For one shining, glorious moment it seemed as though they might find some sort of ceasefire, perhaps even share a conversation that was not secretly a game of knives. And then he said the wrong thing, and the guard she'd
just let down slammed shut over her features again.
Rehoboam sighed, his weight shifting to lean further away from her, head raised defensively as if expecting physical retribution. He didn't believe he'd earned it here, but he did have a rather large backlog of sins on which he owed her a devastating amount of interest. He'd called her wildcat so long ago not just because her rich eyes seemed too-knowing and her claws too-sharp, but because he believed she would rather take everyone down around her before she would allow another slight against her person.
No. Not tonight, she says, and in those three words he understands the magnitude of his own mistakes. How often had he spent his own nights on this desolate no-man's land mourning the absences of his own children. He
knew the pain of not having them, of missing them with every fiber of your being while also being assigned with the interminable task of living without them.
"I'm sor-" The apology cut off in his throat so abruptly it might as well never have existed. Her words -
I'm looking for our son - cut him right to the quick but it took his mind a second to catch up with all of the realizations crashing and overlapping each other. She had a son, no,
they had a son. They had a son and she'd
lost him?
"What?!" He snapped, fear and anger warring for dominance in his expression.
"You've had him his whole life - I haven't even gotten to see him - and you've lost him?" Fear wins and he sucks in a shaky breath, his gaze darting toward the open expanse of the Crossing - shrouded by rain and darkness - with renewed purpose and anxiety.
"Where would he have gone?"
The longer he looks, the more he knows it is futile. They will find nothing in this rain, and pretending otherwise is an exercise in futility.
Eyes round with fear of what might have happened to their young son squeeze his heart, Rehoboam turns back to the little wildcat with the damning realization that he knew nothing about their son. He hadn't even known they'd had a son until she'd let it slip, but now he was desperate to know more.
"What is his name?" He asks, his voice small and quiet, bordering on pleading for more information.