Duty and Destiny
Chapter 27

“Archer?” Adalia raised her head. She hadn’t heard than name spoken for a long time. But when she looked up, her breath froze in her lungs as her heart stopped in her chest. He was different but it was definitely him. A thick beard covered half of his face while his long-ragged hair covered the other half. He wasn’t dressed as a prince but in the tatters of a rebel popper. There was stiffness about him, but his eyes stayed the same. She stared into the silver lightning, a knot of nerves forming in her throat. She paused a half beat and then pushed herself to her feet.

She trembled as she watched him move towards his mother. As everyone swarmed around him, she didn’t move. She couldn’t.

“Adalia?” A deep male voice that had haunted her dreams said to her.

As she reached out towards him, she felt someone grab her arm and hold her back.

***

Xander held her back; Archer could see the shock of his return coursing through him. He never thought he would have to deal with him again, but this time he wasn’t taking any chances. Archer quickly learnt his place. He quickly left the room, when he felt a huge weight slam down on his chest. Adalia wasn’t about to lose sight of him once again. She pushed Xander off her and followed Archer to the balcony.

***

She stared at him, watched him as if he was some sort of mirage. She half expected him to disappear, so when the urge to blink came, she fought against it. Adalia didn’t dare touch him, afraid that her hand would end up grabbing the air that she thought he was made out of. She stood a safe distance away and just gazed at him. He had changed. His jaw was stiff, stone like even. His beard ran from behind one ear to the other, while his dirty blond hair covered his face. His clothes ripped and his posture taut. Anything delicate in him had long been destroyed. She felt a tight knot form in her chest as her heart wept for the man that once was.

***

He could feel her watching him. He wondered what she was thinking, and why she wouldn’t approach him. The last words she ever said to him were ‘I love you,’ but he had just walked into a covenant ceremony. She was making her vows to Xander. But it had been a couple of months since his supposed death. He had stayed away on purpose. Archer wanted to find the mole inside the palace. He had chosen his duty over her; he couldn’t blame her for moving on.

But what he didn’t understand is how she kept on looking at him. A mixture of longing and fear played in her eyes ever since he had walked in and disrupted her vows ceremony. Did this new image frighten her?

“Are you scared of me?” he didn’t turn to face her. He was afraid that the shadows of the deaths of all the men he had killed, were looming in his eyes and that would frighten her even more.

She studied the hard planes of his jaw as it stiffened. Adalia was terrified but not of him. “Yes,” she swallowed hard. “I... I am scared to touch you. I’m afraid that if I let myself believe you are here, and you disappear again I won’t be able to bear it.”

“What?”

Her words tugged out his heart and he felt like he was sinking. Archer wanted to turn around and hold her, but she was in her ceremonial dress. A reminder that she was about to tie herself to another man.

“Archer?” Adalia asked a silent question that only he could answer.

Unable to contain his feelings anymore, he rushed to her and held her tightly in his arms. At first, she didn’t reciprocate the hug. He could feel her uncertainty, her fear. So, he said. “Feel my heartbeat for you. Fell my arms around you, my breath on your cheek,” he kissed her. “My kiss on your lips. I’m real and I am never going to leave you.”

Adalia felt her body collapse. She tried to wrap her arms around him, but she couldn’t. There was no strength left inside her feeble body and there was barely, and breath left inside her soul. She felt her body give in and the darkness took her.

Archer stared into her face. He was taken in by how peaceful she looked immobile. Without a single expression on her face, he could see her; her lips, her rosy cheeks and her still eyes. But his moment was cut into when Xander appeared.

“What did you do to her?” he reached out for her and lifted her into his arms.

Archer stood aside and watched. This single act reminding him that he was now on the outside and this was not his place. He had to leave before he lost his grip on sanity. He had to go before he caused himself or Adalia anymore heartache.

He walked past Xander and Adalia and into the huge crowd of family and friends in the throne room. He marched to his father, his heart breaking into pieces. “I have to leave.”

“And go where?” Ilana cried out.

Archer avoided his mother’s gaze, sure that a single tear would break him down. “We will fight from the forest. We need people there.”

“No, I cannot allow it,” Lionell said in a firm voice. “I am your king and your father; you must do as I say.”

A war was brewing, and they needed to protect every guardian in the realm, against the rebels. Going back to the forest was a military tactic but it also kept him away from Adalia and everything that reminded him of her.

“But father, you need to think about the helpless people in the forest. Who will protect them?”

Samson stepped forward, his prisoner on his knees beside him. “Your highness.”

“Samson what are you doing here?” Lionell asked amazed.

“My daughter found your son,” he pushed his prisoner forward. “According to him the rebels are coming. They think that Gabrielle is dead, and they are coming to take the kingdom over.”

“They won’t be able to,” Lionell said.

“Someone has been feeding them information, and poisoning King Gabrielle,” he pointed out.

“Poisoning, what do you mean by poisoning,” Adalia was on her feet now her throat closing at the very thought of her father dying. She beat away any attempts by Xander to help her. “Who is poisoning my father?”

“You are!” Archer accused her a bit of steel slipping into his voice. His fingers balled into a fist beside him. “Isn’t that your plan, your brother’s plan? To get your father out of the way, to get Randi to be King of the North so that you can combine both Kingdoms.”

“I thought that was the whole idea in the first place. Why our fathers wanted us to marry?” it took her a second to realize what Archer was accusing her of. She didn’t recognize this, Archer. He wasn’t the same one who promised never to leave her a few minutes ago. “You think I would kill my father?”

“I wouldn’t put it past you,” the anger in his eyes burnt bright.

“I thought you were dead,” Adalia shouted. “Do you think I could have handled losing someone else?”

“Before we start pointing fingers let’s ask the man who was delivering the poison,” Randi suggested.

***

Xander fidgeted around the room sure that if he didn’t do something he would be singled out. He drew his sword out and the second his Hench man stammered he drove his sword through him.

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