected. She had only turned twenty-three yesterday, and she would die. Hava had asked for the day off, and who was she to deny her? The Golden Lady worked so hard for her. A day off was the least she could do.

Nesta was out drinking with her soldiers, Elain– Kana rarely thought about her engaged sister these days. The woman was a healer, her sister. The ghosts had whispered of her actions with her fiance.

And she had spent the day crying, longing for a life that she could get to live. A child she could raise, a male she could love without risk of being taken away. The male she loved was locked away thousands of years ago. Her strength to have children died with the beginning of the disease. Her life... her life had been cast away by the woman who bore her life.

Monster. Perhaps. Kana had done many monstrous things, murder, torcher, sending soldiers to their deaths. Nothing mattered here. She would die. Kana would die, and her entire future would be wiped out with her death.

"I cannot do that." Hava's voice was calm.

The last large piece of her heart cracked. No, no she couldn't even choose how she would die. Let alone the fate of her body when she was long gone. Hava's determined voice cut her, "I will take your body back to Rask, and there you will have the funeral you deserve."

She despised the idea. The idea of having a pyre set aflame in honor of a long forgotten Princess. She was no princess, no she was just the bastard of a king. Arguing was pointless; the Golden Lady left that night to her own dorm.

Her love came to her. The Carver was in the form of a dashing male, he had brown hair and streaks of white gray throughout. His eyes were a charming gray, like the rest of her sisters.

She whispered to him, as he wrapped her in his arms. "When I die, burn my body and scatter my ashes to the eastern winds."

"I will," He swore. "For you, my love, it will be done."

✵ ✵ ✵ ♛ ❂ ❂ ♕ ✵ ✵ ✵

Today sucked. The gaping hole in her chest demanded her attention. Jameel didn't question why she couldn't get out of bed. He didn't exclaim that she had duty's to attend to, or that she was being dramatic or lazy. No, instead he sat beside her propped up stroking his hands through her dull hair.