One Day More - a Sartorias-deles fanfic

Chapter 30

Iris had disappeared. As soon as word reached Alaraec, he ran to the dungeon to see the empty cell for himself. She had left a few traces of her presence behind but no indication of where she could have gone, or how she escaped, for that matter. Besides the one time, he had not visited her. Self-centeredness kept him away; Raec could not bear to see her there. He saw enough of that in his nightmares, and they had kept him up at night. In one, Vidanric hanged her, pulling the dropping mechanism himself, and Raec woke up screaming.

He felt betrayed that Iris had misled him and did not trust him, but she also held too much of his heart for him to dismiss her entirely. Not only that, he did not even desire to do so. Raec wanted to protect her. Why couldn't she see that? Or had she vanished for that very reason?

"Innocent people don't run," he once had said. His own words were coming back to haunt him, for Iris had run—somewhere far beyond his reach.

He sat at the table closest to the library's fireplace, seeing but not comprehending the book's words. Vidanric had requested he research something, yet sitting here now, Raec could not remember anything his father had said. Vidanric had been instructing him when news arrived of Iris's sudden departure. Alaraec had lowered into the closest chair because he felt like his legs had been swept out from under him. Vidanric, on the other hand, had remained stoically focused, issuing orders, before he was once again left alone with Alaraec.

He continued as though nothing had interrupted, and his words went in one of Alaraec's ears and out the other. Raec, however, had nodded his head like he understood until his father dismissed him to his task. Raec had spent what felt like weeks in the library, pulling books from the shelves and replacing them. Something about Vidanric's reaction—or lack thereof—to Iris's escape nagged at Raec like a pebble in his shoe. Danric had dispatched the guard and some of his highest investigators, but he had done so with little haste. It almost led Raec to believe that his father was involved in Iris's escape, but that could not be true. Vidanric was a rule-follower. Always had been, and he hardly seemed like the type of person to aid a fugitive—much less one who was involved in a plot to take his life.

He was not the only one in the library this day. A fine-dressed man who was almost as tall as Raec stood at a nearby shelf, consulting the bindings. His shirt was tailored to his shoulders, breeches lined along the side seams with gold. His hair, too, was styled to perfection, and his angular jaw smooth. He probably had a servant shave him. Raec could have done the same, but he did not relish the idea of anyone being so close to his veins, hence why his own shave jobs were below his mother's strict standards.

The other man—and the woman sitting at the table beside him—were both commoners. Their garb was pale in color, the edges stained with dirt. Raec was too far away to see their fingernails, but he imagined those were dark, too. The woman had pulled her brown hair back in a simple braid, and the man's appeared it had not been cut in months. What stood out to Raec most, though, was their expressions. They looked at peace, absorbing their surroundings with mute thanksgiving. Meanwhile, the nobleman scowled, forcefully shoving books back into the shelves.

Contentment with little, versus dissatisfaction with much.

Now Raec understood why Enda enjoyed spending so much time in the marketplace.

He stood, ran a hand down his face then raked the same one through his hair. He would get no work done today, not while thoughts of Iris circled through his mind. Raec was so distracted that he did not notice Enda's presence until she was directly in front of him. She had her crutch so he should have heard its telltale scrape against the stone, but his mind was too foggy. Enda must have seen something in his expression, for she gave him the slightest of nods before turning away and asking the three people in the room to leave. Once they were gone, someone outside closed the ornately carved doors, and it was then that Enda finally turned back to him.