Holiday Revoked

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All Source Photos- Family Photos

The sun sat heavy and gold over the salt-crusted shores of the southern coast, a far cry from the gray stone ramparts of the duchy. For Lee, the son of a Duke but a man who found titles as cumbersome as heavy armor, these few days were a rare sanctuary. He sat on a driftwood log, his boots discarded to the side, watching his wife, Adeliza, as she waded through the shallows, her skirts hitched up and dripping with brine.
"Brom! The tide is coming for your keep!" Adeliza laughed, pointing toward the shoreline. Brom, the youngest, was a whirlwind of sandy limbs. He was deep in the construction of a fortress that rivaled his father’s ancestral home in complexity, if not in scale. With a wooden spade and a tongue poked out in concentration, he reinforced the western wall against the encroaching foam.
A few yards away, the air was filled with the clatter of driftwood and high-pitched shouts. Now, all three stood in a doorway, pretending to be the Knights of the Roundtable. Aldred had lured Brom away from his castle building by promising the opportunity for him to hold the sword. It was Aldred's responsibility to take care of Brom when unsupervised by the court nanny.
Lee watched them with a quiet, grounded pride. He had never cared for the rigid hierarchy of the court, a trait that had often exasperated his father. To Lee, a man was measured by the calluses on his hands and the truth in his voice, not the crest on his ring. He saw that same wild, egalitarian spirit in his children as they finally shed their "armor" and plunged into the crashing waves, their laughter lost to the wind.
The bliss lasted until the sun began its slow descent. A rider appeared on the dunes, his horse lathered and gasping. It was a messenger from the estate, bearing a seal that turned the summer air cold. Adeliza walked to Lee’s side, her hand finding his as the messenger spoke the words: Elian was dead.
The news hit Lee with the force of a physical blow, not just for the loss itself, but for his son. Elian was the son of Silas, the castle’s head gardener. While the tutors and the Duke had looked for Aldred in the schoolroom or the armory, the boy had almost always been in the dirt of the courtyard. Aldred and Elian had spent their childhoods as equals, chasing chickens, sharing stolen bread, and dreaming of adventures beyond the walls. Elian had been the one who taught Aldred how to whistle through his fingers; Aldred had been the one who stood up to the other pages when they mocked the gardener-boy’s patched tunic.
To the world, it was the death of a servant’s son. To the family, it was the extinguishing of a part of Aldred's heart, and Lee felt that grief as if it were his own.
"We have to go," Lee said softly, his voice thick. Adeliza nodded, her eyes full of understanding. She looked toward Aldred, who was still dripping wet and smiling, unaware that his world was about to change. She knew that to their eldest son, the courtyard had always been more of a home than the Great Hall, and Elian more of a brother than any blood relative in the capital.
The children were gathered, their sandy faces falling as Lee knelt to break the news to Aldred. As they packed the carriage, the knights of the beach became quiet children once more. Lee looked back one last time at the shoreline. Brom’s sandcastle was being smoothed away by the rising tide, leaving nothing but a flat expanse of gray.
He thought of the courtyard back home—the cold stones where the boys had played. The castle would feel far emptier now, stripped of the one person who had never seen Aldred as a future Duke, but simply as a friend. Lee climbed into the carriage, holding a trembling Aldred close and ignoring the dusty velvet of the seats, his mind already miles away, mourning a boy who had owned nothing but had meant everything.