A Tale of Two Daggers

Chapter 18 : The Red Castle

After a week of reaching Tagia and meeting with Marigold. Diana managed to find a decent job as a waitress in a nearby tavern.

Louis, on the other hand, denied his royalty for the first time and joined the common people with their clothes and traditions, moreover he got himself a job as a blacksmith apprentice in a workshop on the other side of the Town.

Everything was going on the right track for a change; it was the first time since Diana left the palace that she really felt safe and not in danger in the wild or under the king's punishing dictatorial hand.

...until that one day when Alfred came back home with a nervous face.

He opened the door and passed himself in without greetings. He just went for a chair at the head of the table and sat in strange silence.

Marigold noticed the way he entered. She watched him from the kitchen. This wasn't the first time he came home feeling the toll of the whole world crushing on his shoulder.

Marigold always had a way to go with him. One of the many ways a man can be tamed. But at the same moment happy with it.

Food.

"What's wrong, my darling?" asked Marigold serving him some hot homemade food.

Alfred's eyeballs couldn't resist and he dug in almost instantly.

"Where's Diana?" answered Alfred with a full mouth.

"She should be here anytime now, her morning shift ends after about half an hour. Is there any news about your brother Richard?"

The man stopped chewing the food. He stared with a confused look at his wife. Behind his eyes. There was always his inner self screaming.

How does she do that?

To look through the man's soul so easily and expose all his secrets. Maybe it is the food? Nevertheless, he didn't say a word.

Someone began knocking on the house's front door.

Marigold went to open the door. It was Louis, he returned from the blacksmith workshop he was working in.

"Greetings, my dear. How was your day?"

"Tiring. But what's not in men's life ?" He smiled.

"Well. Eating is! Your plate will be ready in no time!" She said as she went to the kitchen to serve another plate"

"Didn't Diana come back, yet?" Louis questioned Alfred after some greetings.

The man didn't answer him. He was just focusing on his food.

"Did something happen to her !?" Louis feared for her. Alfred's silence was intimating in a way.

Marigold got out of the kitchen with another plate. "No, my dear. she is just late as always from that Traven, besides we are still in the early noon she will be here in no time"

"Then it is about your brother, isn't it?" Louis was curious. However, Still no answer from the other side.

Marigold began to worry; so she grabbed a chair next to her husband.

"We can help you, we are your family Alfred. you can't just carry every problem on your shoulders, learn to share the burden before you break beneath it"

The man remained silent.

Marigold was disappointed, her eyes dropped. She frowned and was about to stand up to leave..

Then she felt another hand bolted at her arm; contently begging her to sit...

"He is in the red castle" Alfred finally said