Chương 18: Proposal of Betrayal
What was meant to be a fun trip to the Valley turned into a nightmare in one day. Adea was more than shaken by her sister's actions. Manipulating her into doing her bidding or inflicting terrifying dreams upon her in her sleep was one thing, but Adea never thought she would have the capacity to cause her such physical harm. Adea spent the next two days recovering from her injury. By the time her parents arrived at the Valley, she was well enough to leave the campsite, but they could see that something was wrong with her. Still, something in Adea's mind was keeping her from spilling exactly what Lyda did to her. Fear? Pity? She did not know, but when they pressed her to tell them what happened, all she could say was that it was an accident.
Nobody had seen Lyda again until later that day. Adea was apprehensive at first, but like every time something happened between the two of them, Lyda had not said a word to anybody, nor did she interact with any of them, preferring to spend the rest of the time at the Valley wandering around the markets alone.
The rest of the week after they returned home was no less dreary, literally and emotionally. The weather was perpetually damp and muggy. Adea hated waking up each morning to thick walls of fog. The moisture made working in the garden so messy. She was only glad that the discomfort in her chest was finally gone.
It was nearly midday when the fog had completely lifted and the sun provided a degree of warmth for Adea in the garden. Matthias had left early that morning to hunt with Eran and Ellis' father. Adea was a little more on edge than usual today, constantly glancing up toward the path that approached the cottage from the ridgeline. When Alyra asked what she was looking for, Adea only shook her head and claimed nothing. In fact, she was waiting anxiously for Eran to come out of the trees, as he told her the previous night that he had something to ask her father. He would not tell her what it was, but he seemed visibly anxious about it.
After looking up about a dozen times, Adea's eyes shot back toward the path when she heard the trotting of a horse in the distance. She let out a soft gasp of excitement that quickly faded away when she saw that it was not Eran riding toward the cottage. They were too far away for her to identify, but Adea did not recognize the man on the horse.
"A messenger from the Valley," Alyra said, the rider catching her attention as well. "Interesting. Would you do me a favor, Adea, and go see what he wants?"
"Yes, Mother," Adea said as she wiped her hands on her gardening apron and ran toward the cottage. She hurried through the back door and down the foyer just in time to see the messenger dismounting his horse in front of the porch. As she approached the front door, she spotted Lyda out of the corner of her eye, sitting alone at the kitchen island. Acknowledging her presence, Lyda turned her head to look at her sister, rubbing her eye as if with an irritating itch. She never moved her hand nor shifted her expression. She only stared at Adea with a blank face, and for a second, Adea felt a cold chill crawl up her spine.
A knock at the door made Adea jump with a start. She turned back to see the messenger standing at the front door. Adea opened the door to greet the young man.
"Morning, Miss," he said, removing the hat from his head. "Is this the household of Matthias and Alyra?"
"Yes," Adea answered, nodding sheepishly.
The messenger's tone suddenly shifted to a somber one when he asked, "Are you the oldest daughter? Lyda?"
From the corner of her eye, Adea saw Lyda flinch at the mention of her name, but she resisted the urge to call her over or even look at her. "No. She's my sister."
"Oh," the young man responded. "Well then, would you mind delivering this message to your parents, along with my condolences?"
"Condolences?" Adea repeated with a shudder. "For what?"
The messenger swallowed roughly before continuing. "Your sister's former mistress was found dead this morning."
"What?" Adea's voice quaked. "Iris? What happened?!"
"Her body was discovered by a farmer washed up along the creek bed. It was battered from being dragged down the river, and she was covered in snake bites, her blood laced with venom."
Adea stood there in a state of shock. Over in the kitchen, Lyda's eyes shot up when she overheard the messenger. "Oh no," she muttered under her breath. She could not suppress her growing state of panic at the realization that Iris' body had been found. She feared that it would only be a matter of time before she was discovered to have been responsible for her death. It was not remorse that was gripping her, only the festering anxiety of what would happen to her if she was found out.
"How could this have happened?" Adea said in a flustered voice.
"Nobody could say when exactly she disappeared nor what she was doing at the time of the incident, but the Valley hasn't deemed her death as anything other than a tragic accident. I'm sorry."
