”Thank you f-for staying alive!" Vetta cried. "You have no idea h-how...how you have helped m-me now."
He continued. "All these years, I get flashes of our time in that cage...and my last moments. I felt so much hatred towards you," he admitted. "My memories were all jumbled up. I remember a betrayal from a woman that had taken punishments for the king. I remember the woman stabbing me." Declan pulled back then and looked at her. "But as I stepped into the boundaries of Salem, and my memories welcomed me, my heart set you free. I remembered fully then that it was the maid—Talia—who owns that rage and hatred."
"It would have been a disaster for me if your memories didn't return..." It was a joke, but it came out tearfully.
"It would have been. Because you would not have explained." He stepped back.
"There was nothing to explain. I stabbed you. You died." She shook her head. "There was nothing to explain."
"Now you can allow that guilt to let you go. You stabbed me to save my life. Here I am today. Alive." Declan gave her a small smile.
She returned the smile with a wobbly one. "Yes, now I can let everything go."
Declan found that word strange.
Then Vetta faced the king again, and this time, Declan had laid her bare in front of him so she could only stand and wait for his decision.
It came when he closed the distance between them and enclosed her in his arms. She went willingly, letting the tears flow. For the second time in as long as Vetta could remember, the king was holding her so close, so tight. And yet, it didn't feel like a lover's embrace like it would have felt like to her before. Why? Did it have something to do with the fact that she was starting to see things more clearly for the first time in sixteen years?
"Nothing has scared me in a long time than those three minutes I thought you really did have a hand in Declan's death," King Lucien grunted softly.
"It was the second hardest command the monster king had ever given me—right next to killing Yeaha." Her breath quivered as she referred to Lord Gedony's wife, which was her first kill. "I couldn't do it; it was t-too painful. L-living with the thought that he died all these years has not b-been easy."
The king pulled back then and turned and stared at his younger cousin, who he'd thought was gone, whose return had freed his heart and gladdened it immediately. "I'm glad he is back too."
Declan grinned at him—that boyish grin that was always so familiar lit up his face and revealed identical dimples on either of his cheeks. King Lucien returned with a smile of his own. It was a full-blown smile. The first of its kind.
Vetta's jaw slackened at the very sight of that transformation. King Lucien was smiling. Really smiling.
Searching her memories, she tried to remember the last time she had ever seen that look on him.
Her head came out blank. He was happy. Truly happy for the first time in sixteen years.
Words of Declan's return spread like wildfire. In Mombana, they were happy tears and jubilation in the palace.
Baski, Queen Danika and Sally were in tears in the queen's bedroom. They were happy tears.
"Heavens, I can't believe this!" Baski kept saying for the umpteenth times.
"Me too!" Sally. "To actually think that he's Princess Kamara's lover back at home!"
Queen Danika remained speechless in her happiness. The pain in her waist was very forgotten under the onslaught of the news she'd heard. It had her so happy! Thank the gods. At least one of Lucien's family survived her father's cruelty. Less pain in her heart, in her conscience. More happiness for King Lucien.
Her king deserved to be happy. "Thank heavens he is alive. Oh, thank heavens!" she cried in happiness, voicing it out at last.
Sally hurried to her and hugged her tightly. They held each other. Baski walked closer and wrapped her motherly arms around the two women.
It was a happy day in Mombana.
In the hours that followed, King Lucien and his brother remained in his chambers talking. Vetta had gone back home.
Declan told him everything that happened right from the moment an old woman drove him out of Mombana to the kingdom of Navia. He told his brother everything about his relationship with Princess Kamara.
And in turn, King Lucien told him bit by bit the things that happened in the last six years, starting from the feud, raiding Mombana and escaping, how he built up Salem, and how he took Mombana's princess in as a slave.
Then he told his brother everything about Danika. Right from her time of being enslaved to the status of his relationship with the queen of Mombana now.
"You love her?" Declan finally voiced out, his throat too dry. It was so unbelievable for Declan. He was too shocked.
"Yes. Wholeheartedly," King Lucien admitted.
Declan could only stare at his brother with a jaw slackened by shock. His brother fell in love with King Cone's daughter. He set her free from slavery. She is carrying his child.
"Woah." He had no words.
King Lucien shrugged, staring out of the window. Night had fallen. "I find it hard to believe, too, but you know the truth, Deck?"
"What is it, big brother?"
"I do not think I can live without that woman," he stated bluntly. "I do not want to. When you see her—when you spend a little bit of time with her—you will understand why everyone loves her. Baski. Remeta. The guards. The people. Chad. Zar—"
"Woah, Chad likes her too?" That was a surprise. The guard, Chad, hated people in general. The Chad he remembered would never love any product of Cone.
The king's lips curved to one side of his cheek. "He protects her with his life. And he does it wholeheartedly."
"Woah. And Remeta too? It is all so hard to believe," he admitted truthfully. He tried to imagine himself liking Cone's daughter. The impossibility of it is too much to even consider. It would take a miracle.
King Lucien saw the look on his face and knew it for what it was. "You do not like her."
Declan raised his hands, palms out. "I do not mean any offense, brother. I do not judge you or hold a grudge against you for loving her. I trust you. I know you. I will not get between you two." He paused. "But I do not see myself liking her now or in the future. Her father... That monster..."