60: The dark side of the sun

The dark side of the sun

Shortly after she had finally closed her eyes, Adela woke up from a terrible nightmare.0

Escaping her bed which felt more like a crime scene than a place of rest, she came rushing down the stairs holding on to her thick shawl. She opened the huge door and was surprised at how uneasy it was to pull it, she who never had to open the door to this manor before.

Her heart was pounding in her chest as she stepped outside into the cool night air, her breath forming a mist in front of her face. The manor had always been eerily quiet at this hour, but the realization that there was nobody inside those walls instantly transformed her home into a desolate fortress of cold stones, stripped of any warmth or life.

There was absolutely no peace in the stillness of this lonely night.

She tightened the grip of her shawl around herself and ventured down the garden path, her mind swirling with questions like a tornado.

"...Where are you, father,"

The words were accompanied by the first tear she allowed herself to shed tonight. She angrily wiped it away with her finger.

I have to stay strong.

Her eyes drifted to the small space beneath a balcony where her father used to find her every time she crawled to cry. Not once did he ask her what was wrong, he would lift her up, place her on his broad shoulders, and run with her holding onto his head, turning the tears into giggles.

Fly over your sorrows, Adelaide, your father shall be your wings! Another tear fell from her eye as she heard his voice inside her head.

"Thank God you're here,"

Adela gasped as she whirled around to find him standing there. Claude was still wearing the same suit from the ball, but his attire was considerably disheveled. His eyes held a look of disapproval as he took off his cloak and draped it over her shoulders.

"Claude," she choked out his name.

"Come here," he said, gesturing for her to come closer.

His embrace was strange now that he was taller, and his arms were the ones to wrap around her. Still, it was just what Adela needed. 

"I have confirmed that uncle is in Destan, I am summoning the most talented physicians for him. Someone will be in touch with you very soon. But I cannot take you with me right now," he said as he let her go, but his hand remained on her face as he looked at her with an unusual intensity.

"If it wasn't for his wishes, he would have been cured long ago," he continued, his gaze drifting down with a frown.

Adela was about to ask him what he meant when he interrupted her. "Where is your necklace?"

Her gaze averted from his, and she mumbled, "I left it upstairs."

"Tell the truth now,"

"...I lost it."

His emerald eyes glimmered with frustration, and for a moment, he appeared unrecognizable to the Adela who grew up with him.

"He was right about the promise ring," he stated.

Adela regarded him with confusion in her eyes.

"All the gossip you hear about us, have you ever wondered about its source?"

A feeling of apprehension swept over her.

"There is no use in prolonging this any further. I want to make you the Emorian Queen," he announced, bringing up a second one of her nightmares tonight.

She took a step back, "Claude...we're cousins!"

"Are we?"

Adela's expression contorted into one of horror. She had been bombarded with enough lies tonight and was certainly not ready for this revelation.

"What are you saying?!" she exclaimed.

"That I bear no resemblance to him, and the rumors about his infertility have spread far and wide. My mother… did she truly pass away from natural causes or… or did he..." Claude trailed off, leaving the implication hanging in the air.

"He could not have gone that far," Adela whispered, desperately wishing she could deny it with more conviction.

The current King was a long shadow that loomed over the kingdom, and the Crown Prince was the eagerly anticipated dawn.

"Even if we are cousins, it is not without precedent," Claude added, his voice a mixture of resignation and determination.

As Egon's face appeared in Adela's mind, she realized that she needed to clarify things with Claude.

"I consider you a brother," she stated firmly.

He leaned in close to whisper in her ear, and she stiffened. Claude noticed her reaction and understood that it was different from the ones she had given him before. Finally, she was seeing him as a man.

"I can change that if you let me. But I know that this isn't about us. It's about you and that...thing, isn't it?"

Shocked, she could not find the words to respond.

"What I feel for you comes from here." He took her hand and placed it on his beating heart. "I want you not because I cannot be without you, but because I choose to be with you."

What is that supposed to mean? The words got stuck in her throat. 

"Don't act surprised. I've talked to your father about everything. He thought he was giving me information, but he was really just filling in the blanks... I know exactly what those so-called merchants are."

The impulse to protect Egon to the very end had Adela looking at Claude with innocent eyes as if waiting for him to reveal what she already knew, for the simple purpose of denying it feverously. 

Claude didn't seem convinced of her ignorance, but he had other motives at the moment. He took two proud steps away from her before turning to face her again.

"It's utterly disgusting, how easy it was for two commoners to fill the void of a neglected Lanark by waving a handful of mana stones around!"

"Void..." She repeated, trying to make sense of the word.

He scoffed, "Right, a void would have been better than assigning mercenaries to the forest... Low lives who would contaminate the waters of land for a bunch of coins! Only he is capable of something this twisted!" 

Adela's eyes went wide with recognition, "He... As in..." She trailed off, one name away from committing treason. 

"...Think about the big picture. How the rebels never attacked auctioned lands... How the Archduke who brought victory to the first king was never allowed to fully fight them back on his own territory! How they conveniently kidnapped that so-called merchant when news about you working for them reached his ears..."

Adela took a step back, afraid of how much her cousin knew.

"Don't be so surprised. If I didn't have eyes and ears everywhere, I wouldn't be fit for the position I'm in."

He closed the distance between them, his expression morphing into one of sadness.

"But the most neglected treasure in Lanark was one that the Archduke himself kept away from me..."

Adela shuddered when Claude brushed a thumb over her forehead.

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