Gold Weaver | ✓

epilogue

epilogue

I hadn't spoken to my father since the time I'd gone to him for closure. It wasn't a conscious effort not to see him. Our paths just didn't cross. He wasn't ready to be a father, I knew that now, even if now was so many years too late.

He didn't make the effort to see me, either. I realised as I stood in Martha's kitchen, about three years later, with her daughter on my hip.

Blood doesn't negate family.

Martha and I were practically living together at this point. She'd fallen pregnant pretty quickly after I'd left the palace. I hadn't even met the guy. A one night stand, she's said, and I'd accepted it and accepted the child that came along with it.

I bounced gently as she slept, watching the small garden out of the window. My gaze drifted down to her face. Behind those closed eyes, decorated already with long, dark eyelashes, lay the prettiest brown eyes I'd ever seen. Her skin was a lighter, more delicate brown, like her mother's. I almost wanted to coax her awake just to see them, but then I'd spent so long trying to get her to sleep, I didn't want to waste my effort.

Martha was out looking for a job. Her mother had chucked her out pretty much as soon as she'd told her she was pregnant, so that left just us. I didn't mind, not at all. And I think Martha knew, deep down, that little Isa being around two people that loved her more than anything was far better than being around half a dozen that didn't.

I turned as I heard a knock at the door.

Careful not to wake the she-devil, I walked towards the door.

Whoever I was expecting, it definitely wasn't the person that stood before me.

Golden eyes I couldn't miss turned to me.

"Al—" I went to say but stopped myself. "Your Majesty."

The time had been kind to him in many ways— like how he'd grown a little stubble, which only accentuated his strong jaw and had his hair cut a little more tightly to his head. He looked exactly as he had those few years ago, but then I guessed that wasn't much time in the grand scheme of things. There was a new air about him. The air of a King.

In other ways, time hadn't been so kind. His father had died about a year ago, so now he had to take over as King. It suited him, sure, but I didn't know if he was particularly fond of the position.

"Eleanor, please," he said, eyes glancing to the small baby in my arms. "Call me Almar. You've earned that much."

I smiled slightly and let him come into the house. It was small and a little cramped and looked even more so with his grand height in the living room. He didn't sit down when I offered it, so we both stood a little awkwardly in the middle of the room.

The question on his mind since we'd seen each other at the doorway sprung from his lips. "Is she your's?"

"No," I told him, tucking her small head into my neck as she seemed to stir. "She's Martha's. I'm just looking after her."

"Oh," he said. I didn't know whether he seemed pleased, shocked or something else entirely. "You have no children of your own?"

I didn't see the point in lying. "I don't think it was ever on my cards."

We lapped into silence for a moment.