"You did right." She smiled gently.
Caius looked at Juliana standing in the corner and then the real Juliana laying on the wooden table in front of him.
"At the ballroom? When I stopped the 'funeral' from happening." He then questioned.
She nodded again.
"You aren't angry at me anymore?" Caius asked, referring to the day when he saw her standing in his room for the first time before she vanished.
"Of course not. I never was. You were."
"I was? Why would I be angry at you?" He asked, confused.
"Not at me, Caius." She shook her head. "Yourself. You were angry at yourself and that made you think that I would be too. But I want you to know that I'm not."
Caius lowered his head, deep in thoughts and nodded his head slowly.
He was going to open his mouth again and ask but when he pulled his head back up to look at her she was gone. Like the last time.
This time though her disappearing didn't shock him. Because this time he knew from the start that the Juliana that he was speaking to wasn't the real one. Because the real one was lying in front of him.
Caius felt a bit more at ease. Juliana wasn't angry at him. But then again deep in his mind he already knew that, because he does realize that the Juliana that he has seen is there only because of his own mind tricks.
Caius shakes his head and turns back to look at Juliana.
"Wake up sweetheart. I know you can do it. You aren't dead... you can't be..."
*Knock, knock, knock*
Caius was pulled out of his thoughts when a knock was heard coming from the door.
Caius stood up from the chair and went to open it.
"Marcus?" He asked.
"Hello Caius. I heard that you heard about the funeral. Can we talk?"
Caius nodded his head. He glanced over his shoulder to Juliana before exiting the room and joining Marcus' side.
"I wasn't at the funeral." Marcus spoke up while the two were walking down the stairs of the tower.
"Why?"
"Because I knew you didn't want that. You didn't want a funeral and you made it very clear but Aro still did it. It would have been very disrespectful of me to attend. So I told Aro that I wouldn't."
Caius nodded his head. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me. It was the least that I could do."
"I have been wondering one thing."
"Yes?" Marcus asked.
"Do you see our mate bond? Do you still feel it? Even when she's..."
"I do. It never went away." Marcus answered and gave him a small almost unnoticeable smile.
"What does that mean?"
"That you still love each other. It doesn't matter if one of you is... gone. You never stopped loving each other before she died. So the mate bond still is there. Even death can't change that."
Marcus went silent for a minute before he spoke up again.
"I can still feel mine and Didyme's bond. At the same time it kills me every day but at the same time it gives me some kind of comfort. Like she's with me, watching over me."
The two Kings fell silent for a moment. But it wasn't an awkward silence when neither knows what to say next but a comforting one.
"I saw her again." Caius then spoke up again after a while.
"What did she say?" Marcus questioned turning to look at his brother.
"She said that I did the right thing when I stopped the 'funeral' from happening." He explained.
"How did you feel when you saw her?"
"More at ease afterwards. And this time I knew from the start that she wasn't real."
"How did you know that?"
"Because the real Juliana was laying in front of me on the table the whole time." He explained.
Marcus nodded. "I see."
"The first time I saw her was a shock. Like you can possibly imagine. But this time it felt like it helped me. Helped to get my mind more at ease."