Cathedra - Chapter 7: Blessed

I won't bore you with the excuses- I'm sorry it's so late, I'm trying to do better 🖤 please be patient with me

CW: language 

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She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, her eyes shut tightly and concentrating solely on making sure the nausea that crawled up her throat stayed down. For days she’d been plagued with steady waves of the overwhelming urge to retch, and two times now that day she had found herself bent over a bush and emptying the burning bile since she’d not been able to handle any food.

Saliva pooled in her mouth, whimpering. Handle your shit, woman! Don’t you vomit on this dress!

The pressing need to give in slowly subsided, leaving her a sweating, pale mess that leaned against the stone wall by the entrance, fanning her cheeks and taking deep breaths. The usually quick walk to meet her husband who’d she spotted riding up the mountain had been interrupted by this lingering illness, slowing her usually productive days.

The heavy hoof beats against the earth outside prompted her to push off the wall and tug tiredly against the iron lock, the heavy door creaking open and her tall, thick Orc of a husband striding up to her with his blood red cloak flowing behind him while Jakob and his men corralled their horses.

“Always cutting it close,” she scolded, grinning up at him.

His brow cocked in observation once he passed her, getting a good passover of her slouched shoulders and clammy skin. This was not how he had left her only six days ago, and it made his ears twitch in concern.

“Are you sick?” he asked, reaching to press the back of his knuckles against her cheek. No fever.

“I think so, my stomach has been so upset,” she sighed, eyes closing and leaning her face into his cool fingers.

“Hm,” he hummed, reaching to grab her hand and pull her wrist up to his nose.

There was something alarmingly different about her scent. It held a sense of familiarity, but hers had shifted, intensified more so than a flower ever could.

Nik’s eyes flew to hers, and she immediately read the alarm across his features after pushing the door closed behind him.

“What-” but he had kneeled before her in a flash, bringing her in by the hips so he could press his nose into her stomach. She held his shoulders, glancing around nervously.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her playful grin falling when he looked up at her.

“You’re pregnant,” he said, his heart kicking.

She blinked, looking away then back at him. “I am?”

He nodded, pressing his nose to the same spot again. “You’ve not taken Jasper's Thumb today?” he asked, studying the change.

“Not for a few days, actually,” she revealed, and he couldn't help but smile.

“You’re pregnant, Callie,”

Butterflies of the greatest magnitude she’d ever felt overtook her form, and she was glad Nik’s hands were there to steady her when she wavered.

It had only been a baby- just a child to raise as the result of their cunning, trickster marriage. It had been something she didn’t take all too seriously.

Now, it was her baby that she was providing with life.

It would be their child, a perfect mix of human and Orc.

She held her hand flat against her stomach when he stood before her again, looking off into her thoughts more than who was in front of her, overwhelmed by an insane spell of emotions thinking of the days and milestones to come, and eventually meeting this little one…

She looked up at Nik, his eyes just as filled with emotions as hers.

What could she say when the words didn't come? How could she tell him that she was strangely excited but also crushed by fear when imagining holding him… or her, in her arms for the first time? Or seeing Nik hold them?

But Nik spoke first, and without a clear grasp on exactly what he was thinking. “I suppose we don’t have to keep trying anymore,”

The moment crumbled, and she looked up at him with a dying smile when the same realization registered in her eyes.

“I suppose you’re right,” she exhaled softly, but the sting left behind such a small suggestion was unmistakable. She hadn’t considered that making it to this point would thus end the touching, the kissing, the arching so high off the ground he had to press her down so she wouldn’t wiggle from his hold. This ended falling into the arms of the man she’d so come to love.

The stunning disappointment flashed in both their eyes, but rather than confess that both had come to desire and adore each other, Callie straightened herself out, and swallowed her sadness.

This was part of your plan, Callie. “It would explain why I’ve felt so sick lately,” she tried to smile, but it was weak. The upset was mounting.

When was the last time I kissed you? He thought forlornly to himself, nodding at her obviously somber response.

“Well we did it,” he cleared his throat. “Congratulations,”

His face soured- why did you say that?

She faltered a bit- why did he say that? “To you too, my King. You’ll soon have an heir to carry on your name,”

That was a weird concept to try and picture. Had they gotten so cozy with just the two of them fucking about the castle that they’d so forgotten their ultimate game plan? This was completely knocking both of them upside the head and although they were in utter disbelief and showered in stunning amazement, the pair couldn’t help but also feel extreme upset knowing there was no reason to pass those intimate moments with one another now.

