Broken (The Captive #5.5)(93)

I did find my way, in you. I realized how much you meant to me, and yet I still lost you to greed and a world that I hate even more now that it has been shaped into what I made it. I remember asking you, "And what happens if we don't recognize the help when we find that something or someone?"

"Then fate hits us over the head until it wakes us up."

"And what happens if we find it but then lose it again?"

Your smile had slid away you watched me. "Well I suppose that would be a sad life then wouldn't it? To be forever lost."

It's been the saddest life of all Genny. I have felt so lost since the day you died, but today I will find out if my son will be capable of the violence and cold-bloodedness that I've tried for so many years to cultivate within him. I don't know what I'll do if he fails. Death is all I crave now but I do not deserve to be able to make the choice of ending my own life.

For the first time in years I will be taking your ring off of my body, I don't want it to be thrown away if I am to perish today. I need it to be with what I have left of you. If we cannot be together in the afterlife, at least a small piece of us can still be together here.

I've missed you every day of this desolate life Genny. I've never stopped loving you.

You were my soul.





EPILOGUE


Though tears streaked her cheeks as she read those last words, it wasn't her tears that had caused the tearstains on the bottom of the page in the journal she held. Aria wiped her tears away and glanced around the small room she sat in. It seemed like a lifetime ago since she'd discovered it but it had only been just this morning. It had been on a whim that she'd decided to explore some of the areas in the palace that she hadn't been to yet.

Curiosity had driven her into the old king's rooms. She'd never entered his rooms in the nine months since the last war had ended and the king, Atticus, had been killed nor had she ever intended to enter. For some reason something had pulled her here today though, and she realized now she was holding that reason in her hands.

She didn't think anyone had come in here since his death if the amount of dust on the things in his main rooms was any indication. Though she doubted anyone other than a few servants and the king had ever entered his rooms anyway.

She knew no one other than the king had ever entered this room. It had been hidden behind one of his bookcases. She never would have discovered it if it wasn't for her love of reading. A book titled Wuthering Heights had caught her attention. When she'd pulled it down the book had remained on the shelf but a door had swung open with a loud creak to reveal a faded and sagging trunk in the middle of the room. Wary of what the old king may have hidden inside, she'd approached the trunk with caution but upon closer inspection she'd realized that it wasn't some sort of trap meant to explode in her face.

The scent of must and something sweeter and more floral in hue had drifted up to her upon first opening the trunk. Her attention was quickly diverted from the smell though by the gleaming glass box, lined with gold on the outside. It was placed on top of the clothing tucked neatly inside the trunk. Inside the box had been a blue ribbon that was almost completely white now and only showed its original blue hue in small patches. Another darker blue ribbon was also tucked securely inside the box along with a man's simple gold wedding band. There was also an assortment of parchments and numerous journals tucked into the bottom of the box.

Concerned the papers would fall apart in her grasp, she'd handled them with care when she removed them all from the airtight glass box and placed them to the side. Her confusion about what she'd discovered continued to mount as she sorted through the old-fashioned women's clothes in the trunk. The original color of the clothes had faded to the point it was nearly indiscernible. They had holes and patches in them and were of a style she'd only seen in history books. The dresses had to be at least a thousand years old but they were in relatively good condition given their age. In fact, everything in the trunk appeared to have been taken care of exceptionally well, and with love.

This trunk, and its contents, was so out of place with the monster she'd known, that she began to wonder if the king had even known these things were in here. She didn't see how he couldn't know about the room though, he'd built this place after all.

Then she had turned to the pile of parchment and journals. Going by the dates on the top, she began to read through the parchments that started in the year one thousand and forty. Within the pages, she'd discovered the story of a young woman who had lived a difficult life. No matter how much Genny struggled, she went at her life with optimism and a determination to make it better for her and the sister she cherished.

Within the pages, she uncovered the life of a young woman who had fallen in love with a man that Aria had only known as a vicious monster that had beaten the humans down. A man who had tortured her and relished in every second of making her life a living hell. A man she had always known only hatred for and whom she had assumed had been born a heartless bastard. Through Genny's words and life though, Aria began to realize that he'd once been a man and he had loved Genny deeply.

When Genny's life was abruptly cut short after finally finding happiness and some security, Aria had found herself openly weeping for the unfairness of it all. Finally regaining control of her emotions, she'd turned to the parchments that were written in the far more rigid hand of the wounded man that had been left behind. In those parchments, and later in the numerous journals Atticus had kept, she uncovered his steady descent into madness. She read about the unraveling of a man who had been good and caring before he'd been broken by his father's cruel betrayal. A man who hadn't known how to go on with a life as only a shell of the vampire he'd once been.