And just like that, he was gone.
He’d been there since she was just a young thing, sweet, innocent, ignorant of the troubles of the world. He too had been innocent. Inquisitive and searching to learn. It was those small things that made her laugh, the things that sent the peels of childish giggles echoing through the house that he was most interested in. All he had ever wanted to do was protect her, make her smile.
She had taken to the spell quickly, far faster than most children her age should of. But it was this fact that made her mother push her so hard. “Most girls your age have their head int he clouds, Layla. Playing with dolls. Look at you, a Carbuncle at your side already.” She had smiled so brightly, so wide, and with such admiration.
It became the one thing she wanted to achieve, again, and again.
In one smooth, even motion, Duke had been ripped from the world. Right before her eyes. This time, it had been different. Every time something happened to him in battle, there was a part of her that cinched up inside, a part of her that ached. But each night, when she had returned home and called on him again… He was there.
This time, she knew, would be different. Nothing had been the same here. The sound he had made. The hole in her chest. He did not belong to her anymore.
There was laughter, talking all around her, and then… Rose screamed. The sound was so loud. Her eyes squeezed shut, she wouldn’t look. She couldn’t look. The scraping of the metal box was moving away from her now, Rose’s muffled screams moving with it.
He’d put her in the box… He was taking her someplace… She would… She had too…
And then she slept.