Adea had no words for such terrible words. Her skin was crawling as she stared with wide eyes of disbelief, hardly paying attention when the messenger offered his condolences one last time before taking his leave. Adea stood in the doorway for a long moment before pushing it shut with a trembling arm. She was left speechless as she took a step back, turning her head to see Lyda staring her way from the kitchen.
Lyda never moved her hand away from her eye. The two exchanged a long gaze of silence. Adea felt tears welling up in her eyes. In spite of everything that had happened between them, she wanted to approach and pull Lyda into a sympathetic embrace, but the peculiar, blank expression on her face was what held Adea back. Lyda did her best to display an emotion her sister might be expecting to see, and at the same time, she found herself struggling to feel any remorse for what she had done, but no matter how hard she tried, it was flushed from her very soul as soon as it sprouted.
Adea was left with crippling anxiety for the rest of the day. All of this was too much for her to bear. First Hazel, then the incident in the Valley, and now Iris. Still, nobody knew who was behind Hazel's slaughter except for Adea, but any desire to tell anybody about it was heavily stifled. Whether it was love for her older sister or fear, she could not say, but she felt the same way about keeping silent in regards to Lyda breaking her rib. All of these things were happening one after another, but the only difference was that everything else had been Lyda's doing, and the thought never so much as whispered into her mind the idea that she may have had anything to do with Iris' death. She couldn't, Adea thought.
Then why was she the only one to never shed a tear over the news of her mistress? When Adea told her mother, she broke down immediately and tried to offer comfort to her oldest daughter, but Lyda only shrugged her off. Adea guessed she was simply in so much shock that she did not know what to think. For that matter, neither did she. The rest of the afternoon was too difficult to endure, and she was counting on Eran's presence to cheer her up.
Much to her joy, Eran finally made her way over the ridge as the sun began descending in the west. Adea had been waiting for him on the porch steps and rushed to meet him, throwing herself into his arms. To her surprise, he was carrying with him a small bouquet of flowers wrapped in a silk cloth.
"Those are beautiful!" Adea purred. "Are they for me?"
"Sort of," Eran replied awkwardly. "Mostly for your mother."
Adea gave him two leery eyes for a second before the two of them opened up into laughter. "How has everybody been?" Eran asked.
"Well," Adea began as her eyes went down, "not so good, truthfully."
"Why? What happened?"
Adea told Eran everything the messenger told her as they walked slowly back to the cottage. Iris' death was eating everybody up around the house, and Lyda, she feared, most of all. Eran offered to refrain from asking her family what it was he intended to say for the sake of being sensitive to the current climate, but Adea urged him to go forward with it. She continued to badger him about what he planned to ask, but he just smiled and refused to budge.
Eran's presence was quick to brighten the atmosphere. Alyra was enamored by his flowers, but Adea noticed her father give him a sideways look of suspicion. Lyda, on the other hand, was nowhere to be found until Alyra had finished preparing dinner and she was prodded to emerge from the cellar. Everybody was having a great time talking and laughing around the dinner table, but Lyda had positioned herself awkwardly to the side and continued to play with her eye nonstop.
When they were finished, everyone moved over to the den. Eran talked for a while with Matthias about the previous hunting season. In fact, Adea noticed that he seemed to be going out of his way to socialize with her father more than anybody. On the other end of that spectrum, Lyda just sat in a chair in the corner, predictably rubbing her eye, but nobody paid her any mind.
Growing tired of his apparent lack of attention, Adea suddenly said, "Eran, didn't you have something you wanted to say?"
Eran was taken off guard. Lyda did not so much as react in the corner. Alyra looked on in curiosity while Matthias crossed his arms as if he already had an idea of what was coming, staring intently at Eran.
"Um," Eran began with a stutter, turning his attention toward Matthias. "Thank you for having me over, sir," he said, unable to conceal any nervousness. "Adea has been such a great friend to me for about as long as I can remember."
"That she has," Matthias answered, never uncrossing his arms or so much as blinking. "You kids have been inseparable all your lives."
"The whole lot of you!" Alyra added in a cheerful tone. "And you still might be if Lyda would learn to smile again." As they laughed at her remark, Alyra turned her attention to her oldest sitting in the corner. "Lyda, what's wrong with your eye?"
