Dragon’s Crown

My iceheart was pulsing double-time. My entire focus, all my senses strained to detect what was behind me. And yet, I still could not move.

Not until I heard his tentative whisper in my mind.

Sarah?

So quiet. So lost. So uncertain.

So much like me.

Then, I felt a tentative pull return to my heart. Like an offer. A hand reaching out.

I turned stiffly and staggered across the circle to the top of the steps, hardly daring to look down—and yet, unable to stop myself.

There he was, standing at the bottom of the hill, looking up. His eyes widened when they caught sight of me, but he otherwise froze. That made two of us, just standing there, both of us too overcome for a moment to do anything at all.

He was…Ice help me, he was everything I had remembered and ached for from the depths of my soul, from his absurdly tall height and heavy musculature to his golden, shoulder-length hair and chiseled jaw. And those eyes…I could tell even from this distance from the glow within them that those eyes were the soft twin suns that the real one above could never replace in my soul.

Yet there were two monumental differences that I noticed even through the tangled flood of emotion I felt the moment I saw him.

One, instead of his customary gold, plain clothing, he was dressed in maroon, and of a finer cut, material, and ornamentation than I was used to seeing on him. Even his brown boots looked fancier, polished and with nary a scuff mark to be seen.

Two….

“You shaved,” I gasped, taking an unconscious step down.

He blinked up at me, as if he were just as staggered as I was in this moment.

“I’m…in mourning?” he said dazedly, his voice lifting at the end as if he wasn’t quite certain that was the case.

I inhaled sharply from horror at what I’d done, for another reason entirely, and I took another few steps closer. “Oh. Oh, Ben. I am so—”

The daze in his eyes abruptly cleared.

“Don’t you dare say sorry,” he growled. He ran a hand through his hair, looking down. Pain lanced across his face, sharp as a knife, and he closed his eyes for a moment.

Tears came to my eyes as I, too, remembered and mourned. Though an even greater emotion rose within me than the sorrow I felt for the man I’d come to think of as a second father: the bone-deep ache to wrap my arms around his son and shield him from any further suffering.

Ben had already borne so much. How much more could any person even endure?

I began walking at a slow yet steady pace down the steps to him.

Ben opened his eyes, but he kept them on the ground. His voice came out as a rasp. “Sarah, I…I am the one who should be saying sorry. No, I am the one who should be begging.”

Then, to my amazement, he sank down onto one knee, bowing his head to me. “Though I know what I did to you was unforgivable, and I am asking far too late…here I am, begging for your forgiveness. Whatever you want, whatever you ask of me to atone, I will do it. I am yours to command.”