Nik nodded, looking down a brief moment before straightening back up, offering his elbow. “I believe we’re expected in the garden today, My Queen,”

Oh, she definitely recognized that expression of his.

Callie knew Nik liked to think himself unreadable when he grew emotional, but he didn’t believe her even after all the times she’d told him that the smallest turn of his emotions would turn his entire demeanor dark. Right now, he looked like he’d been robbed of happiness, and it was straining across his features.

Her hand slid into the crook of his elbow, her fingers squeezing the muscle.

They walked, and she thought of the times his arms had been a cage at her sides while kneeled between her thighs.

She felt the distinct, low burning sensation at her face when she fought the tears barely withheld, a slow plummeting swirling her stomach as she thought of the love she’d thrown her heart into and was now seizing right before her.

Why did you fall in love? Why? She scolded herself, blinking carefully as to not tempt the overflow of emotion that gripped at her throat.

Nik heard the small breaths she took beside him, the same ones that sounded similar to breaths of composure she’d take when flustered. He wanted to hold her hand and tell her it was okay- he knew by the way she walked stiffly beside him that her frame was gripped with the nerves that often turned her stomach sour.

He wanted to hear it, too. He wanted her to tell him that this wouldn’t be the last time they would ever exchange another touch. It made his heart ache mightily, something he’d never expected to experience with her.

The garden entrance slowly came into view after the small walk across the castle, the voices of the visitors inside low amongst the noises outside.

Her nausea seemed to worsen again as they drew closer, her hand flattening against her stomach.

So you’re the one who has caused such misery, she greeted the small one who only recently made itself known. It was bittersweet- she wanted to share this moment with him.

They turned the corner into the garden, Nik moving aside the hanging ivy and leading her through the stone archway adorned with flowers and vines.

A group mixed of humans and creatures alike that made up of former rulers and smaller diplomats littered the wide garden that sat at the back of the castle, the spring storms that had been persistently plaguing the land finally parting to allow the sun to warm the lush leaves around them.

Callie’s eyes met her parents, stood at the far end of the garden and overlooking what used to be there's. Still dressed as tacky as ever, but the disheveled state of her mothers hair told her how difficult she’d been adjusting to their new lives.

She felt her stomach further rile, and the urge to press her face into Nik’s arm and hide grew. This was the last thing she wanted to deal with right now.

Nik met his parents' critical glares too, his father taking in the attire he now wore and the cloak that dragged behind him that once sat on his own shoulders.

He squared his shoulders and puffed his chest, unflinching under his fathers gaze.

I’m King now. He had to remind himself.

Their entrance was announced, and in silence they all gathered at the massive stone table sat at the center, taking their places at the benches carved from the roots that shot from the earth around them and stones chiseled away to make surfaces.

Nik waited for Callie to sit before finding his spot beside her, her scent wafting under his nose.

He wanted to pull her into his lap and inhale deep from the spot against her throat he knew would be fragrant, or anywhere her pulse was strong beneath her skin. He wanted to revel in the fact he’d put a baby in her, his first one, but he had to only sit and face his people and keep his rampant thoughts from showing on his face.

When the area remained silent after they’d all sat and looked on at their King and Queen in either malice or fear, Nik looked at her, finding her to be staring off silently, a dead expression in her eyes, but one that showed her mind was moving too fast for her face to even bother trying to cover it up.

“My Queen,” he called softly, and she blinked, looking at him before the others.

She cleared her throat, but her voice still shook when she announced, “We’ve called you here today to discuss the matters of our borders and who is allowed to trade,”

Many of their faces soured or looked on in confusion, notably her parent’s who had dealt with this very issue continuously throughout their former reign.

Her heart was beating in her skull. All she wanted to do was sit alone and process, but also couldn’t help but feel she’d just lost something more dear to her than she’d cared realize before.

Nik saw her struggle, and the words hesitate on her quivering lip.

“Starting today,” he spoke up instead, “Orcs, Brezziks, Ogre’s- anyone and everything, are allowed to cross one anothers borders for trade. For the first time starting today, Castle Flores will also partake in this trading, to any race,”

Immediately there were noises of disapproval, and disgust, of surprise and disbelief.