Lyda glanced up to see everybody staring at her. She refused to move her hand away from her eye, continuing to rub it persistently. "Nothing," she grumbled. "A bug flew into it earlier."
"Well, let me see if I can help you."
"No!" Lyda snapped at her. "It's fine, I got it."
There was a moment of awkward silence that followed as Lyda lowered her gaze as if to give everybody the hint to look away from her. Eran swallowed roughly, trying to get back to his point. "You're right, sir. Adea, Lyda, Jay, my brother; the best group of friends I've ever known, but I've grown closer to Adea than anyone." Adea gazed up at him with eyes filled with curiosity. Eran's speech was becoming somewhat erratic with a hint of anxiety. "You know what, I'm just going to speak my mind. I couldn't imagine the thought of not being with her. That's why, with your permission, sir, I'd like to take your daughter before the Spirits."
The first to react was Lyda, whose head shot up at the sound of his request. She stared at Eran in utter disbelief before turning her gaze toward Adea sitting beside him. Her hand still covered her right eye, but it did not mask the dry look of pure jealousy spreading across her face. Seeing her younger sister in the arms of their best friend was enough to make her shudder with envy, but there were no words for what she otherwise described to herself as a betrayal. To take one's daughter before the Spirits - in her culture, it was a marriage proposal.
Adea was speechless, her heart pounding so hard in her chest that she could feel it in the rib Lyda had broken. Eran's proposal caught her off guard. Typically, one would not be asked to marry until after taking their vows, but otherwise was not unheard of. Regardless, Adea was overwhelmed with excitement, the blood beneath her face running hot as Eran cast a sideways glance at her. Even Alyra was awash with elation, her hands over her mouth as tears began to leak from her eyes.
The only one to not give the slightest hint of a reaction was Adea's father. Eran found it difficult to look Matthias in the aged, gray eyes, and he only stared back with an emotionless face and his arms crossed, as if trying to get some sort of response from the young man. Amidst the awkward silence, Matthias turned his head to look back at his oldest daughter sitting in the corner. Lyda met his gaze with a look of apprehension in her one exposed eye, but still, nobody said a word.
Just then, Matthias let out a soft laugh as he returned his attention to Eran and beckoned for him to follow. "Come, son. I'll speak with you alone," he said as he turned and walked toward the back door. Eran swallowed anxiously, looking one last time at Adea, who gave a nod of her head as if to wish him good luck. Once the two of them were gone, Adea and Alyra pulled each other into a firm embrace, laughing with joy. Their excitement, however, was interrupted when Lyda stood to her feet and stormed out of the room. Alyra called after her, but Lyda ignored her and retreated back to the cellar as if she could not have gotten away fast enough.
Meanwhile, Matthias led Eran out into the backyard. The sun had already fallen behind the western horizon, casting the sky with beautiful hues of orange and cerulean. The spring breeze was still warm, but Eran was shivering with anxiety. He had no idea what Adea's father had brought him out here to say, so he had no way of preparing himself.
"First of all," Matthias began, "relax, son. You're not a stranger. Your father and I are friends and I've known you since you were born. You have nothing to be anxious about."
"Y-yes, sir," Eran stuttered, unable to look away from the ground.
"And enough of that. You and your brother have never called me sir. If you come here with a request such as you've made, then I want you to be yourself rather than who you think I want you to be. Understand?"
Such simple words, yet the sternness of his voice was enough to rip the breath out of Eran's lungs. It took even more effort for him just to appear composed. "I understand."
"And surely you understand that few things of value come without a price. So I ask you, what would you offer for such a request?"
It was the one question Eran knew would be asked, yet he found himself speaking entirely from his heart. "For your daughter, I could never put a price on her. She has no value that can be measured. Not to me, at least. But it's customary for one to offer his service. I'd be willing to offer the rest of my life if I have to."
There was a brief pause of silence, but eventually, a smile spread across Matthias' face. "That's the right answer, son. However, if we're talking about customs, it's also not typical for the younger daughter to marry before the eldest. If I may ask, what's so wrong with Lyda?"
