Evander looked across the table at Ophelia and Alastair. The two had barely looked him in the eye since the ball as if Evander was suddenly tainted. And that had been three days ago.
"Alright," he said and put his cup down louder than he had intended. The loud noise in the sitting room seemed to make them jump. "What is it?"
"What do you mean?" Ophelia asked and finally turned to look him full in the eye. He met her emerald green eyes, the same color of Alastair's.
"Why won't you even look at me? I haven't done anything and I'm not possessed by a demon!"
"No one said you were, Evander, except you," Alastair said. Evander glared at him. While he said that he was sitting with his arms crossed over his chest and he hadn't touched the tea Evander's servants had served them.
"Why won't you drink the tea?" Evander asked.
"Why, did you have it poisoned? Is that why you're asking?"
"Stop, both of you!" Ophelia said. "Alastair, Evander is our friend. He wouldn't poison the tea. What would he gain from it?"
"And why are you even sitting so frigid?" Evander asked. "What have I done?"
"You didn't do anything," Ophelia said meeting his gaze with a soft look of her own. "It was what you brought to the ball. But you didn't know."
"She'd not possessed!" Evander yelled and jumped to his feet. He knocked the table and his cup toppled and rolled over the edge. It shattered and sprayed the pinky-brown tea up his pant leg.
"How much truth do you have that you can say that with confidence?" Alastair said staring up at him.
Evander looked at the table, his chest beating hard. He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists. They were right, but something was telling him they were wrong. She wasn't possessed by a demon! She would have shown it in her actions and her words if she truly had been.
"None, but I believe strongly." He put a hand across his chest. "I would bet my life on it that she was not possessed by a demon."
"You are crazy," Alastair said. "But, I guess that's why I'm still friends with you, huh?"
A small smile crept onto Evander's face. "Yeah, maybe."
A servant ran into the room with a dustpan and broom. He dropped to his knees and placed himself in the way of the broken porcelain and Evander's legs before starting to sweep the shattered pieces into the dustpan. He took out a wet cloth to clean up the spilled tea hoping it wouldn't damage the floor while it soaked into the dark wood.
"What am I even doing here?" Evander asked to no one. He stared ahead, his eyes looking at the wall of books in the sitting room they were occupying but he wasn't seeing anything in the room at the moment. His mind was elsewhere, miles away, further in the city. He started for the door out of the room.
His servant was still on the floor cleaning up the mess, no one paying him any attention.
"Where are you going?" Ophelia asked and jumped to her feet, though it wasn't as dramatic as Evander, only being a head taller than the table.
"I need to find Aurora. She's in danger and I just let her be taken away." He ran from the room without another word. He didn't hear when Ophelia called his name. He was already down the hall and heading for the staircase for the back of his estate. He knew where he was going. He would start with the holy sankts, after all they were the ones who took her.
He leaped down the stairs taking a few at a time and almost fell jumping too many at the end. He skidded around, using the banister to help him keep in motion and threw himself down the hall. He had to run through a few adjoining rooms but he finally made it to the door in the back, one more the servants used to go in and out through but the only thing he had on his mind was getting to the stables and getting to the Thoro.
YOU ARE READING
Shadows of Iraedes | NanoWrimo 2021
RomanceAurora Bailey has had a hard life, and the horizon is only looking harder. She's finally had enough of her abusive partner and decides to leave him, but finds she can't when he keeps pulling her back, sometimes even physically. After many attempts t...
