49: Disturbing possibilities on the horizon

Disturbing possibilities on the horizon

"Adela! Open the door!"0

Panic almost choked her when she heard her sister's urgent whispers from behind the closed door. The next thing she felt was a change in the wind around her, she could have sworn it came from outside seeing the drawn curtains swaying back and forth, but the disappearance of the man who was about to kiss her just now told her otherwise. 

Did he leave the room or is he hiding somewhere?

"Adela!"

Her eyes quickly roamed her invaded room as she tried to think through the panic, but her nervous feet were already by the door, she gulped before opening it for her sister.

Larissa who looked equally shaken as she passed by Adela with quick steps into the middle of the room did not spare one glance at her sister. She paced around mumbling intangible words to herself.

"Larissa!" Adela whispered angrily.

Her older sister pressed one hand against her throbbing forehead and finally stopped to make eye contact with Adela. Her words poured out too fast when she spoke them.

"I have been waiting for everybody to retreat to their chambers before coming here! I could not tell you what happened while you were asleep in the few minutes that I saw you before! You hurried out with father only to come back so late... Do not get me started about mother! When was the last time the Archduchess stayed up to this hour in the piano room all by herself? I heard the maids saying that she was drinking..."

Adela frowned at Larissa who said too much without really saying anything at all. The girls had to follow very strict rules about sleeping hours, and the last thing Adela wanted right now was to deal with the maids' gossip.

She could not make up her mind on whether she was thankful for or upset about Larissa's timely interruption. 

Larissa's eyes cut to the source of the icy breeze she felt, her ivory nightgown floated behind her, and her red locks shimmered brown beneath the silver moonlight as she hurried to the end of the room to close the window.

"It is freezing in here!"

"Oh…"

Adela was still flushing with the aftermath of her — once again — half-finished conversation with the invader, she bit her lips when she felt them tingling.

Picking up Adela's discarded robe from over the bed, Larissa walked back to the middle of the room and helped her sister into it. Adela's skin was unreasonably hot every time her fingers grazed against her.

"You cannot run a fever now of all times!" She exclaimed as she placed the back of her hand on Adela's forehead.

Adela took a step back and raised her hands up, palms pushed forward in an attempt to slow her sister down and make sense of her words, "What are you doing here, Lari, what are you talking about!?"

Larissa paled.

"The Crown Prince, he will be a staying guest in Lanark, in this manor to be more specific,"

"…What?"

Larissa wished for a different reaction, but seeing the bewilderment on her sister's face made her all the warier.

Something was very wrong with that unprecedented arrangement!

"I heard the Baroness and mother whispering about it during the second day... The three of us were waiting behind the closed door…Father…"

"I cannot keep up with that jumbled sequence!" Adela protested.

"...When Arkin brought you here, pale and unconscious, father almost lost his mind! He would not permit anyone inside, Adela… We were so worried…"

Cold all of a sudden, Adela rubbed her hands together anxiously. She had no recollection of how she returned to the manor, nor any idea about what took place as she slept through the pain of her loss.

"The King demanded to be informed of your recovery through the Archduke directly, but when father refused to leave your side, we received word that the Crown Prince was on his way here to visit you,"

Larissa waited patiently for Adela to fully absorb the news, but when that took too long, she decided to blurt it out, hoping to hear Adela's immediate dismissal of the outrageous conclusion.

"I believe the Crown Prince is on his way here to court you!"

Larissa was relieved when the dismissal she wanted to see on her sister's face became evident.

"I am sure that it is not the case. His Highness must be thinking about the rebellion, you know how creative he can get about solutions,"

The fox of Emoria, Claude de Lanark was as manipulative as his title required him to be. 

"But the rumors…"

Adela placed a hand on her sister's shoulder and rubbed tenderly.

"The rumors are just that, rumors…" she brushed the back of her other hand against Larissa's soft cheek, "Claude and I were very close as children, but I have not seen him in years… Whatever would possess a nobleman to consider his cousin as a wife when every other Lady in Emoria is at his beck and call?" 

Larissa scowled at her younger sister.

Almond eyes that were alert and inquisitive, a button nose over pink lips, skin that glowed healthily, and platin blonde hair that looked almost white under this light.

She looked as beautiful as one of the winter fairies the two sisters searched the garden for so many times growing up.

"Your beauty aside, you mean?"

Adela was not waiting for an answer to her rhetorical question.

"Adela…I can talk about your kindness and bright mind until the sun comes out, but if Claude was searching for the Emorian Queen, then I can think of nobody to fit that position better than my younger sister,"

"Larissa…"

"Listen to me... Whether he is here to court you or not, father had always said that first and foremost comes our consent…This vast world is very different than what we thought it to be, Adela, it is much bigger than Lanark! And it might be so scary to take a step away, but once your eyes see something else, you might just realize what you have been missing!"

The depth of passion Larissa spoke with belonged to those who have seen such a world, and for a moment there, Adela was frightened. She feared that the person who showed her older sister a new world belonged to somebody else, somebody who followed him around, even inside somebody else's strange dream.

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