"Wrong? Nothing's wrong with Lyda," Eran replied, sensing a hint of a lie in his own words. "Lyda has always been one of my closest friends, but I never shared the same feelings with her as I do with Adea. Lyda is strong-willed to be sure, and one of the most intelligent young women I have ever known, but when I'm with Adea, I feel calm, warm, and at peace. Her love and kindness know no bounds, and there's no one I'd rather spend the rest of my life with."
Matthias nodded in approval. "I'm pleased to hear you say that, but she's still just a girl. Lyda, however, has taken her vows."
"I understand that," Eran said as he lowered his head, "but I couldn't withhold my true feelings any longer."
Matthias pondered his words for a moment before returning to his stern tone of voice. "I respect that, son, and I don't doubt your word. So I'll consider your proposal-"
Eran could not keep himself from laughing with excitement before he had finished speaking. "Thank you, sir!"
Matthias put a hand up to calm him down. "After Adea takes her vows," he finished his previous statement. "Once then, we'll have this talk again."
Eran nodded in compliance. "Of course, I understand. Thank you for hearing my offer."
The two exchanged a firm handshake as Eran turned to head back into the cottage. Matthias watched until he was out of sight, and then his grin dissipated into a look of apprehension. He could not express how comforting it was to know that there was someone out there for one of his daughters. But the other…
Down in the cellar, Lyda paced restlessly. She could not take her mind off everything that was said up there. Furthermore, she did not understand why she was so bothered by it. Any thoughts related to her sister lately was filled with such animosity that she could not explain. It was driving her insane. Why was all this happening for Adea? Why was her sister happy while she was feeling more miserable every day? Neither of them deserved it, she thought.
Lyda flinched when the cellar door opened followed by heavy footsteps on the stairs. She felt a chill go up her spine as she heard her name called by her father's voice. She returned her hand to her right eye, rubbing that insatiable itch. "What is it?" she muttered in a raspy voice.
Matthias hesitated for a moment when Lyda seemed to refuse to turn around. "Why aren't you up there with everyone else?"
At first, Lyda wanted to issue a white lie along the lines of that she was tired, but instead, her words came harsh and blunt, "Because I don't want to be."
"I can understand that," Matthias replied coldly. "I'm sure that was awkward for you. It was awkward for me, too. To have my oldest daughter turned down for her sister is hardly ideal, especially for one so brilliant as you."
Lyda shook her head, her breath quivering with uneasiness. "Are you saying you favor her, or me?"
"I don't favor either of you above the other. I love you all the same. But does none of this bother you in the slightest? You are a grown woman now, Lyda, and you deserve to be happy just as much as your sister. You deserve a life that is your own, but you've not been yourself lately. You've become more isolated than ever, and I hoped this would be your wake up call."
"Well, I'm sorry," Lyda snapped and whipped around to face her father, her fingers still forcing her eye shut. "I'm sorry I'm not as innocent, careless, and ignorant as my sister!"
"Take your hand away from your eye, Lyda," Matthias grumbled.
Lyda did not seem to register his demand. "I'm sorry if that disappoints you, Father, but maybe I don't want the same things that you do! Maybe I want to do things my own way. It's my life, not yours!"
As if oil was pitched to the fire, Lyda's angry sentiment was instantly met by a swift backhand to the face. Her father did not hit her very hard, but the surprise of the strike was enough to knock her off balance as she spun around and dropped to her hands and knees. She held her hand against her cheek, which stung for a moment, but that did not compare to the pain it brought to her heart. Neither she nor Adea were strangers to physical discipline, but never for something as sensitive as this. She did not know what to think. She could only remain motionless on the ground, clutching at her face and breathing in erratic spates.
"Watch how you speak to me, young lady," Matthias growled at her. "You know damn well who's responsible for your problems. Don't you ever take them out on me, your mother, your sister, or anyone else in your life. That is not the way I raised you, and until you learn that, no man will ever look at you the way Eran looks at Adea."
With nothing left to say, Matthias turned and marched out of the cellar, leaving Lyda on the cold floor in a state of astonishment. She could not stop her body from shaking with stress. Thoughts were racing through her mind too face to register. Without even the strength to pull herself up, Lyda collapsed onto the floor, covered her face with her arms, and broke into tears.
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