Last night, I dreamt of my mother.

Under the vast starless night, I carried her coffin. The blizzard winds stung my face, and the snow blurred my sight, as I followed behind the small wavering lanterns of the pallbearers. Their monotone song, barely audible over the howling wind, waxed and waned as we traversed through the thick snow underfoot. The weight of her coffin tried to overtake me, my hands frozen, while I shook from the chill despite being numb under the skin.

We marched up a high hill, lanterns swinging, unsure of how long we had left to cover. It seemed to me a land of no end. No beginning. There was only the journey into the night, until we came to a jagged gash torn into the snow laden ground that stretched into the horizons.

“This is no proper grave,” I said.

“No,” said a pallbearer, “but it is God’s will.”

Without a pause, the coffin lifted away from me and fell into the ravine. I stood at the precipice, breathless, as it went down, spinning, into the dark depths. Enraged, I turned to scream, but the pallbearers were nowhere to be found. I turned back to the ravine, and there she was, on the other side, far from me, covered in blood from her hair to her shoulders. At the sight of her fair form, I lost all words, all air in my lungs, as she stared at me. I looked down into the ravine, the wind howling loud against me, and stepped off the edge. The air whistled past my ears as the mouth of the ravine shrunk away, the wind-swept snow drifting off its edges like powder, before I succumbed into the depths.

I awoke to a quiet house.

No footsteps paced above me, no warbling of birds, no movements from the staff on their rounds. A cool, hazy winter light cast itself onto the floor from a space between the curtains. The room was freezing, as the staff had forgotten to light the fire. My bones ached from the restless night, and a peace came over me before I remembered.

He’s dead.

That didn’t sit right with me. The world was too quiet. Too clam. Nothing had happened, but it did, and I knew it to be true. I ruminated over my father’s last moments as I splashed cold water on my face and changed my shirt. For the first time in as long as I could remember, and the only night since, I had dreamt of nothing. One might expect me to dream of my father, guilty conscience and all, but there was nothing—not even darkness. All the events I recalled from the night before and all the emotions I had were then far removed from me. The images flashed before my eyes, but what were they to me? Nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing more than a mirage.

I stood by the door after I dressed myself. Did I have to leave right then? What was compelling me? I didn’t want to face anyone. I didn’t know what to expect when I left. If I stayed in my room, in the quiet, then nothing had to change. The staff would not bother me, due to the circumstances, if they thought I was still asleep. I could’ve gone back to bed and rested. Instead, I left the room, seeing no point in hiding, to face the brand new world I had found myself in—one of my own creation.

My father laid stiff in his bed.

Even in death he looked dignified - almost noble. His hands were placed on his chest, eyes closed, under the bedding, but still dressed in the purple chamber robe he died in. If someone did not know the truth, one might’ve thought he died in that bed, a proper death for a man of his status, unlike the disturbing and very much undignified way we had found him.

I was unsure if I even cared to see him. I didn’t know what I wanted to gain from it - if anything. When I looked onto his body there was nothing inside of me. My father was not someone I thought would die. He was always there, an unstoppable omnipresent force, bending the world to his whims; and seeing him there cold, still, and silent seemed an odd trick. I sat at the end of the bed, fearing to move closer lest he waited for a chance to suffocate me. I could not force myself to feel what I wanted to feel. There was nothing. I left the room and never looked upon his form again.

My mother and I took breakfast in her apartments. The maids brought out small platters of pastries to the table near the window. I did not have the appetite to eat anything, and neither did my mother, whose eyes were heavy from the long night.

“We need to discuss your inheritance,” she said as she dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. “It’s quite complicated.”

I hadn’t thought of it. What happened to my father’s heritage after his death did not concern me. All my life I had stood to inherit nothing, and when my brother returned, as I had planned, he would inherit our estate. I only needed to wait. There was no reason that I, merely a second son, should’ve inherited anything. As long as I could stay in Varlemont, with the income my father once allowed me, and see my family together once again, I would be content. That was what I wanted. What I needed.

“I assume you’ve heard from your brother?” she said as she fussed with the handkerchief in her hands.

“No,” I said as I stirred my tea.

“No?”

“No,” I said, “not yet.”

“Oh,” she said as she cast her eyes down. She paused before she laughed, “of course.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said, “but you need to write to him about his father. He should know.”

“I don’t know how to reach him.”

“I believe you do,” she said as he looked me in the eyes, “I heard you two conspiring that night. I’ve assumed you’ve kept in contact,” she sighed and shrugged, “seems not.”

“I can try to write to him,” I said quietly, “and he should return soon enough.”

“He isn’t coming back,” she said, “or is he inheriting anything.”

“But it is his right.”

“A right he forfeited when he decided to abandon us,” she said pointedly, “he has proven he does not want nor deserve it. The whole Court knows it. Your father did not wish it, as you well know. You are the Comte d’Artois now.”

“No, I am not,” I said. “The Court will not approve of it. I am the youngest.”

