What does it matter? She doesn’t care anyway if I disappear and wallow or not with another woman. I’m just overthinking things.
Despite saying those words to himself, he was striding towards the banquet hall. Riftan smoothed his hair nervously. He didn’t like how he felt restless as if he was caught doing something wrong in the dark corridor.
“Do you think it’s true that the Duke’s daughter is searching for candidates among the knights to be her husband?”
Just as he was about to leave the dark hallway and step into the banquet hall, he heard men whispering amongst each other. Riftan casted a sharp gaze towards the chattering noble men.
Inside the banquet hall, the people were dancing under the shimmering candles to a bard singing a heroic epic to a lute melody. The men whispering seem to be taking advantage of the current bustling and enjoyed a secret conversation. Riftan continued to listen. A slow, drunken voice spoke.
“Isn’t she still too young?”
“She’s sixteen years old and will be turning seventeen in a few months. That’s the perfect age for marrying.”
A slickly dressed man replied as he grinned and placed his lips against the wine glass. “She’s old enough, there are rumors that she’s showing her face more often to find a suitor.”
“Often showing her face?! She has been sitting a little longer than usual at the banquet today, but she always literally just shows up and disappears in a flash, huh?”
“That proves it a lot then. Do you know how much the Duke of Croix pampers his eldest daughter? Among the vassal knights, only a few of them have seen her face before. Even her servants don’t speak of her. Everything about that lady is veiled.”
Another man joined the conversation. “I’ve heard rumors that her health isn’t very good. The Duke of Croix cherishes her daughter so much that he built a huge chapel inside the castle and stationed four high-ranking priests to stay there.”
“It seems that she has been sickly since she was a child, so she’s being overprotected as such.”
A relatively old-looking man said as if he pitied her. Riftan stiffened as he observed Maximillian Croix more closely. She sat next to her father, her eyes watching the ball with a tired and anxious expression.
Is that why her face is so gloomy, because she’s sick?
The mere thought of her being seriously ill drilled a hole into his heart. The discreet voices of the men continued, Riftan hearing them through his dazed ears.
“The Duke of Croix has no intention of sending her daughter to the royal palace. That’s why some people are saying that she’s looking for a husband among the knights. I wonder if it has something to do with the frequent conflicts with Dristan that the duke is looking for a top-notch knight as a son-in-law.”
“You are underestimating the Duke’s ambitions.” A knight who was quietly listening, drinking wine, suddenly sneered and joined the conversation. “No matter how much the Duke of Croix cares for his daughter, she will amount to nothing compared to the honor and power of the family. Everyone knows the duke’s intention is to form a deep blood relation with the royal family, right?”
“Maybe he intends to entrust that task to his second daughter instead. Although she’s still young, there are rumors already spreading around that she possesses outstanding beauty and skills.”
“That figures, if his eldest daughter has concerns regarding her health, she can’t marry into the royal family. It will be difficult for her to produce healthy boys to be future heirs.”
Riftan clenched his fist as he watched the men scouring Maximillian with their eyes like a mare for breeding.
“It’s concerning and might take a lot of work… but the eldest daughter of the duke is still an attractive bride. As the duke’s beloved daughter, she will surely come with a huge dowry.”
A decrepit man who looked well over thirty groaned and spoke. “What good will a huge dowry be if she can’t bear an heir? If there will be no children to pass your wealth on, all the property and land will only end up in the hands of the royal family.”
“Hey, you must be losing your head. An unhealthy woman won’t live long anyway. You can just go and get a new wife.”
Riftan glared at them intensely. He wanted to murder them, to drag them into a corner and slit off their throats so they could never speak such preposterous words again. It was difficult for him to just stand while they said such disgusting things about her. The mere thought of her being an object of a man’s desire aroused anger within him and engaged strong protective instincts.
He despised that feeling. She didn’t belong to him. Therefore, he had no reason to be angry or desire to protect her. Also, even if he went out of his way, the Duke of Croix was the supreme ruler of the eastern region of Whedon and he would never amount to the protection he gave his daughter.
Riftan turned his eyes to the duke who sat next to her like a watchman. The duke was an arrogant man but he was at least a strong protector for her. It was wise of him to keep his daughter hidden in the castle, away from the reach of those sons of b*tches.
Riftan took a long, deep breath and turned slowly. If he went into the banquet hall, he would probably cause a huge commotion. He clenched his trembling fists to control his anger. He swore to remember their faces clearly and pull one or two teeth from their mouths before he left the castle so he could relieve the fury boiling in his stomach.
