Chapter 24: Chapter 24
PRESENT
Angst, love and so much hopelessness was swirling in the atmosphere, Layla had never earlier had any memory of Icarus but the way he looked at her with love and hatred was so complicated that she could not say a word. She was certainly was a pawn in his game but when she looked at his saffron irises they were almost so fragile like a broken glass.
He watched her unshed tears and then he looked at her trembling figure, he could not bear it anymore. The walls he had built crumbled the moment the pendant of red rubies started to glow so gorgeously that it was dazzling in his eyes.
Layla never knew when she fell in love with Icarus so when the rubies started shining she looked at the King of Ardos in horror...just like his seventeen fiancées who he discarded previously being so cold and indifferent would he also give her up?
Fragile arms wrapped around the torso of the virile male and Layla clutched onto him like a small child who did not had any idea what she did wrong but wished to make up for her mistake.
"Don't throw me away....I-I can bear my father selling me off, can bear my brothers hating me...can bear my fiancée using me and can bear all the hatred and contempt but...y-your hate...I can't..." Icarus embraced her tiny body and picked her up in his stronghold.
He did not answer her but cling onto Layla with his hold so tight as if afraid that the moment he let go would be the same moment when she would disappear.
She had returned.
His Ilaria had returned
Just with a different name and oh so beautiful it was....Layla
He remembered the time when he saw that embroidered charm on the coat of Duke Everdale...he could not sleep after that.
Thousands of years ago even before the founding of Avesta he had a delicate female in his hold who did not know how to play music or dance or paint or even to embroider and that was maybe the happiest thing for him because it was later him who taught her all that.
She wanted to learn how to embroider a pouch for him to ward of evil and ensure his victory in battles when she was pregnant with his child in her belly, it was him who was so afraid that she would prick her fingers that instead of teaching her how to sew a pouch he rather taught her how to make a charm.
The first she made was for him.
Those crude designs and irregular shapes could not be compared to any exquisite embroidery in the world for it was his beloved...his Ilaria who made it.
Layla did not understood and after some time even had stopped crying because the person who was holding her did not looked like he was discarding her rather....his body shook as if he was waiting for her since so long that after having her he did not know how to say anything, as if all his world that was lost was returned to him.
All those centuries ago when Emperor Zyram poisoned himself after reading the last letter of his late wife which lasted thirteen years after her death, he expressed a last wish from his son Arvaram.
'After my death, take out my eyes before I am buried and with your power turn it into a gem...if you wear it around your neck.....you will be invincible.'
Since Emperor Zyram had red irises it would be miraculously made into a ruby yet Crown Prince Arvaram who knew his unfortunate father had died so miserably could not stand anymore and after his death did not follow up on the last wish.
Even during his worst Emperor Zyram protected his son for it was Empress Ilaria's blood and soul.
Even when he was drowning he did not let his son be wavered by the storm.
Crown Prince Arvaram could not see his father such so rather than being consoled and forgetting he prayed to the god for his entire life.
'Let them meet again. Let my father meet mother again.'
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PRESENT
"Don't discard me please, even if I am overbearing and wrong you can scold me but don't leave me....I have repented for my sins Layla so please don't leave me again."
It was an enchanting but heart wrenching whisper that was sweetly expressed by the male that sat on the ground with Layla's dainty pale feet on his masculine palm. The red ruby pendant that the princess of Everdale usually wore was taken off by Icarus and now its gold chain was gently wrapped around one of her ankles as the ruby dangled from it.
A symbol of him chaining her to himself.
Icarus's obsession with herself was on the verge of madness but at this moment when the golden irises were bowing down with tears dripping down them, Layla was surprisingly not sad, to see him like this her heart blossomed into some sort of twisted happiness that her innocent mind had no name of.
"D-Don't cry please..." Fragile palms cupped his face and smoothened the frowning and distressed expression.
"A-Are you crying to take revenge from me? to show me that its really difficult to coax me after I throw a tantrum?" The innocent naïve question full of confusion made Icarus throw his head back and laugh for several moments so much so that the tears were mixed in the sadness.
"My little fool has returned." Layla pouted.
Why did it sound like he was praising her when he was not? Layla scrunched her nose thinking something before looking down at her feet for the first time truly noticing the vermilion ruby that Icarus gifted her on his birthday.
Surprisingly, it was crudely carved as if a novice or someone that had no talent in jewelry had melted the gold and inserted the ruby. It did not resemble the exquisite embroidered necklaces that Icarus usually presented to her but she did not understand why her heart loved a simple pendant more than any of those things.
Silence prevailed in the chamber for some moments, it was their wedding night but she saw Ilaria's painting and cried, then the ruby shone brightly and he cried. Was today a day for bawling one's eyes out...she was only thinking when the callused finger gently swiped beneath her red-rimmed eyes and Layla gazed at him.
"Why am I different? Why am I different from all other fiancées of yours, why wont you do the same to me as to them?"
"Because you are the one I was searching for."
"I don't understand."
"You don't have to little dove." Layla looked down and tried to reminisce her past life, she had never met Icarus in her previous life furthermore while she was a nun in the temple and was living her last days she had heard commoners saying that King of Ardos had disappeared.
Thinking of so many mysteries brought a headache to the female who looked at Icarus and smiled, she would find out soon even if he refused to say a word.
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"Your majesty, the empress has come to visit you." Wrinkled face with grey strands of hair somewhat resembled Icarus's features when they frowned before sighing. Queen Mother Ciana stood up to welcome Layla into her chambers.
These past days she always visited Ciana and just sat silently while drinking tea and chatting about simple things without prying much but the queen mother of Zeyphyr was aware that she had many questions.
"I hope I have not troubled your majesty.." Ciana looked up at the female standing infront of her in a daze, exquisite pink irises filled with nothing but pure thoughts gazed at her own cocoa ones and Ciana forgot to reply to Layla for several moments until her chief handmaiden whispered something into her ear making her wake up from her stupor.
"Greetings to the moon of the empire, come Layla." She soon acknowledged Layla with polite words and welcomed her inside.
"Your majesty, I wished to talk about something." Ciana understood and dismissed the maids and asked Layla to take a seat. There was silence for several minutes where each of the person sitting was evaluating another before a sweet voice took initiative to ask.
"Does your majesty knows about a woman named Ilaria?"
"Out of all the questions I was thinking that you will ask this was the most unexpected, considering you are from Avesta, I thought you must have known about the hidden legend." Layla maintained her composure and keeping silence, hoping the conversation would continue.
"Empress Ilaria was the first queen of Avesta and was the wife of Emperor Zyram."
"No, not Empress Ilaria, I am asking about Ilaria whom Icarus have painted. He looks like he loves her" The words seemed to have brought some uncomfortable displeasure to Ciana thus the smile was wiped off from her face while it brought pain to the pink irises that were anguished and pained to say such words.
"Layla, I consider you as my own so I will tell you something but.....but you have to give your word to never utter it to an outsider." Only when Layla nodded did Ciana continue.
"You must have heard how Ardos was formed and established, at that time when Zeyphyr was perishing Icarus was only fifteen and together with me had suffered a lot of physical abuse, for days and nights he stayed inside his study locked up by his uncle-Elias who was vying for the throne.