#sarai also survives so this isn't as sad as it sounds

[kradogsrats]

The portrait dominated the room, still set on an easel until it could be framed and hung. It would no doubt be copied hundreds of times, into miniatures and engravings, to immortalize the royal family in the hearts of Katolis. For now, it mostly just made moving around the space awkward—the paint on it was barely dry, and it still smelled slightly of turpentine.

"You look so happy together," Lissa said. The artist had captured the ease with which Sarai stood beside King Harrow, the way they turned toward each other even as they looked in the same direction. She smiled, correcting herself. "You are so happy together."

Sarai laughed. "I don't know—I think we look a little stiff. Harrow hates standing still for these, and it shows. And I don't think she got my nose right." She scrunched up her nose, as if comparing it unfavorably with the one in the portrait.

Lissa looked at her. "How were you able to—how did you find it in you to move on, after Callum's father?"

She suddenly remembered she was speaking to the queen and flushed, looking away. Sarai had a way of putting her at ease—King Harrow would always be King Harrow, but Queen Sarai frequently slipped into being just Sarai. "That was too bold, forgive me. You don't have to answer."

"No, it's fine," Sarai protested. She hesitated for a moment, but the pause was thoughtful, rather than uncomfortable. "I loved him completely. I still do. I was a wreck, when he passed—I certainly wasn't setting out to find a new partner, after."

She studied the portrait, her eyes on Callum's small, serious face. "But I knew I wanted Callum to have a second parent, if anything ever happened to me. I knew I wanted more children. I suppose I just... left myself open to love."

Her face softened. "And love found me. It has a way of doing that."

Lissa remembered the dizzying rush of falling for a man with quicksilver eyes and magic sparking in his beckoning hand—how the course of her life had been irrevocably altered from what she'd always planned it to be. How it had been worth it. How it would never be worth it.

"It certainly does," she said.

"Why do you ask? Are you thinking about finding someone?" Sarai grinned mischievously. "Should I comb the Crownguard for particularly dashing individuals to send your way?"

"If you start trying to set me up with a Crownguard, I will teach Callum every Del Barian drinking song I know," Lissa threatened. She looked sidelong at Sarai, trying to keep a straight face.

Sarai cracked first, her face contorting with mirth before she burst into laughter. "You're not serious."

"I am absolutely serious," Lissa said, laughing as well. "I'll start with the bawdiest ones, just try me."

A tentative cry came from the other room, followed by a louder, more emphatic wail. Sarai sighed. "Someone's hungry."

"Or soiled, or gassy, or—," Lissa ticked the possibilities off on her fingers, smiling.

"No, that's the hungry cry. I'd know it anywhere." She pulled Lissa into a quick hug, kissing her cheek, then began to edge around the painting toward the nursery door. "Go home. I'll see you tomorrow. This thing should be out of the way, by then."

"That'll be a relief."

"And Lissa?" Sarai poked her head back around the portrait. "Maybe think a bit about staying open to love? For me?"

She retreated again before Lissa could respond—off to tend little Ezran, who was now crying with gusto. Lissa looked at the portrait again and sighed. The perfect family.

"I'll try," she murmured.