However, he wondered whether there would only be those people with such disgusting intentions. Once the rumors spread that the Duke of Croix’s plan was to choose her daughter’s husband among the knights, all knights of Whedon would have the same vain thoughts of coveting her. What disgusted him though is the fact that he was also tempted to covet her.
Riftan stood on the steps leading to the garden and clasped his face in shame. Where the hell did I end up? The confusion and longing he felt were truly strangers and were unwelcome. But the thought that she might find a suitor in the banquet kept him stuck.
Just because I have a position among the knights doesn’t mean that I’m one of the candidates.
It was the predictable outcome considering the fearful gaze that the girl gave him and the contemptuous demeanor of the Duke of Croix towards him. But then, he turned to go to the banquet hall once again. Obviously, If he returned to his room having those thoughts battling in his head, he would toss and turn in his bed worrying that she might have picked a husband amongst those men who had been talking dirty about her. It would ease him to see what was going to happen with his own two eyes.
Riftan turned back, hoping that the m*therf*ckers had already finished chattering and would keep their foul mouths shut. But a few steps away, Riftan’s body stiffened like a stone. In front of his eyes was Maximillian, walking out of the banquet hall surrounded by maids.
Perhaps, his heightened senses that recognized every fibrous of her being failed to detect her because of his raging anger. Riftan gazed at the woman standing in front of him and blinked like the world’s biggest idiot. However, she appeared a hundred times more perplexed than him. The girl, who always avoided his gaze, looked up at him with a blank, mesmerized expression.
Because of that, Riftan was able to take a closer look at her thick maroon eyelashes and her breathtaking silver-gray eyes. The chandelier’s light rippled a golden spark in her winter-lake colored pupils, and her ivory face slowly turned the color of a beet. It was a thrillingly fascinating sight. The girl turned almost as red as the color of her hair. Riftan’s whole body felt tightly motionless and he barely managed to open his lips.
“…is there a problem?”
His words sounded blunt even in his ears and Riftan cursed himself inwardly. For the past few weeks, he had been trying so hard to talk to her, yet out of all words that was all he was able to say.
Maximillian noticeably flinched. She hastily bowed her head and before he could speak any more, she scurried like she was running away. The maid at her heels giggled as they followed. Riftan gawked at her from behind, feeling utterly despondent. He couldn’t figure out why she reacted like that. So, he went to the banquet hall, wondering if something happened during the banquet and went straight to sit with his fellow men.
“Did something happen while I was away?”
The knights turned their heads, while exchanging glasses of wine. Sensing the strange silence, Riftan’s eyebrows furrowed. Hebaron, who looked at him with wide eyes, smirked.
“I think if there was something that happened, it’s with the vice-commander?”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a mirror in every room, did you come back here without looking at yourself?”
Riftan ran his hand across his hair, wondering if his hair was disheveled. Hebaron, who looked up at him, whistled.
“Very tempting, I see. You seem determined to take all the eastern ladies as prisoners.”
Riftan frowned at his weirdly vague words. “What bullshit are you talking about…”
“You have a stain of lip dye on your mouth.”
Uslin Rikaido, who was quietly drinking wine, suddenly spat out. Riftan wiped his lips and saw something red and sticky at the back of his hand. Uslin sighed as he saw his puzzled expression.
“It’s a dye that noble women apply on their lips to make it look more red.”
Riftan blinked his eyes for a moment and strode out, entering the nearest empty room. Once he saw himself in the mirror, a sound of pain came out of his mouth. Unbeknownst to him, when the woman provoked him, two buttons fell out of his top and his hair was like a magpie’s nest. Red lip marks smeared against his lips, chin, and cheek. He looked like a prodigal playboy who chased after women from every angle.
“F*ck…”
This completely obliterated his chance of giving Maximillian Croix a better impression of him. Riftan’s shoulders sank in discouragement.
***
They headed straight to Drakium place the next day. Riftan gazed with relief at the Croix Castle as it grew smaller in his vision. Leaving would allow him to turn things back to the way they were before.
He was determined to shake all of his past’s shadows. He would erase all fond memories of his childhood days, the faint sense of guilt, and the horrendous image of his mother which sometimes woke him up in a cold sweat. He would live as the knight named Riftan Calypse.
However, his determination was shaken like a reed against the wind when the girl’s image sprung in his mind from time to time. Maximillian Croix had grown up to be such a damn lovely girl that he dreamed of her almost every night. And those dreams drove him to the edge of madness.
He had never looked at any other woman before and he had no one to compare her with. He had known no other standard of beauty but her slim and small body, her eyes that seemed to hide thousands of emotions beneath them, her small nose and lips, and her rich, luscious hair that shone exquisitely like fireworks. And that perception of him towards her constantly pierced his nerves like a needle.