Chapter Twenty Two
Life Overflowing
Six months later
I stood on the balcony of my old tower room looking out over the fortifications of Thunder Ridge and the wide valley beyond in the cool morning air. Raya still lay asleep amidst the tangle of warm sheets inside.
Before I had come out here I had been lying awake inside with my ear pressed to Raya’s already gently rounding belly wondering when I would get to hear the heartbeat of my firstborn child for the first time.
As the sun lazily made its way higher into the sky I reflected on how much my life had so abruptly changed. After the dust had settled so to speak back on Assoria, Gavin and I had started the long process of reestablishing and establishing for the first time in my case our respective kingdoms. Each of us helping the other as we could.
The Eastern people moved back out onto their plains all the way back to the base of the mountains and the ruined fortresses of the West. The dark forest was burned to the ground along with all the shattered and lost brutish souls it contained.
The illness that had inflicted the East Kingdom for generations disappeared overnight. I had suspected it hadn’t been a real disease all along, but rather it had been the energy waves put off by a device crafted by the sorcerer to mess with normal body function. It had lost its power when I had drained the sorcerer’s power away.
Gavin and Zalisha were beloved by their people. General Lasho had passed away peacefully in his sleep a couple months back having gotten to see his nation settled into freedom and its enemies vanquished. His son Lohan stood in his place serving Gavin as he had served the royal family all the days of his life.
As for me and the kingdom of Lanoria, we’d done quite well for ourselves too. In a separate course of events unknown to us at the time the Northern Kingdom had used our attack on the Western army to take the advantage or so they had thought.
The Northern king had assembled the entire northern army and with the West distracted with us he’d led a raiding party into the Western Kingdom’s territory. He and his entire force had perished with the Western cities occupants, when the ground beneath them had collapsed.
I brought the surviving women and children out of the northern wastelands and into the mountains and they joined us as fellow Lanorians. The women refugees from the West also came for the most part to be Lanorians.
All the soldiers that had come with me and my brother took brides and settled in the mountains of Lanoria as the mountains reminded them of their former home in the Valley Lands.
In the springtime the population of Lanoria would likely double in size. I swear that every Lanorian woman of childbearing age had to be pregnant or soon would be. It was a happy time. Lanoria existed above and below ground.
The wonders of the deep were opened up for the dwellers of the surface to experience and the original Lanorians now had the freedom to walk in the warmth of the sun.
We settled wherever habitation was possible in the mountains taking over and rebuilding the city of Unasa, which we renamed Atlanor. We also started rebuilding the city of Sartorga that lay just beyond the Yasana River, which had been the first to be destroyed by the sorcerer at the hands of the West Kingdom. We would settle there and then in the future as our numbers increased we would reclaim the northern lands, which were even now being replenished by the Yasana River, as we had destroyed the dam redirecting the river from its original course.
The Yasana River once more flowed within its old channel watering the northern lands. Lanoria was poised to become a great and powerful nation and I intended to do everything that I could to make that come true.
As for me and Raya we ruled Lanoria from the Blue Castle, which we renamed Castle Nassoria. To say we remodeled the place was to put it lightly.
We practically rebuilt it and in the process we discovered more of Tadias’s technological treasures. Tadias’s half-brother had only scratched the surface of what Tadias had left behind thankfully.
Gavin and I had agreed to make a joint trip home, when things were manageable for us to be away for awhile. We both had been eager to tell our stories of the Creator’s blessings and provisions for us along the way, as well as to show off the gorgeous Assorian wives we had both been blessed with to our parents.
My thoughts drifted back to last night when we had arrived. I’d never forget the joy on my mother’s face when she saw us healthy and happy. Her delight in her new daughter-in-law’s was unbounded, especially when she had learned of Raya’s pregnant condition and then moments later by a blushing Zalisha of her likewise condition.
As for my father…..why I was looking right at him at this moment and he at me. I on my balcony and he on his. Much the same as the night the Creator had used me to help save father from the assassins, only this time it was a shared enjoyment of the beauty of the sunrise over the snowy mountain tops.
I had gotten the impression the night before that I had succeeded in everything he could have asked for in a son, but best of all was the knowledge that I knew he had felt that way about me before I had even left for Assoria.
It hadn’t felt justified then though to me. My father was the king of the Valley Lands, but if you asked him he would deny any such title. I wasn’t happy with the title of king either, but reluctantly I accepted it as it went with the job so to speak.
Despite whatever leadership role my father might have it could truly be said of him that he was a king among men. He had raised me and shown me the right paths to take and those to avoid by his own actions. He was very much responsible for the great guy that everyone seemed to think that I was now.
I had simply emulated his life and the principles and standards of his life had uniquely become my own. I was my own man, but I was always going to be a part of him and reversely whatever I did was going to be partly because of him. It had been a good result all around. I only hoped that I could be that guiding influence for good in the life of my yet unborn children.
“What are you doing out here without any clothes on? You’re crazy!”
I turned to see Raya standing on the terrace behind me with a sheet wrapped around her shivering.
I had wanted someone exactly like my mother for a wife, but the Creator had given me someone completely different and yet similar to my mother in some ways, who was uniquely perfect for me in every way.
“You should have woken me up earlier! Your mother wants us all to be at a family breakfast in a little over an hour!”
I smiled at the change in her. The life and responsibilities of a queen had changed her in only six months. The underground tough as nails warrioress I had married couldn’t have cared less about being in time for a family breakfast. I needed to work on keeping her well grounded in her new position as queen and remain the old Raya that I had first fallen in love with.
