Royal Wolf Box Set by Haley Weir
Chapter Nineteen
Cassandra gently laid beside Aeron and put her hand on his chest right next to where the dagger was in an attempt to soothe his pain as best that she could. She laid her head near his shoulder so that he could feel her breath against the side of his neck.
“You will have to help guide Theo,” Aeron said as his words seemed to become even more strained with each breath. “He will need you.”
“I know,” she said softly. “And I promise that I will. Our children will be okay, Aeron. And you will be watching over them from where you go next.”
“Do you really think that there is a next place to go?” he asked her.
“Oh, absolutely,” she said as the tears silently fell down her cheek beside him and onto the pillow. “Samar even told you so herself when she came to see you in your dream.”
“Yes, but that was just a dream,” he said. “It might just as well have been my imagination at play, or wishful thinking. The warning in my dream could easily have been a coincidence.”
“No,” Cassandra said with conviction. “It was not merely a dream. Samar came to see you. She came all the way from where she was in her next life to talk to you and give you the messages that she brought with her.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because she came to see me too,” she answered.
She could feel Aeron’s already fading breath pause for a single moment of surprise.
“I wasn’t just sitting in the kitchen having tea because I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I was woken by the same dream that you had. Samar had come to see me in my sleep too. Except that in my dream, she brought me a different message. One that I had to stay up all night and think about in order to make sure that I believed it to be true.”
“And do you?” he asked, before even knowing what the message was.
“Yes,” Cassandra answered. “I believe it to be the truest thing that I have ever known in my entire life.”
“What was her message?”
“She told me that you and I are fated to be together forever. She knew that I still loved you, and deep down, I think that I knew it too. She said that in this life, we were meant to start it together, but not end it together. There are other things that we must each go on to do now, and other people that we each needed to be with for a time. But you and I, Aeron, are fated to be together for all of eternity, and in the next life, when I have finally come to join you, I will be there with you again. We will be lovers again, and we will never be apart.”
Even as Cassandra said the words, she felt them resonate within her as if she had always known that eventually, her path would lead her back to Aeron. Her tears soaked the shoulder of his shirt as she mourned having come to the realization of their fated love so soon before he would be lost to her. But it also gave her the hope and comfort that she would need to continue on to do what her children, and family, and kingdom would need her to do in Aeron’s absence. She felt Aeron’s heartbeat grow fainter and slower beneath the palm of her hand, and she tried desperately to be strong and not miss any of her last moments with him by crying. She held him and gently kissed the side of his cheek with her soft lips.
“I want you to be—” Aeron paused to try to catch a few last breaths of air in order to finish saying what he needed to tell his wife. “I want you to be happy with Rubius in this life. Enjoy our children and remind them endlessly how much I love them. And always remember, each and every moment of each and every day, that I have loved you beyond measure, and I always will. To me, you have always been my one true love, and you will be in this life and every other.”
“I love you, too, Aeron,” Cassandra whimpered as she choked back her cries.
“Be happy, my love,” he said as his voice began to fade. “For you have made me the happiest man in any life, and I die happy now, knowing that I still hold your love and that we will be together again.”
Aeron fell silent as soon as he had spoken the last word that he had needed to say, and Cassandra laid beside him without moving and cried until she had no more tears left. Even when enough time had passed that Rubius cracked the door open slowly to make sure she was okay, she still laid beside her husband and refused to leave him for the night. She loved Rubius, and she would be his in this life, and they would be happy together, just as Aeron had wished for her. But tonight, she would lie here beside Aeron to see that he went safely into his next life.