9 Chapter 9 - The banquet
As dusk passed by without any delays, Ophelia was now in her banquet attire. She didn't look too grand as she was an adopted child that no one really paid attention to. Considering the fact that the Duchess had prepared for her to choose her dress generously -but she didn't want the attention and chose a simpler dress for the evening.
Nobles and invited guests in their carriages lined up the gates as they presented their invitations to pass. The servants were busier with the food and tending to the guests, the duchess were in her entertaining mode -everyone busy and enjoying the warm welcomes and greetings. As the nobles talked and the Duke graced his guests, Ophelia took the chance to escape the scene without anyone paying much attention to her.
-
'Noisy. Noisy. Noisy.'
Icarus felt annoyed with the people chattering from his left and right. He had arrived just in time for the banquet to start and though he wasn't the spotlight but the young lord's aura was not something anyone could ignore.
Everyone who entered had been congratulating the Duke, and without much surprise, that wasn't the only thing the people have sought. Young acquaintances for Icarus had also come to party and some young ladies came in big fluffy fur to impress the young lord.
For Icarus, this was utter nonsense and he felt dizzy with the brightness. Nonetheless, he was flawless in his ways. His hair had been swept back quiet neatly and his purple eyes was matched with an amethyst stone as a brooch. He looked princely -and like a statue he stood with the girls fawning over him and some young lads at his age had been flaunting at him.
The music went on for hours.
But Icarus felt bothered.
Where was Ophelia? He couldn't see where she was or if she even entered the ball. Icarus felt irritated at the thought of her.
~
Ophelia was still agonizing about the note she received.
She was too bothered about the paper the Duke had given her. Should she believe it?
If granny would appear then she wanted to see her coming in herself.
As she waited, she sat by one of the gardens' bench just behind a rose bush that was wonderfully groomed and maintained by the household.
(Step. Step. Step)
"...help....Anyone!"
(Muffled shout)
Ophelia stood up in reflex.
Someone had drowned into the nearby lake just outside the garden walls.
Lucky, she had been listening into the silence to even hear a faint sound of helplessness.
She quickly ran into direction, but there was a big garden wall and she didn't seem bothered by it. She looked through small bushes that covered an open layer of the wall.
'There!'
She had remembered how Zachy warned her the last time she walked around the garden that it was dangerous to stay out late at night for wolves could enter since the old part of the wall had made a hole. Zachy had not tend to this because he was still busy with the Duchess' demands for the preparation of the banquet.
With her small figure, she sneaked into the hole and made it pass outside.
There she saw someone drowning. With quick thinking, she grabbed hold of a stick that had been disposed with the previous cuttings from the mansion's trees.
(Whoosh -splash!)
The young man grabbed unto the stick, and Ophelia -with all the strength she mustered successfully pulled him out. At that moment, She had noticed that the water in which the man was in had been too shallow for anyone to drown.
"..ahh!"
Ophelia let out a small cry, the weight was too much for her body that she fell.
She fell unto the wet shore, and the man had been pinning her down by accident. He was on top of her.
Opening her eyes, she was blinking in amazement.
His eyelashes and hair were dripping wet.
'Wow.'
She was bedazzled, the person that drowned was not a man at all but rather a boy who seemed a little older. Though she could not see his hair clearly due to the striking moonlight, but she could see that His eyes were ruby red just like the Duchess'.
'thump, thump...'
Her heart fast-paced at the sight, she felt scared but was too entranced with his eyes to think of what dangers might happen.
The stranger looked into her eyes as well.
Have he seen her somewhere?
The stranger couldn't help but also look back at her. Her blue iris eyes were unyielding with his stare.
'...What a dark hue of blue -her eyes is'...
The young lad thought and had collapsed on top of the lady.
Ophelia in a nut of her situation had to stand up and leave the stranger to call for help.
Of course, it would be too awkward to disturb the partying folks -who was she to do this anyway? Ophelia went around the mansion to look for a butler. Luckily, she spotted one and had told him about the young noble's whereabouts (She had assumed he was a son of a noble guest). She was in a hurry to go back to the garden. It was close to 9 after all.
And there, she left the man with the butler's care, not sparing the stranger a second of her thoughts.
-
Ophelia sat back down again to where she was. She was cold and wet and it was freezing outside.
But whatever it was, as long as it would bring her closer to the truth, she was willing to take the risk. So she waited and waited.
Few minutes have passed and it was striking 9 now. And like the Duke had delivered, someone did come to the garden. But it wasn't granny Mar. It was a masked person, the same mask she had seen back from her past life.
'Just who is behind that mask...'
Upon their meeting, the masked figure held out his hand which had revealed the same opal ring of granny Mar.
'-the ring! So it was with him all this time...if I'm not wrong this person must be the same from my past life, back in granny's room...why is he here?'
The masked figure didn't say a thing but rather waited for Ophelia to have any reaction.
"...Duke?"
She called out. Her voice had trembled a little. The masked person jolted his head no.
"Then who-"
And with a swift of his hand he hit Ophelia beside her neck to make her lose consciousness. He had been waiting for this moment. Ophelia who was unguarded and didn't notice the fast movement was left hanging unto the stranger's arms.
-"Stop right there!" a cold stern voice called out.
Icarus with a medium-sized stone on his hand hit the mysterious guy on the head.
Turning to his direction, the masked person let Ophelia go on the ground and had slowly backed away, as if he wasn't really intending to kidnap her. Icarus had noticed this peculiar reaction as he let the hostage go without any struggle. There was also a discharged dark aura around the masked person.
'Dark magic...is this an illusion?'
Just then before the masked man left them. He had taken off his mask before Icarus and uttered some inaudible shit (he is casting a spell).
"You! You can't be-"
(Snap)
The man vanished without a trace. Icarus was now holding the forsaken Ophelia in his arms.
He felt puzzled, the mask guy was definitely the previous crown prince of their empire. His words were like a spell that had triggered something within Icarus.
'What is this? Why am I suddenly feeling light?'
Icarus felt his mind divided between darkness and light. His memories were scrambling as if something inside him that was torn apart was suddenly being whole again. He felt warmth as he was embraced in light.
-
Ophelia slept soundly at Icarus' lap.
Icarus was still deep in his thoughts, the man had casted a spell on him. He had no idea what it was that it had helped his head relax a little bit and somehow awakened a light inside.
But despite it he was more perplexed with the guy he just encountered. That was definitely the previous crown prince...the god forsaken first crown prince of their empire.
So it was true, he was involved with dark magic. But what does Ophelia have to do with any of this? Or was he even after Ophelia in the first place?
"...Ophelia...."
He uttered her name carefully and smoothly into the night air, the moon was full and bright. And he wondered why his episodes or psychotic symptoms weren't triggered, it must have been the spell. 2 years from now and he would lose his life. He knew this, after he saw it like a dream in his past. Somehow, things were slowly revealed for Icarus, it felt like someone outside from the mansion had been intervening. But he still could not grasp the entire situation inside the Marcias estate. Why had the first crown prince got involved in this? How is he related to the Marcias?