“Castle Flores has never needed to open its walls!” Callie’s mother stood, her face red and glaring hatefully at her daughter.

“Is that true? Or did you really never bother to look at the faces of the people you once ruled?” Callie snapped, her bubbling emotions rising in her voice.

“We did our best-”

“You mishandled your power. I thought we were on the brink of starvation and ruin and you- all of you, let your power and greed turn this land rotten! We’ve been tasked in picking up the pieces you couldn't, so if another person objects to my laws that I put on my kingdom, I will banish you to the farthest end of this Earth and make sure your eyes never fall on another’s face again.”

Although the glares that were aimed at their queen were of only hate, and the one her mother wore was even colder, she still slowly shrank back into her seat, her own anger barely bridled.

The tears brimming Callie’s eyes did not spill, but it felt good expelling the emotions that had turned her mind upside down.

Callie breathed, squaring her shoulders and looking at Nik. “Continue, My King,”

He nodded, seeing now exactly where her emotions hung and how flammable they really were.

He wanted to hold her cheek and tell her it was going to be okay.

Nik went on about explaining to them how no matter the race, no harm would befall any travelers or merchants coming to trade, and that talks with neighboring nations re-opening borders that were once closed suddenly from past feuds would soon be up and running again. It riled their visitors something fierce to learn the walls they’d erected all because of their silly feuds would come crashing down. Some, especially the same Ogre that had approached Nik and Callie on that fateful day, clenched his fists tightly on the table's surface.

“This will only lead to disaster,” he ground out, chuffing angrily.

“How do we feed the onesss that will inevitably ssstay and make home on our landsss?” a former Brezzik princess hissed, her bright eyes jumping smoothly from face to face, her big, scaly hands splayed across the table.

“The surplus in shipments formally being made to Castle Flores will be dispersed amongst the settlements you all govern in case those travelers make home,” Nik answered.

“You can’t guarantee that would work!” the former human King of Green River stood, his chains and bells and necklaces noisily clashing together across his body when he rose.

“Could you, you fool?” Nik asked, silencing the man into a stupor. “I have no guarantee but I have enough gall to try. One more interruption from any of you and I’ll wear your tongue as a necklace,”

A stark silence fell after Nik’s voice filled the garden, the trees, turning their stomachs over and even his father’s gaze away. It amazed him how a group of adults that had been the ones to carry his roles before could act so childish and unwilling. It often tempted him to wipe them from the face of Cathedra and start new, but even though his laws were absolute, there were ones above him he could never change.

Callie smiled softly at him, her pride for her husband who once shook under the glare of these people now silencing them in swift blow.

She wanted to lean her head against his arm and whisper how proud she was, but the bittersweet thought only brought her back to the sadness that was sitting in her stomach like stones.

You should’ve told him when you had the chance.

She sighed, looking back out to their people as Nik went on to explain and list the new rules and regulations that came with this groundbreaking development the nation had not partook in almost thirty years. Although they obviously disapproved of each and every thing that came from his mouth, their objections were smothered into glares and low huffs, some growls and hisses here and there, but the King’s words never faltered.

When the last of his announcement had finished, he took another look around at all of them either staring up at them or absently ahead of them, taking in who was begrudgingly accepting this new regime or who he could pinpoint would be an issue after this meeting closed.

“Now you may speak,” he told them, him and Callie both tensing for the outcry.

But where they expected all the heat on themselves, it surprisingly dispersed amongst one another, men and beasts screaming at one another about how they refused to trade with non-humans or didn’t want the diseases of humans coming to their lands.

Callie almost scoffed, shifting in discomfort. As well as nausea plaguing her days, fatigue had lingered, making her body ache in ways that reminded her of sweaty illnesses.

Nik looked away from the chaos, his ears twitching and quickly understanding she was in discomfort.

“Do you feel sick?” he asked softly, easily tuning out the noise around them.

“I suppose I feel pregnant,” she whispered back, a blush darkening her cheeks just as one did to his.

His eyes fell to her stomach, and where he once struggled to imagine her body swollen with his child, her incredible, new scent brought only clarity when he pictured her colorful dresses hanging over a curved belly.

He wondered when it had finally happened, and how soon until he could press his hand to her stomach and feel life move beneath it.

