Irah of the Seven Dominions

Chapter.10: Silence

Chapter Songs:

Dancing with your ghost by Sasha Sloan

Wiz Khalifa - See You Again ft. Charlie Puth

By noon the next day, Kings' Abioye, Malik, Matias and Lee had already departed for their kingdoms. After all, in the eyes of the public they had come for Irah's Birthday ball. The event, no matter how unfortunate, had been attended, so now there seemed no viable reason for them to stay.

Jasper and Nicholas were forced to delay their departure till evening due to a storm system passing over North-Western Dominia. That soured Irah's mood as she had no choice but to grant private audiences to both royals. By the time the weather had been cleared for their flight, it was almost midnight and Irah was done playing host.

The next day and the ones after that were uneventful and Irah busied herself with implementing and coordinating all that was discussed at the summit.

However, as the sleepy autumn of late October gave way to the breezy winter of early November, Irah found it increasingly difficult to focus on her work.

Almost unconsciously, she began to avoid certain areas of the palace: The west gardens where she would take walks with Albert, the Northern grounds where they often went horseback riding, the tea parlor on the south side where they ate meals together and of course, the mini ballroom near the Western dining room, where they would go dancing on some evenings.

At the same time, Irah found that her appetite had diminished and no amount of pleading or scolding from Reeves could make her eat properly. Her sleep was plagued by nightmares of the night of the accident, each one a painful reminder that she was supposed to be in the car with him. That the trap was meant for her.

Meanwhile, Haynes had almost completely recovered from his injuries. Though he had discovered that his left arm was still very liable to pain when it was over-exerted. As the days passed by, Haynes managed to absorb himself with running the company, but try as he might, that did not stop him from thinking about what tragedy had transpired two years prior. 

He could not help but wonder, if he hadn't betrayed them, his sister and brother-in-law would still be alive and Lacey would still have her parents. Unsurprisingly, it became even more difficult for him to look at Lacey or even his mother, which eventually became a reason why he often remained at his office late into the night.

He spoke little, ate little and slept even less. Through it all, he was grateful that Lacey was too young to remember the exact date of the accident and would not feel the same pain and grief that overtook him as the day came closer.

So it was amidst their feelings of grief and guilt that the somber morning of November 11th finally arrived. It was a sunless day with plain grey skies that greeted both the Queen and the Nobleman as they set about their routine.

Irah had not wanted to move an inch from her pillow when she woke up that morning. But she knew that wasn't an option and therefore spent the first half of her day half-heartedly attending meetings and looking over the impending government-issued press releases over various national issues.

It wasn't that she was trying to pretend that this day had never happened and was busying herself in her work; she had no choice but to do so. As the Queen, her responsibility always came first to her people and that meant that even on an emotionally troubling day as that, she was to attend to her duties before anything else.