32: The truth about one dark night

The truth about one dark night

Time meant something else to Adela as of late.0

Packed with an abundance of events and developments she had no control over, the more it passed the more the truth became apparent, and for that alone, she wished it could go faster still.

I shall prove father innocent…

She did not keep track of time during the silent ride back to the von Condarie's estate with a soundless Egon, nor did she feel the distance her mare crossed between the von Conradie's stables and home where she was now.

Finally, The sight of her concerned sister pacing around the de Lanark's stables was moving enough for her to regain awareness of the hour. She dismounted and lead Evita back to the tack room.

"Larissa,"

Adela spoke to an equally dazed Larissa, pale as an autumn leaf and as fragile as one. She turned around with a hand wrapped around her throat and widening eyes that studied Adela's every feature, thus noticing traces of her despair. 

"…Your face… Andreas..."

"He has returned unharmed, there is nothing the matter with him,"

Adela's eye twitched saying that, she still did not quite comprehend what had taken over her when she tried to examine him.

Larissa bent down and held her knees, the relief of hearing the good news overwhelming her.

"Larissa…" Adela had to prioritize the urgent task at hand, "Have you seen father by any chance?"

"He is with his birds," she straightened up and gave her younger sister a meaningful look.

Adela's brows furrowed with concern. At this hour? The sky was dark with dusk, and it was no time for falconry.

"Mother said that he was not in the best of spirits ever since he sent you out," Larissa's teeth clattered as her hands tugged at the shawl she wore. 

"I see…Go inside, you will catch a cold in here,"

Adela closed the distance between the two of them and caressed her sister's sweet cold cheek a few times until Larissa's head nodded with approval. She turned on her heels and walked out of the stable.

Walking required too much of Adela's patience, so she broke into a run.

Father…

Her trust in him exceeded questions and putting him through an interrogation was the last thing the daughter of the Archduke could dream of doing. Her mind was racing with ideas like that until she stopped at the bottom of the hill where Egon had pushed her.

I will be right there, father...

The breath she drew burnt her dry throat and aching chest, but she pushed her body forward and up the hill then ran all the way down until she reached the mews, her eyes finally seeing him.

Hunchbacked and alone, Kaiser stood near Kannen's nest. The tiresome run was forgotten when she felt his fatigue radiating from within him, she took steady steps and stood by his side where she belonged. 

"You have abandoned Your falcon," Kaiser said as if he had eyes at the back of his head and had seen her running to him.

"… How could I ever? He is my companion for life," she rubbed her forehead against her falcon's feathers lovingly. 

Adela's presence had a calming effect on both, Kaiser de Lanark, and her agitated bird.

"Father, Andreas is back,"

The Archduke's ever so steady hand that brushed over the animal's feathers slightly trembled before her eyes. 

Submitting to the twist she felt in her heart, she looked at Kannen and took a deep breath, "I still remember it as if it was yesterday... You were my very first patient with your swollen ankle," her eyes shimmered with the rising moon when she smiled and looked up at her father, "I bandaged it, do you remember?"

The Archduke smiled at one of his most fond memories, "You did it all wrong,"

Her smile widened, "I was ten, what did you expect?"

The corners of Kaiser's lips twitched down, his mood turning pensive as he recalled what he did not expect back then.

"My ankle healed by the evening,"

Adela's soft laugh rang like a musical bell, "You wanted to encourage my efforts and reward me, so you went out and brought me a box full of chicks and asked me to choose one of them,"

Indeed, he was testing her.

"You chose the sickly one, a falcon at that," he looked at Kannen in all his glory, then compared how nervous he was before Adelaide came this evening and how relaxed he seemed now, putty in the hands that were petting him, "he is the biggest bird of prey I have ever seen, Adelaide... it is because of you,"

"I took good care of him, it was my responsibility, a living breathing being... how could I have neglected him?"

Her breath hitched when Kaiser swept the corner of her eye with the back of his hand, the dampness that spread made her realize that she was crying.

"Father...you are the wall behind my back, every star that guides my way is you… A word, or an act of kindness that is never bragged about… I shall always look up to none other than you,"

"You Adelaide, you are my pride and Joy…" his hand moved up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, "You are the reflection I see in the river of my life… It is you…"

She watched as his honest smile changed into a grimace when his eyes drifted to the ring on her thumb.

"Did you touch him… Did you touch any of them?"

"No,"

He searched her eyes for a long moment then walked a couple of steps away from the bird.

She followed him, stopping one step further and looking deep into his faraway eyes, "Father, the von Conradies, they carry a grudge against us… Who are they? What do they want of you? Egon von Conradie says you have the answers,"

"Ask and you shall receive them, Adelaide,"

Father...

"He said his father went to Lanark's Forest to commit suicide, he was there with him…How could a father do this to his child? Who would go into Lanarks Forest premeditating the slaughter of their entire family?"

Kaiser looked a decade older as he let out a heavy sigh.

"The King was visiting me that day, he was ill during his last days — he kept saying that he saw blood on his hands… I gathered all the doctors knowing that none could cure him from the sins he committed in the past, the same ones messing with his head back then..."

He closed his eyes as he remembered his biggest regret of them all. 

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