Nik looked back to her face when she was looking away after a cool breeze washed in and blew the leaves and pedals all around them up into the air with the soft ones floating down from the trees above, landing all around the ones who still screamed at one another, and into Callie’s thick hair that fanned around her shoulders.

She picked them out gently, the jewels in her hair twinkling besides the silver chains around her hands and wrists.

He watched a pedal fall onto her plump thigh showing through the part of her dress, and felt his stiff composure falter when he recalled the last time he kissed the insides of those thighs, her sweet gasps filling his ears.

Without thought, he reached to brush the pedal away, the rough pads of his fingers sliding across her freckled, tan skin.

Her spine stiffened and toes curled at the sensation, a soundless gasp catching in her throat, and without thought, she reached to hold his huge hand there when he started to pull away, their eyes meeting.

“I like how your hands feel,” she whispered headily, pulling it back to lay flat across her thigh.

He was silent as he gazed at her intensely, his heart pounding like a drum when his hand engulfed her thigh, squeezing his fingertips into her supple flesh.

Her eyes fluttered, looking back out at the noise around them, but her mind only intimately on him with his hot palm against her skin. She kept her touch over his, guaranteeing he couldn’t pull away and break this contact she’d craved since his first arrival.

He looked back to the others, the sounds of their disputes slowly coming back to his muffled ears, and the swell of emotion when realizing he could no longer indulge in touches like this drove him to a fury he struggled to contain.

She moaned softly when his hand squeezed her thigh, her cheeks flushing bright red and wanting to spread her knees so he could touch where she ached for him.

But instead, his voice boomed over the commotion, his deafening roar silencing the fighting and spitting insults with one Orcish order.

Goosebumps erupted across her arms and sides, his hoarse voice turning their guts as hers flipped in excitement.

She wanted this to be over already. These twists and turns of emotions were worse than the nausea that had turned her pale the past few days, and the building arousal for the man she couldn’t have anymore only filled her heart with more ache.

Callie sighed when his hand slid away, standing to shout and scream at all the people around them.

Tears pricked her eyes again. I want this to be over.

When the meeting had finally closed and everyone was filing out in silent fury, Nik and Calle stepped aside, watching them slowly walk up to bow before departing, most of their horses ready and others leaving by foot.

Callie’s eyes fell on her parents who tried to leave without a word, her nose scrunching in annoyance.

“Mother,” she called coldly, watching her shoulders flinch before turning to face her decorated daughter who no longer had hesitant smiles to offer in hopes of peace.

The former queen approached, her demeanor flighty and head hung before stopping a few feet from her daughter's Orcish husband she was secretly extremely intimidated by.

Her mother bit back what she truly desired to say, speaking through clenched teeth. “Yes, my Queen?”

Callie almost smiled. It was the first time she’d acknowledged her like that.

“Where’s Patricia?” she asked instead.

Her mother’s eyebrows flickered. “She- she never came back,” she disclosed, confusion coloring her face. “She’s not been here?”

Nik stepped closer to Callie. “She was never permitted to return here,”

Her mother flinched, collecting her nerves. “After that day she came back with us but left the next morning, saying she would be off to take her place as your Wing Maiden,”

Callie scoffed. “You believed she’d do that amicably?”

“You’ve always spoken so low of your sister-”

Callie’s hand raised, silencing anything more. “I will extend the same courtesy you did to me when I came to you in need, and end it here. You may leave,”

“Calista!” she implored, her father coming up to pull on her shoulder, unable to meet his own daughter's glare.

“LEAVE.” She demanded, her patience and love for her parents spent.

“Luciana!” her father hissed, yanking her arm harshly so she stumbled to his side. She fought to talk sense into him as she was dragged away, her finger jabbing towards Callie and spitting insults at her in their tongue.

Nik stood closer to her, glaring over Callie’s head and his lips pulled back slightly over his sharp teeth until the pair had gone like the others.

“You don’t think it would’ve been wise to ask further questions?” he asked softly, looking down at her conflicted expression.

“I’d had a feeling Patricia was still at large, and now I know she’ll likely come along sooner than later if she’s not been home,” she exhaled, a hand resting at her stomach. Her own safety was no longer just her own, but also for the small one she was growing.

“You think she’ll attack?” Nik’s own words made him uneasy, even glancing around in the garden they still stood in.

