"An entire life lived again and still the same level of strength," she sighed as she started getting ready for the ceremony.
"We'll make it through, I promise," Laurent added as he helped her put a black scarf around her hair.
"Aren't you tired of me?"
"No."
"No, really, honestly," she said as she turned back to him.
"I really need you to be honest on this. It is impossible not to get tired of that situation. I am myself tired of it, of me," she added with straight gaze.
"I am really not tired of you." he answered back with certainty.
"How? How is it that you didn't lose hope in me? Why me? Why don't you pick another girl with whom things would be easier on you? Why would you want me? That is just something I can't grasp," she responded as Laurent let her be in silence before responding.
"There are always going to be battles to fight in life, and I don't mind fighting those with you," he simply responded.
"What is wrong with me? I am aware of that fact. I used to say that when I was single," she thought.
"You are not Athena," he said.
"You are not a god, you are a human being, and there are limited things that we can handle by ourselves," he added before hearing a knock on the door.
"Can I come in?" Rayane asked.
"Of course, I have to join my family and the rest of the regiment for the ceremony," he said as he bent, staring at Eva's gaze.
"Of course, I'll see you there," she responded with a gentle smile and an exhausted gaze.
As Laurent left, Rayane started explaining how the ceremony would take place.
"What about my unjustified absence?" she asked.
"How can I explain to my people that I am back?"
"Because of the actual climate conditions, there would be no one from the public, just a private ceremony like Carolina had asked."
"Private?"
"As you know, a monarch's definition of the word private is quite limited. Unfortunately, other kinds of functionaries and members of the council..."
"They are still alive?" she said, cutting him dry.
Rayane jokingly smiled. "Well, you can't expect people to die in juste one year. Even old bones are not that easy to break."
"I'm sure you think the same thing as them," she said before facing back the mirror.
"What do you think they think?"
"Why did you wake me up?" she asked with a bothered face.
"Why did you do that?" she added shrugging her shoulders.
"You would have died there. It wasn't a good environment anymore."
"Well, you should have left me. If the story repeated itself even in a new environment, then there is no cure for me," she added, intensely staring at him.
"It wasn't a different environement, it was quite similar to this one. The job was for you to learn how to navigate it."
"And I failed. My mother, may she rest in peace, was right. I am just weak." she said, remembering that scene in the kitchen in the middle of a fight with her mother, screaming and crying as she vented the way she was treated by her.
"Well, I ended up thinking about doing things I never thought I would ever do to myself," Eva shouted.
Her mother paused, put her two hands on her cheeks, and said, "Eva, it is because you are weak. Only weak people do that."
"Your mother was trying to protect you, but in the wrong way," Rayane answered.
"If it came from a place of protection, then I don't think she was wrong."
"You know what is funny? Even though it is just fiction, it feels like I am getting my karma back."
"For what?" Rayane asked, intrigued.
"Do you know about the story of Athena, the Greek goddess, and her soldiers? I never understood how could a deity be so weak as to need soldiers?"
"And I am asking myself the same question. How could a queen be that weak in comparison to her soldiers? At least if I was as strategic as Lens (Amelia's fiancée and member of the legion), which clearly I am not, how great!"
"I can only imagine each one of them dissecting me as you announce my presence."
"See who is here again."
"I can't believe it. She is back."
"With the same aura still."
"The right one dies, so that the other governs."
"I don't think I can handle that." She exclaimed with a firm certain tone