Mother

In front of the grave, hands in his pockets, Eryk stared at the words carved into stone. She had gone peacefully, slept one night and just didn’t wake up.

His mother. She raised him by herself, built him into what he was today. He was never able to thank her enough for that. She’d always wanted to see him achieve great things. Like any parent she wanted him to have a better life than she had. She had been ecstatic the day he had become a knight, hugged him tight and refused to let go. They had gone from a ratty mother and child who lived in the palace for reasons no one understood to a knight and a lady.

Though it was no fault of his mother who never held back any information, it was a while before he understood the whole story, why they lived in the palace, why the king was his father, why he would never be a prince. She’d always hated that the king wouldn’t give him a chance. In fact, she had quite disliked the king himself, made all sorts of accusations that might have gotten her hanged if she wasn’t the mother of the king’s bastard son. She had thought that the entire world was against her, that Eryk was the only person left on her side. When Eryk began growing up and doing things on his own, she sometimes thought he was against her too.

Regardless of her flaws, Eryk loved her. But regardless of his love, he was happy that she was gone. That realization had struck him like a red-hot blade. The truth was she had never been happy. Every face was an enemy, every whispered word was hateful, every misfortune was personal, she’d convinced herself that she was a victim to the whole world, sometimes even to her own son. He did everything to make her happy but too often it wasn’t enough.

Eryk feared that she would hate him for finding her death so relieving, but it was. People needn’t worry about her rage-filled fits. He could live his life without hating himself for not being able to help her. He didn’t have to watch her own self-pity drive herself into the ground. He was happy she was gone but more than anything he feared what she thought of his contentment in her death.