“I do,” she said easily, but the gravity of the situation always hung on her. Despite the castle now sitting quietly without her family's rage screaming down the halls, she still found herself glancing over her shoulder or flinching away from cracked doors she sometimes still expected to find Patricia lurching from.

“What about your other sister?” he asked, following her out.

“Rose is dead, I’ve known this since she first went missing. The only thing I can do for her now is one day hopefully find where Patricia hid her body so I can bury her properly. Until then, life goes on,” she mumbled, looking down at her stomach as they stepped into the stone corridor.

Nik didn’t know how to offer support, and struggled to conjure words, but Jakob’s arrival along with a few of the ones that had once been gathered around the table gave his mind reprieve from that conflict.

“They wish to speak to you, My King,” Jakob told him, his scowl telling him that this conversation would likely result in a headache.

Nik nodded, looking at Callie. “One moment,”

She watched him greet the goblins who chattered and asked him hurried questions as he ushered them back outside to the garden, leaving Callie with Jakob who stood by stiffly.

Her kindness had undoubtedly dwindled for him, but still, something stubborn within herself kept pushing forward to keep trying to crack him open.

“How are you doing, Jakob?” she asked, taking the moment to lean her tired frame against the wall without the judging looks from her people around.

He nodded curtly. “Fine, your Majesty,”

Her lips pursed as she nibbled the insides of them, her fingers tapping against her arms that were crossed. “I owe you an apology,”

She caught his ear twitching, and was even given a glance. If being the first to buckle was what it took to end this silly feud between them, she’d do it.

“No matter how you feel about the entirety of this situation we’ve all struggled to adjust to, it wasn't my place to bring it up, or tell you what you were feeling, and for the things I said and assumed, I’m deeply sorry,” she pushed off the wall, mindful to stay out of his reach but close some of the awkward distance between them.

When he looked at her again his eyes didn’t flick away, and his glare that had been ferocious that night had cooled. He shifted a little more as the silence prolonged, the words he obviously wanted to say bubbling in his chest. With a quick turn he was facing her, his towering form not as intimidating as the first time.

“I was never given the luxury of being asked, or even being told what was happening yet you and even my own brother have expected me to accept all of this without even a thought of disapproval,” he explained calmly, glancing at his brother who still fought to speak over the Goblins. “You say you made a King out of my brother, but all I see is another human who took what they wanted without asking,”

It stung, his words, to be accused of something so opposite to what she had done, but from the outside looking in, she could see that that’s exactly how some could’ve seen it.

“I hope over time you can come to see that Nik means more to me than just a King, but someone I’ve come to admire and cherish by my side,” she told him, her words softening. “I’m sorry I did this the wrong way, and that I didn’t have your trust before this all happened, but I’m also confident you will come to see that we both made this decision, not only me,”

He exhaled, his scowl growing around his single tusk. “I know that,”

“Then kindly, Jakob, I think it’s time for you to stop looking at me for closure and instead accept that this is our life now. If not for me, then your brother,” she told him, only a moment for him to take in her words and process before Nik came back, the Goblins now chattering quietly and waddling back towards the exit of the corridor.

He worried coming up to his brother and Callie that he would have to throw himself between another altercation, but instead walked into a space not occupied by stifling tension, and met his brother’s calm expression.

“Is everything alright?” Nik asked, glancing between them.

Jakob nodded, his temper settling. “Our men and horses are waiting to return home,” he passed along, his higher thoughts still circulating Callie’s words.

“Hm,” Nik pondered, looking at Callie. “I think I’ll stay here today, actually. Do we have any further errands to run?”

Jakob shook his head, inwardly relieved to know that he could take the day to kick back somewhere in the trees and think, maybe even nap like he used to before their days grew busy.

“Take the day, we’ll meet up again at sunset,” Nik instructed, and reached forward to bump his forearm with Jakob’s.

“My King,” Jakob acknowledged, then facing Callie to nod his head. “Your Majesty.”

“Have a good day, Jakob,” she grinned, watching him depart.

Nik waited until he was clear out of earshot before looking at her in mild panic. “Did you push him again?”

She snorted. “We actually had quite the civil conversation,”

He eyed her. “No broken wrists?”

She giggled, shaking her head. “Now then, I’m assuming the first place you’re going to want to visit in this wretched castle is the kitchen, no?”

