33: [Bonus chapter]A life for a life

[Bonus chapter]A life for a life

Adela pressed a hand against her nervous heart.2

"Go on, father,"

Kaiser de Lanark opened his eyes; they kept darting between the window and his daughter as he recalled the events of that forsaken night.

"I was told that one of the maids was having a life-threatening delivery, her husband begged for a doctor so loud that his cries came through the window and filled the King's sick chambers... For years, I kept hearing that man's screams after they told me what he did when his wife lost her life that night,"

She winced. It was true then. Egon's father was denied a doctor when so many were so close by, with his wife passing away, he must have been driven to insanity.

It was a cruel fate indeed. One that could have been avoided. 

"Could you not have spared one doctor, father?" She asked with a strained voice.

Kaiser clenched his jaw; it was yet another unforgivable deed committed by the late King. But he was not the only one to blame.

"The delusional King stopped me, he would not hear of it, ordering everybody to stay inside that room while he died was his final edict before he parted ways with this mortal world, putting more invisible blood on his hands…"

Kaiser lifted his hand and turned it around a couple of times in the air then made a fist that shook near Adela's face.

"I see blood on my hands too, Adelaide,"

Astounded by the sudden words she heard him say, she threw her arms around her father, holding him as tight as she could.

"Do not say that! You cannot go against the word of the King!"

A heavy dose of regret tasted bitter in his mouth as he spoke his mind to her, "Do your father a favor, Adelaide, for the day when I lose my sanity shall also come…"

"Do not continue…Please…I cannot live without you!"

He planted a kiss on the tip of her head and swallowed back a wave of heavy tears .

"My dearest...You are not only the hope I have in me…"

He shook his head, his eyes roaming the space around them, the truth about his Adelaide did not belong to this dark night, and that secret was not his to share with her.

"You are our hope… Never forget these words, let them enlighten your darkest of all nights,"

Adelaide sobbed the tears that Kaiser's heart was crying, the moon shone brightly over the two of them, but the girl's night could not have gone any darker, and his words did nothing to console her.

"I need some time alone, Adelaide,"

As if to replace his daughter's company, Lanark's sky was split by a long line of lightning followed by loud thunder.

"Go back before the rain," he commanded then took a few long strides away from her.

Unable to deny him his request for solitude, Adela left her father as quietly as she could. But her feet that followed her heart did not take her in the direction of the Archduke's manor and back to her chamber as he would have wanted. She found herself in a meadow of sunflowers colored silver beneath the moonlight instead.

Much like hers, the flowers' heads were bent down, a posture that reflected Adela's most sorrowful moment. She sat on the muddied ground and gathered her knees with her hands, hugging them to her, making herself as small as possible, wishing for the agony to either become as small or drown in the rain that fell heavily over her head.

All too soon, the loud neigh of a horse had her jumping to her feet, and the sight of the man riding his stallion was enough to drive her heart wild.

What is he doing here?

Her eyes glided down his wet dripping hair to the restless expression on his permanently frowning face, he conveniently wore his hunting gear and looked down at her with merciless black eyes.

Adela who was quick to realize that she was not ready to face him turned around and started walking the opposite way. But the instantaneous and ominously vivid clattering of metal against metal had her turning around once more, she watched as the tips of the clashing arrows mirrored the moonlight before they settled. 

"Adelaide,"

Just like a lie, Egon spoke, looking down at her bewildered face.

The normal reaction was for her to scream at the top of her lungs, but her heart thumped evenly, not an ounce of fear inside of it in response to the abnormal occurrence.

These must be the final calm thoughts of a hunted dear…

"You have spoken to him," he stated.

"…Nothing can bring back that which you have lost, Egon…"

"Meaning?... You still think he is not in the wrong?"

"He told me all about it, he could not go against his Monarch..."

Egon's frenzy was evident in his shaking face. 

"His Monarch? Of course… Nobles above commoners, and the King above them all... Any other values you carry would have been shocking," his eyes sparked with revulsion, "You are a de Lanark, after all,"

The jolt of shame she felt for being called the name she had always carried with pride was unexpected.

"You want to blame somebody, but father is not the one to blame!"

He took a step forward leaving almost no space between them and glared down right into her eyes.

"You are blind with pride! The Archduke governs a set of unjust rules… The highest branch of a rotten tree..."

She shook her head, desperately denying it. 

"And you? You are your father's daughter… I shall never forgive your family for what they did,"

She raised her head up and pleaded with her eyes, begging for a miracle, a way to persuade and heal this broken man from his past, a way to win him over on her side.

"You are Hopeless," came his heartless murmur.

In the deafness of the night, those three words sounded like a death sentence to her, giving her just what she had been searching for.

"Rotten and hopeless… Blind with pride… That is me...But how about you and those dark eyes of yours, Egon?... Do they not see what has become of you... How blinded you have become with revenge?"

He scowled at her, "It is justice that I seek,"

Under the watch of two vacant eyes, she reached out and slowly pulled an arrow from behind his back.

"Let it be justice then,"

Adela brought the arrow to the side of her neck.

Fear brought life to his big dead eyes, "What do you think you're doing?"

"Justice…That is what you seek, it is what brought you all the way to Lanark, is it not? Wouldn't a life of a member from house de Lanark deliver that justice to you?" 

she pressed the tip of the arrow ever so slightly, a drop of blood formed where the sharp edge pierced the surface of her skin, and an eager line of blood streamed its way down her pale neck.

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