Lam was exhausted by the time she returned to the palace, and she didn\'t like the sound of the raised voice that was darting out from under the door, nor what that angry voice was saying. The doors and walls were thick in the palace, but not thick enough to stem the tide of this angry tirade completely, it seemed. A flutter that had nothing to do with the baby she believed to be growing inside her spasmed its way through her abdomen, causing her to flinch as she came to a stop outside the room the king was speaking to his son in. She stood, motionless this time - bar the panting that lifted her broad shoulders rapidly as she struggled to get her breath back - and listened to the final few words that Morgan was barking out.
She was nervous. As predicted, there had been no sign of the common scoundrel Hew had been in bed with, when they returned to his abode. She\'d known it would happen - it had been her decision, after all - but her heart had still sunk when they stormed the bedroom yet again, and found upended drawers, clothing flung wildly about the room and places where bags had obviously sat, looking empty in a cupboard. Albert Phinneus had left with everything he could gather and gone... she didn\'t know where.
They\'d skirted the outside of the building, looking through windows to see if he\'d snuck into a residence close by, knocking on most doors and questioning people about possible havens. When Phinn\'s mother\'s brothel was mentioned, the guards split up and stormed that establishment... to no avail. Unfortunately, the same thing happened with every possible lead they were given; Phinn was nowhere to be found tonight. Lam had resolved not to stop looking and stake out the drawbridge all day tomorrow until the curr was found but she\'d decided to take a moment from that pursuit to let the king know, for she knew he\'d be anxious.
Of course, \'anxious\' was too mild a description for what she was hearing coming from the room she was staring at. That, along with the way Morgan had ordered her with steely grimness to, \'Find that miserable excuse for a man and bring him to me,\' when she\'d delivered Hew earlier, convinced her that her own fate in this matter was not as certain as she\'d assumed. The king sounded unlike himself at this moment, and she feared for the consequences for all of them.
As it turned out, she was right to be fearful.
When Mayhew left the office he was being admonished in, he could barely spare Lam a nod, ducking his head and hastening to his rooms without a backward glance, neatly avoiding her advance and voicing of his name. He knew as well as she did that she didn\'t have hold of his lover and he was likely too ashamed to spare her any of his time; especially if he was still upset and needing to cry it out.
She entered the office after a polite knock and Morgan snapping that she should enter, and everything went downhill from there. King Kestrel was furious that Phinneus couldn\'t be found; he literally ranted at his guard\'s captain, questioning her professionalism, her abilities and her whole force\'s skills, wondering exactly what it was his money paid for, when something this important couldn\'t be resolved. Lam paled as she listened, that fluttering fear attacking her once more, and she escaped the room as swiftly as she could, intent on stepping up the search and completely regretting her decision to side with Hew in that errant second of time.
Lam was true to her word. She sent a messenger to her home to let her fiancé know that she wouldn\'t be returning that night (nor did she know when she would be back) and she stayed on the streets through every miserable, cold hour of darkness that there was and at least four of the daylit ones too. No matter how hard she tried, no matter where they searched or how vigilant they were, no matter that they even pulled guards out of bed to join in... Albert Phinneus was not found.
Wearily, Lam had to concede that exhaustion was no good for her or the baby, so she posted guards on the drawbridge and returned to the palace. She was fairly certain the criminal wasn\'t even in the city by now, for they\'d turned nearly the whole place upside down and inside out; quite a few noble feathers were ruffled at the insinuation that they would hide a fugitive from the king\'s warrant, but somebody had to be hiding the snake. He\'d found a good, deep hole, that was for certain.
When Lam requested audience with the king and was shown to his sitting room, she had no idea that it was the last time she would ever be permitted in this position, but as their conversation progressed and it became apparent that his royal highness had lost none of the bitterness from the night before, the life of Captain Wilson slowly crumbled into obscurity.
At first, the news that Phinneus hadn\'t been found was met with silence and a cold, direct stare that she\'d never been on the other side of before - though she\'d guarded the king at enough diplomatic negotiations to have seen it directed at others. He was a smart man and, as it turned out, vengeful in a calm and outwardly polite manner.
They\'d been talking about her imminent retirement and she\'d told Morgan of her suspected pregnancy. The queen\'s last supposed pregnancy had turned out to be false, so they\'d agreed it was best if Lam just kept things quiet until she was certain and then they would tackle the problem of her leaving the guards. There\'d been talk of a pompous, extravagant ceremony and a job on the other side for her as Palace Liaison, a go-between for the guards and the king, so that she could keep in touch with both, but not be put in direct danger or find being a working mother too much of a burden. She would continue training Hew, of course, even if that task was generally that of the Captain of the Guard.
Those discussions wafted out of existence like the smoke from a campfire as she sat before Morgan, and, thankfully, the incomprehensibility of it left her cold and stunned, so that she didn\'t walk out of the palace bawling. He began from left field, stating that he\'d grown concerned with her wellbeing since she\'d become engaged and pregnant and her inability to successfully nab the man he needed set before him proved his misgivings to be truth. The king talked quietly - gently, even - about how he felt it was time she started thinking about her future and acting on the promises she\'d made to herself; as her friend, he was one hundred percent behind that notion now.
No warmth entered his eyes as he spoke of these things and she knew he blamed her entirely for Hew\'s fall from grace. She was going to take responsibility for it, too, whether the public knew it or not.
There would be no regal ceremony to thank her for her years of service. There would be no job waiting on the other side; no, she was better off looking after herself properly and dedicating herself to motherhood. In fact, that would be what the city would be told; Captain Wilson was pregnant and had resigned from her position as Captain of the Guard, effective immediately. Lieutenant Frederickson would be promoted as her replacement the next day... there would be a small handover ceremony in the guardhouse, with only a few privileged guests in attendance, and then Lam could begin her new life. She was best to make a clean break, so she was also no longer going to be Hew\'s trainer. He was going to be married soon and a man couldn\'t come into his own with a pregnant woman thundering about, telling him what to do.
Lam\'s heart plummetted and she questioned that decision impulsively; it was the only time she got a flicker of emotion. Morgan told her, with obvious venom, that she was no longer welcome on palace grounds and if she was found trying to make contact with his son or violate this rule, she would be thrown into the dungeons. He was obviously not joking, even though the veil of politeness was reinstated with royal aplomb just moments later.
Kysis didn\'t know what to make of the emotional, fatalistic mess that greeted him when she finally made it home around mid-day. Not only was she physically exhausted from trawling the keep all night, she was emotionally shattered to have been unceremoniously shunned and punished for her decision to side with the boy she loved, rather than the king she served. It was all her own fault - that was the most bitter thing to swallow of all - and she could do little more than sob and cling weakly to Kysis as she eventually fell asleep.
The next few days passed in a blur for Lam. She was ousted by the guard with a smile, wished well and even applauded by the king as he thanked her for her years of service, with a sincerity that still didn\'t reach his eyes. Not surprisingly, neither did her own smile as she accepted her ceremonial sword. Freddy was in shock and, later, she was forced to tell him the whole story, which only made him fret more. He couldn\'t believe she\'d made the decision to side with Hew and they fought as well, before she stormed out and locked herself inside Kysis\' mansion.
Once there, her mourning process could begin. Some of it felt unfinished and surreal because she\'d been denied a goodbye to Hew; most of it was too painfully real to bear. It seemed her father had been right all these years, after all. She was good for nothing and would breed only death and destruction to everything she touched. She could only wonder, therefore, how long it would be before the relationship that was her only positive in a tumultuous world would begin to fail as well.