His lips flattened into a straight line. “It’s the only good thing about this place,”

“Yes, you’ve made that quite clear, my King,” she turned to slip her hand into the crook of his arm, following close-by as they strolled.

It pained her to know their intimacy wouldn’t carry on past these touches, but in her heart, she still found herself thankful that she could proudly say that he stood at her side, but it also made her wonder how they could raise a child together without carrying out a proper marriage, or relationship, no less.

The trek to the kitchen was brief, and to their delight only a few maids were left inside the wide room when they arrived, bowing their heads and finishing their tasks quickly.

“They didn’t have to leave,” he mumbled, moving to a cabinet he knew held the jerky once the room was theirs.

“It’s me, I bark at them all day to leave me alone,” she winced in guilt, following him in to lean against a counter, her pretty dress kicking up around her feet.

He took a hearty rip of a bite off the piece he pulled out, snarling lowly and reaching for a small loaf of bread off another counter.

“There are sweets in that one,” she pointed across the room, but he shuddered.

“I don’t care too much for sweets,” he said around a mouthful, easily lifting himself onto a counter to sit down, his feet almost touching the stone floor still. “My father wouldn’t allow such delicacies,”

“He’s quite the frightening thing,” she admitted, recalling the striking similarity of their glares, but still vastly more intimidated by his father’s. The thought, however, sparked more, bringing forth questions she’d had since first learning more and more details about him and his family.

“Can I ask you something?” she asked, pushing off the counter to come stand by him.

His ears twitched, his eyes focused on her as he chewed. She almost giggled- he could be awfully cute sometimes.

“How did you and your father come to have matching scars?” she asked softly.

He rotated the loaf in his hands, looking off before himself. Although he looked at himself daily in the reflection of water's surface, he’d learned to repress the memory upon seeing his scar and blind eye looking back at him. “When I was much younger, he had taken me and my brother out hunting. It hadn’t been our first time, but we were so small- we still didn’t know the game like he did,”

She listened intently, not even acknowledging the early summer rain that started to fall outside and splatter across the stone window seals.

“We had come across a mountain screamer, and because I couldn’t take the shot, he attacked my father and swiped across his face. When we returned home, he was so enraged he took his knife and carved the same designs into my face and eye,”

Callie blinked, digesting his words. “How old were you?” she asked.

He scoffed lowly, taking another small bite. “I was seven,” he mumbled. “I think and try to understand what kind of lesson he was trying to teach me, but I think he only hated me in that moment,”

“And your mother?” she asked, desperate for any kind of hope.

“She made Jakob watch,”

It made her feel faint. How could someone do that to a child- their own, no less?

He looked at her midsection and pointed with the loaf. “That little one will never know the burning of a slap or a knife across his skin,” he told her sincerely, although shyly. “I am not my father,”

She shook her head, tears pricking the back of her eyes when she couldn’t help but envision how small he’d been, and how he must’ve screamed at the hands of the man he was supposed to have been able to turn to.

“Do you think we can actually do this?” she asked softly, holding her stomach.

He chuckled. “You’re asking that a little late, don’t you think?”

“You are not worried at all?” she asked, stepping closer.

Nik shook his head. “I know you are fiercely strong, and loving, and don’t bend to other people's words or wills. There is no doubt in my mind you could raise and nurture another to be as furiously brave as you,” he told her, reaching to bump her chin with his knuckles.

She leaned into his touch even for that brief moment, butterflies fluttering in her occupied belly. “Do you think the same way of yourself, Nik?”

He shrugged. “Perhaps. I know that I will love that child and not just raise it to be another King,”

She smiled, moving to pull herself up onto the counter beside him with a grunt and scooting into his side. “They’re blessed to have you and no other as their father, my love,” she rested her head on his shoulder.

Nik felt his heart skip a beat or two, an unexpected comfort washing over his apprehensive body when she so confidently spoke. Throughout their time together, he’d come to learn that her words always held honesty, and compassion, so when she spoke of something like this that filled his days and nights with worry, it was hard not to fold under the anxiousness that drifted from his bones.

He leaned his head back, his cheek atop her head and blinking away the extra moisture.

“I’m blessed to have you, belovun.” He grinned, the pair soaking in the tender moment with the one who would one day carry on their reign.

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