Chapter 34 34- Rowan
RANDOM FACTS: Rowan Draken has loved three people in his life: Ciri, Adele, and Riven. Two of them are dead. He would burn the world to ashes before letting the third join them, even if it means damning himself in the process.
_____
I stare at the bowl in front of me as the blood I had spilled into it coagulates and floats on top like little boats.
My chest… I am not sure exactly how to feel, or what to do. Perhaps… perhaps, I got the ritual wrong. I am growing older and… and I did not begin to learn how to do these things early. I might have missed something.
Maybe.
Claire… Claire has to be alive.
My head snaps up from the bowl, too fast for me to realize it’s shattering to the floor as the sound of the doors being opened echoes through the house.
I turn, watching my grandson and the only one that matters to me in this whole universe walk into the house.
I quickly shove his phone that I’m holding inside his apron, my eyes moving to him as I start to place a smile on my face, “Riven, you’re home—”
I stop, my eyes falling on him as I realize that he’s sniffing, tears cradling his face as he comes in, shaking his head. “I don't understand what’s going on with me, Papa. I feel like… everything is moving too fast and I don’t know anything anymore and I’m so confused because the only thing that seems to make sense is Kael makes me feel better but he isn’t… he isn’t good for me, is he? He’s not… fuck. Fuck.”
I hurry to him, pulling him into my chest as I place my hand on the back of his head. “You’re okay, my love.”
“I’m not.” He pulls away slightly, his teary grey eyes staring up at me. An image of when he was six flashes through my head and my heart lurches. “They think… they think I did something bad again. And m-maybe I did. I don’t… think I… did I? Do it again?”
I cup his cheeks, searching his face. “Is anyone dead?”
He shakes his head, sniffing. “I don’t… I don’t think so. They would have told me if they were, wouldn’t they?”
“Who’s they?”
He stops there, his eyes wide like he’s been caught doing something that he should not have.
My brain tells me to push for him to give an answer but my heart… my heart can’t bear to drag whatever he’s feeling any longer so instead, I hold his hand and pull him to the living room. “Sit. I will bring you something to drink.”
He does as he’s told. And a part of me doesn’t want to leave him alone. I want to stay here and make sure nothing and no one comes between us, but he needs to believe that everything is okay.
That’s what matters.
I head back to the kitchen, my eyes falling to the glass shatters on the floor as my mind spirals back to the first time I shattered a glass bowl.
It was the day Adele, the daughter of Ciri and I, found out she was pregnant.
After Ciri passed, I could not… find it in me to share Adele with the world. I had no desire to. Not after she passed.
So I became… overprotective. It was instinct. She looked so much like Ciri and I thought… that if I focused hard enough, I could protect her like I didn’t before. That I could… I could make her see that she was loved even with her mother gone no matter what.
Adele did not like being kept in the house, but she was never the type to complain. She did her lessons, gardened whenever she could. She knitted and sang and had a million hobbies.
She was a saint, and everyone adored her because they had died and they knew just like I did that she was made for more. So much more.
And then, one day, she was pregnant.
I grew angry demanding who had dared to defile her. I planned on going directly to the Alpha, demanding for a chance to rectify the offense… but she had told me that it wasn’t anyone we knew.
That she found him… in a dream. Her love. The one who belonged to her.
I remember the way she smiled when she said it. That soft, dreamy smile that reminded me so much of Ciri when she spoke of things beyond this world. I thought she had lost her mind.
But she was so certain that this was right. That she deserved L.
Throughout her pregnancy, she grew protective of her bump that grew faster than it should have. The other villagers began to look at me differently, tumors spreading that I had finally gone insane after Ciri’s death and gotten my child pregnant.
I did not refute the rumors. I had no time to do so. I tried to adjust to the change. To the new addition in the house for when Riven would be born.
But Adele… she never adjusted.
She grew thinner and thinner as the months passed, her eyes always fixed on some point in the distance that I couldn't see. The light in her eyes died and she would stare into nothingness like she was no longer present in her own body.
Then one day, my daughter grabbed my arm, her eyes filled with terror as she said, “He has to die. He cannot… he cannot be born. Promise me you’ll kill him no matter what. Promise me you’ll fix this mistake I’ve made. Promise!”
I didn’t— I couldn’t make that kind of promise. And she knew this.
It was why the day I found her hanging from the ceiling with her belly looking like it had been chewed out by the thing inside and a baby covered in blood on the floor, screaming its lungs out, I should have gotten rid of him.
“Your blood will call him.” Astoria’s hiss snaps me back to reality.
I look down to the floor, realizing that there are now glass shards in my palm and the water from the bowl has only turned a deep red.
I quickly rise from the floor, placing my palm under running water as I say, “You were supposed to watch him.”
“We had a deal—”
“The only reason that you are alive is because I will it, and we both know your Master would not care if you are gone.” I snap my head towards him, my voice cold. “Watch. Him. Or I will kill you.”
I don’t bother to wait for his response as I fill a glass of water and head back outside. My blood stains the glass but he doesn’t notice it as he sits up, drinking it before he lays back to the couch.
I hurriedly place a blanket over him, my heart pounding so loudly I’m sure he would hear it if his head was less hazy. “I’ll always protect you. I promise.”