I sauntered over towards her and she watched my approach suspiciously. I could only tell that by her facial expression, because her glorious eyes were hidden from me. I’d made her a prettier and more balanced mask for her eyes than the initial war mask I had made for her.
Her favorite color was green, which is what her new glass lenses were. She could now see the world tinted in her favorite color, but the glasses gave her glowing eyes the appearance of a cat. I loved the night when the glasses came off and I got to look into her eyes and watch the sparks of living color radiate out of them. Coming abreast of her I grasped the front of her sheet covering and started pulling her back inside.
“Zevin there is no time!” She bit out indignantly as she grudgingly followed after me for fear of losing the sheet.
“Then I suppose that we will just have to be fashionably late. I’ll only be a half hour or so anyway. Besides are you defying my authority as king to do as I please?” I finished imperially not really meaning it.
A smile peeked at the corners of her mouth as the door to the balcony closed behind her. “No Sire. You know I only live to serve and please you.” She said in a sultry tone meaning every word of it and let the sheet fall to the cold floor.
And just like that the tables were turned and she was in control, but it didn’t matter because I had gotten what I had wanted to, the sultry eyed midnight campfire seductress, who had first stolen my heart while eating an apple across from me over a dead fire was back.
Roric smiled, as he saw from a distance, his son leave the balcony of his tower with his exotic wife in tow. Had he really been like that as a young man?
He shook his head at the obvious answer to that and if that hadn’t been enough the cool voice that interrupted his thoughts was.
“You’re still like that! You haven’t changed any old man.”
He turned to see Krista leaning against a pillar studying him. She could truly read his mind.
His eyes sparkling he frankly eyed her up and down, “I’m not so old.”
Her lips creased into an open smile of challenge, “Then prove it!”
Those words had him turning and her scuttling for safety inside. But it was all a game that they had played many times enjoyably.
Later as she lay against him he contemplated how late they were going to be for breakfast. Krista was ticking one finger up and then down onto his chest and then back up again.
“What are you doing?” He asked amused.
Her eyes crinkled into a smile as she said, “Counting my grandchildren. Zarsha has three with another one on the way. Sansa has two. Larc has five. And now our twins are adding two more. That makes thirteen altogether so far, but who knows maybe they’ll be some twins.”
Roric shook his head. Women thought differently plain and simple, but what couldn’t be denied was how blessed they had been.
Krista suddenly pensive asked, “Do you think Talaric has any children?”
Roric’s arm closed securely around his wife and he held her a little tighter to him, “I don’t know honey. I don’t know.”
A bit of a dark cloud hovered over his good mood of earlier. He wasn’t getting any younger. It was time for his firstborn son to return. Past time actually, but that was his timetable and not that of the Creators.
Patience, he had to have patience and above all pray, always pray and hope. Hope that one day his son would return to him. He only hoped that day would be soon as there was so much he wanted to teach and experience with the son that he had failed with the most as a parent.
“Not your fault honey.” Krista whispered against his chest.
Seriously how did she do that!
“I know your deepest darkest secrets.” She intoned in a creepy voice and he swatted her playfully on the bottom and she laughed looking up at him.
Then more seriously she pulled herself up to look him directly in the eye.
“Since Talaric hasn’t returned on his own, perhaps it’s time to consider going and bringing him back yourself.”
Roric shook his head no, he had considered that many times, but the answer was still no.
“Unless I receive an irrefutable sign from the Creator to go I can’t risk jeopardizing our people for a private desire on my part that my son be by my side once more.”
She studied him for a moment and then said, “I love you!”
“I love you too, but if we don’t get moving soon we’ll be the laughing stock of our children.”
Roric and Krista stepped into the private dining area only to see that it was already full and everyone already seated. The faces of all those gathered had knowing looks of smirky accusation as to what the both of them had been up to. Krista’s face was rosy as she took her seat and began to meticulously unfold her napkin in her lap not looking up.
Roric scowled right back at the accusing glances directed at them, “Alright you bunch of sanctimonious hypocrites! Some of you are still breathing hard from running all the way to get here or perhaps it’s from whatever you were doing this fine morning before coming here. As for myself I’m good and proud to admit that I haven’t lost the ability or the desire to be distracted by the love of my life. I’ve fathered half of my children gathered here and I wish that I had fathered the other half that I claim as my children. Despite whatever your parentage may be I’m glad to see that you’re all following in my footsteps as best as your able to. I’m a passionate man and my hope for all my children has always been that you would get to experience the oneness of a relationship with a wife or husband that I have enjoyed with my own dear wife. That all being said let’s stop the look of starvation I see on the faces of my pregnant daughter-in-law’s and dig in after we’ve asked the blessing.”
Krista reached up and patted Roric’s hand in approval of his declaration. Reactions were mixed around the table. Zalisha looked shocked and had a blush to prove it, while Gavin looked extremely uncomfortable.
Raya had an open faced smirk as she turned to me and said matter-of-factly, “Now I see where you get it from!”
Which caused me to blush slightly, but I couldn’t help but smile in answer to her statement. After all it was a compliment of sorts.
Larc openly laughed while Evette just smiled and shook her head repeatedly from side to side. Sansa and her man were matching shades of red, while Zarsha and Captain Jansa both nodded in open agreement with father.
Ellanara held her hands to her temples looking greatly pained and looked at her father with a blush staining her cheeks, “Do you have to talk about things like that father? Really?”
Roric centered his knowing gaze on her, “Your time is coming young lady just you wait! You’ll be as late as the rest of us mark my words.”
Ellanara blushed further and stared down at her plate her face crimson. Soon the mood refocused on more tame pursuits and a good time was had by all.