The Second Wife
By Misha
Disclaimer- Not mine.
Author’s Notes- This one is a little dark. I started theorizing about Luther’s second wife and the fact that we don’t know anything about her. We know that she was alive during the dinner with the Drammirs before the war, but nowhere to be seen after the war. We know that she is Marco and Zenobia’s mother for sure and that’s about it. This popped into my head and I found myself writing it down and trying to give her a little backstory. My headcanon name for Diavolos’s mother is Livia and I decided to call Luther’s second wife, Julia.
Rating- PG-13 (though there are some dark undertones)
Pairing- Luther/Other (kinda)
Summary- It wasn’t easy being the second wife.
Words- 1104
Julia was nineteen when she married King Luther.
He was thirty-two, a widower with two little boys.
He was hardened by war and the loss of his wife, she had been raised for a life of balls and political intrigue. It was not a love match. He needed a wife to look after his children and run his castle. She was ambitious enough to want to be queen.
“You have a good chance of catching his eye,” her mother had told her with satisfaction when it became clear he was in the market for a second wife, “it helps that you look nothing like Livia.”
It was true, with her red hair and green eyes and pale complexion, Julia looked nothing like the dark-haired, dark-eyed Queen Livia, but she failed to see why that was important. She would soon learn why that was important and would understand why Luther would never have chosen a woman who looked like Livia because he didn’t want reminders of the wife who haunted him.
He could barely stand to look at Baltair and Diavolos, especially Diavolos. Julia felt bad for the little boy, but she didn’t know how to reach him. It was obvious that he didn’t want another mother and he was just so quiet and withdrawn that Julia had no idea how to relate to him.
So Julia focused on Baltair and left Diavolos to his own devices, though she made sure he was fed and clothed and she told herself that was all she was obligated to do.
It wasn’t long before she was with child. It was a son, Marco. She hoped Luther would be happy, but he barely looked at the boy and went back to the war. Julia tried not to resent him, this distant husband who barely noticed that she existed.
Instead, she focused on her baby and the social duties that came with being Queen of Abanthus. She began to plan for her son’s future, hoping to maneuver him into the position as his father’s heir. After all, Marco was Luther’s oldest son from her and that had to count for something.
As the years passed, Julie bore Luther two more children, another son and then a daughter. Only the last drew any reaction from him. If there was any softness left in Luther Nevrakis it belonged to his daughter, his Zenobia. He spoiled the girl, encouraged her to be bratty and petty and intervened when Julia tried to teach her manners, chastising Julia for daring to try and parent her daughter.
It was one of the many situations that reminded her that she was not his partner or his equal, she was simply his social hostess. He’d had a wife, one whose death had destroyed whatever heart he might have had, and he had no intention of filling her place, not really.
A few years after Zenobia was born, Luther even stopped visiting her bed. Julia didn’t know if it was because he took a lover or not, but she doubted it. There weren’t any rumors, and there’s nothing the nobles of Lykos liked more than gossip. Besides, that would be too much effort for Luther. It was much more likely that he simply channeled all his energy into his obsession with defeating the Iron Empire and he didn’t even have time to spare for physical pursuits.
After all, they weren’t married long before Julia realized how deep his obsession with his war really went. Or the fact that he expected his sons to follow in his footsteps.
Diavolos was only thirteen when he fought his first battle and Julia had never seen her husband so proud. He had spent eight years ignoring the boy, but that all changed in an instant and soon Diavolos was getting all of Luther’s attention.
The other children noticed, especially Marco, Julia’s precious son. She worried about him. He worshipped his father, but Luther barely seemed to know he existed. Marco was also smaller than his brothers and he lacked Diavolos’s skill with a weapon, not that that stopped him from pushing himself and continually trying to win his father’s approval.
It never came. Diavolos became Luther’s most trusted soldier and Baltair and Seoras earned places in their father’s army, but nothing Marco did could win his father’s approval. In time, Marco began to realize it too and in his frustration, he developed a cruel streak.
Julia tried to reach out to him, but like every other member of the family, he didn’t pay any attention to her. He wasn’t her sweet little boy any longer. His father’s neglect and cruelty and the constant competition with his more capable brothers had turned him into a monster.
It was then that Julia finally began to hate her husband.
She was glad when he went to live in his newly conquered kingdom, though she resented that he took her son with him. Not that she knew Marco anymore. Julia stayed in Lykos, though she had no authority there. It was Zenobia who had been appointed to rule in her father’s stead, proving how little Luther valued his wife.
When he stopped in Lykos on the way to fight his damned war, they were like strangers. Julia fleetingly wondered if this campaign would be when Luther finally met his end at the hand of that damned Empress and she wondered if she would ever shed a tear if that happened.
She would never know. However, it wasn’t long before Julia was shedding tears, but not over Luther. With Luther gone, Stormholt quickly fell to the rebel queen and with it, Julia’s beloved son. She wept over Marco’s death, cursing her husband for failing their son in every way, including at the end.
She only wished for the chance to tell him how much she hated him. The sickness came and in her grief from Marco’s death, Julia didn’t have the strength to fight the illness or the willpower to do so. She might have found it if the news hadn’t come telling her that Baltair and Seoras were dead as well. So both her sons, and the one she’d raised from infancy, were gone, thanks to Luther and his obsession with war.
Her daughter had been lost to her long ago.
She was a queen in name only, a wife without a marriage, and now a mother without children. She had nothing left, including strength. But with her last breaths, with the last strength she had, Julia cursed Luther and hoped that one day he would know what it was like to lose everything.
- End
