The first night back was a nightmare. She had escaped to her room. Scrubbed herself in the bath until her skin was pink and overly sensitive. It wasn’t enough to wash away the ache she felt deep into her bones. What was worse, was when she had seen her children, was the fact she saw Logan in them. Saw the dimples they carried from him as they smiled. The light brown of their eyes. It took everything in her to not cry.

And Logan’s sister didn’t seem to care to see Alys. It wasn’t anything new, but it made her feel more isolated. She had been sleeping along for weeks now, but the bed in the castle felt more cold than any night in the mountains could have been. It felt like to spread for miles and miles. She ached so awfully that she rubbed circles over her heart and then rubbed her arms. She twisted her hands together and eventually, the pain became so much that she rocketed out of bed.

She couldn’t stay there. She needed to be anywhere else. Alys first went to her children’s room, but couldn’t find it in herself to wake them. The silent tears on her face alone would cause them alarm. Which only left her to leave. Storming through to the military wing and without much thought, she came to the Captain Commander’s office. A place Logan hadn’t been in for a while, but it was the place where so many memories with him were within the walls. It was naturally locked, she jiggled the handle and pressed her forehead to the door. The cold wood biting against her head, and with her hand still on the handle, she cried for another time. Except in the empty hall, it wasn’t silent. Her breathing hitching… then a soft sob left her as she sank to her knees at the door.