“The Court must approve it,” she said. “You of all people don’t even truly know where he is! He could be in Spain, and we wouldn’t even know of it! No, no, the Court will approve it. His Majesty understands, he does not look favorably on prodigal sons. That is against the State, against our Lord even, and given our…situation, His Majesty will approve it, he must, if not your father’s estates will be claimed by the Crown and leave us destitute.”

She furrowed her brows and cut into a pastry with a fork, but her face softened when she saw mine. Her arms reached over the table to take hold of my hands, and she assumed a kinder tone, “But do not worry yourself about it. Catherine’s family will not allow that to happen.”

“But this is his home.”

“No, I don’t believe so,” she said, shaking her head, “He seems quite content to make his home elsewhere.”

She tried to eat again but tired of it. She called her maid to clear the dishes away from the table. She rested her head in her palm, pondering something, before she tucked loose strands of hair behind her ears and spoke again: “Since you are still in your minority, I need to be appointed as your guardian.”

“Will he not be angry?” I said, “I know he will come back home—he will. You have to write to him and explain all of this. If you write to him and tell him that you forgive-”

“Forgive?” She said, “I will not do that. Not unless he gets rid of that woman of his.”

“Why not?”

“A marriage without your father’s consent is in no way proper,” she said. “He was betrothed to Catherine before he even met that woman, from a family we know nothing of, and with only a modest fortune. I refused him, he threw a fit, and refused to speak to me. If he even thought about it for a moment, he would know that Catherine was the best option for him. He almost ruined our family by disgracing her if the Rohans refused you, which they almost did, but it has not blotted out the stain of it, and now…this.”

“He didn’t tell me that.”

“I’m sure.”

I thought my mother must have misunderstood him. If only that were true.

“He told me he loves her.”

She leaned in close as if telling me a secret in a whispered voice, “But it’s quite convenient for him, do you not think? That this love of his just so happens to be a sole heiress? Out of the realm? with no relatives to object?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

She laughed, “I don’t know either.”

Her eyes began to well up. “This is all my fault.”

Pained, I took hold of her hands and said, “No, Maman, no, it’s my fault. I should’ve stopped him. I should’ve told you. I know I should’ve, but he told me he couldn’t live here anymore, and he loves her, and—I should’ve told you—but it will be alright. We don’t need to worry about any of this. He will return, I promise. He will, because now…” I stopped myself.

“When?”

I didn’t say anything.

“When?” she said again, “when did he say he would return?”

“He didn’t say anything specific—”

“And, in all these months, have you received anything from him? A single word?”

“No but-”

“And did he ever tell you anything about these plans of his? Anything of this great love match he has created for himself?”

I suppose my face answered for me.

“And why wouldn’t he?” She said as she looked hard at me, “Unless he knows he’s in the wrong.”

Events progressed to be more upsetting than I could’ve imagined. My mother wouldn’t stop crying, causing the whole household to lose their routine, and for some reason they decided to turn to me for instruction, which annoyed me. My mother tried to discuss the funeral arrangements with me, which I cared not for, as if it were up to me, I would’ve just buried him shallow somewhere in the basse-cour, but I suppose that isn’t the Christian thing to do.

The physician still thought my father died of surfeit of drink, but since that is not a noble way to die, we agreed to imply nothing more than a vague illness to the public. There was no autopsy, despite the insistence of the physician, because my mother, in her own words, wouldn’t live to see her husband’s body butchered. I didn’t know why she cared, but of course I had to agree myself.

My mother bade me to return to Varlemont to tell Catherine, and she would see to the arrangements herself. I refused at first, given that my mother did not seem to be in a proper state to arrange anything despite my own ignorance on such matters, but I obliged. Someone had to tell Catherine, and better it was me than a random courier.

Catherine was of course, surprised, sympathetic, and gave me her condolences, along with all the usual pleasantries, but I did not expect much from her. She did not know my father well enough to have a strong reaction or understand the lack of mine. The days at Varlemont went by in a daze, having to constantly remind myself of what had happened with my mind not catching up to my heart. Everything was too sudden, too anticlimactic, and too surreal. At the end of the week, I almost expected another letter from him, and an uneasy sensation came over me when I realized that was no longer something I had to worry about.

Only mere days before I thought that if my father were gone, I would be a happier, somehow altogether different person, as if he were an oppressive boulder that only needed to be cast off for me to be the person I wanted to be. But nothing changed, as it always did, and while I held no grief in my heart, it held no happiness either. I had woken from a long nightmare and into reality, where my father was dead and always had been, and I was where I always had been, and everything was as it should be.

I still had to write to my brother. I clung onto the firm belief that he would return home once I written him, but when faced with the parchment, no words came to me. I stared blank, rummaging in my mind, but it was not a simple thing. I imagined the questions he would have. How could a man of rude health be dead only six months after he left? I would stand up every few minutes and pace my apartments, before I got the nerve to try again. I knew I had to find the right words, be as convincing as possible, because I needed him back. He’s my older brother. I did not want to inherit what duty obliged him to take. It was not my birthright. It was not my life. He had to return home. Over and over I told myself, he had to return home because I needed him—it was all part of the plan.