Once there was Darkness

Chapter 35

Part 2

“I’m a warrior. I don’t know how to be a queen.”

“I don’t know how to be a husband. Sarah and I were only married a year before she died. Nine months of that year she was child.” He paused. “That was the worst nine months of my life. What kind of husband actively avoids his pregnant wife?” Should he smile? Could he smile at that comment? “I don’t know the why of it. I couldn’t do anything right. Anytime I was in her presents, she was yelling at me. I think the sight of me filled her with anger. I never saw her that she wasn’t upset.” He paused. “I completely stopped being around her after one night she threw a marble soap dish at me. She threw it with all her strength. It should have killed me.”

“Broke my hand.”

Kol was dumbfounded. “That was you?”

“That was me.”

“Kessa,” he kissed the top of her hands.

She thought he was going to say something else but didn’t.

“As always with God in charge, yes. I will be your queen.” He helped her lay back on the bed.

“This time it will be more than a ring of grass.”

She was shocked, “you remembered?” He just smiled. How could he admit God had to remind him? “What does your mother say about all of this?” 

“We don’t talk. Rajaf is over the moon.” He lay down beside her.

She grinned, “what exactly did he say?”

“Bout time.”

Kessa laughed. “That sounds about right.”

“I should have asked you a long time ago.”

“Neither of us were ready. God knew that.”

“You once suggested that I held some animosity toward you. I did. But not for the reasons you gave.” He closed his eyes as she ran her fingers through his hair. “I have always felt more empowered in your presents. I will admit that at times you scare me.”

“Of all the people in this world, you have no need to be afraid of me.”

“Not fear in the sense that you would hurt me. Whatever is happening, you have the ability to redirect things. Remember the two women fighting over the baby?”

“Yes.”

“Before you walked into the room, my head was raging. Those two women were screaming. The baby was screaming. The entire scene seemed out of control. When you walked into the room, all eyes were focused on you. Especially mine.”

“So why animosity?”

“It was easier to be distant, even upset with you than to admit that,” she trailed her finger down his face, across his cheek, and around his ear. “I love you.”

“Now that is a phrase a girl could get used to hearing.” She smiled. “Do you remember getting kicked by that horse?”

“Some but not all.”

“You were out of it for most of that. And for this I am grateful.”

“You wouldn’t speak to me for a very long time after we got home.”

“That event started Max’s training to take over the Bejhar.”

“I didn’t know that. I know I saw a lot more of him from that point on.”

“God used that accident to show me just what you meant to me. Not only are you my king; that I have been training to protect, fighting beside, and planning with but that accident;” she pursed her lips. “A couple times on the way home, I thought we had lost you. I am not the healer my dad is. And we couldn’t get you to him fast enough. It; I felt like the accident was my fault to begin with. I never should have allowed you to walk behind that horse. But I was distracted.”

“By?”

“You.” She played with his hair.

He grinned, “really?”

“Oh yes, really.”

“Tell me more.” There was that sideways grin the disarmed her.

She blushed.

‘Failed,’ ran across his mind. “You said you thought you lost me a couple times. Did I?”

“Could never say it out loud. I could never admit it.”

“So that was the change?”

“Change?” She questioned.

He took a deep breath. “In some of my dreams, you look different. I never really understood why. You are beautiful no matter when I dream about you. I couldn’t define the difference. Sarah told me in a dream that you failed.” He shook his head. “I believed it was just one more way for her to torment me.”

He held her in his arms. She spoke, “as surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” (2 Kings 2:2, 4, 6)

They both fell asleep.

That night, he didn’t dream. When the morning came he was calm and well rested. There she was, still asleep on his arm. Still alive. Still hurt. But she was right there.