Midnight After Midnight - Nanowrimo 2022

Chapter 12 - Other Brides

Unfortunately, Adelaide couldn't keep up the facade in front of Lionel for very long. She tried her best, but he knew her better than she knew herself, which meant that, in a matter of days, he'd reminisced on all her subtle scowls and sullen facial expressions and put two and two together. On a particularly cloudy morning with feeble rays of the sun shining through all those thick grey clouds, when they stood up early for an emergency hunt, he saw her scowling to herself again, casting a glare in her direction, which caused her to swallow. Knowing that she couldn't escape this situation, he used this perfect opportunity to start the conversation without hesitation.

"Are you still sad about what happened days ago?" he asked, now standing eerily close to her, waking her up from her thoughts.

She let out a deep sigh. "My dear, don't pay my emotions much attention. I get sad sometimes, but it's not that serious. I'm fine, I assure you, and I promise I'll be less sad in the days that follow."

He shook his head. "That's what you say, but you've always been dramatic, so I think this is going to bother you for quite a while, and frankly, I'm getting sick of it. Why don't you just accept what's happened as normal because it's nothing other than normal? What's so different, except for a change in food? Is my love not enough for you? Is that it, Adelaide? Answer me!"

Her entire body trembling, she ran into the hallway, slamming the door behind her. Soiling their love hurt her beyond belief, and she felt that he was in the right, but she was also starting to notice a dark aura all around him, feeling that it was his fault their love was soiled, and not hers. Those vast, conflicting feelings began to overwhelm her for the entire day day by day, and she began to avoid him as much as she could, not wanting to cause either of them even more torment.

Noticing those obvious cues, he distanced himself from her as well. It made her all the more heartbroken, wishing that he'd approach her first, but knowing that she had to be the one to make the first step. As those days turned into weeks, she still never dared to do so, never failing to see the devil in his eyes.

She had better luck with the rest of the court, only chatting with the other noblemen and noblewomen occasionally when she'd forget that their souls were evil as well, which was not that uncommon when she immersed herself deeply in the conversation, talking to them as she would if they were people. She was never that close with any of them, after all.

Eventually, the weeks turned into months, the only conversations she and her husband had being about warnings, hunting, and other such essential stuff. Such formality pained her, and also him as far as she assumed, to no end, but they were both too stubborn to break the cycle, believing that the punishment they gave each other had to destroy the will of one of them soon enough, making them give up the game. That day never came.

Adelaide wanted it to, setting out to apologise to him on a random cloudy day. She was alone in her room, sitting on the edge of her coffin, the creak of the door motivating her to initiate the conversation even further because she thought it was him. Unfortunately, that was far from the truth.

The visitor, who was a woman she'd never seen before in her life, had quite a striking quality to her appearance. It wasn't her looks, for they weren't that outstanding - plain straight brown hair, dull brown eyes, and thin brown lips, her posture unimpressive and her figure flat and uninspiring. It was the fact that she was wearing a wedding dress that reached her heels and a lace veil all over her face. That was an event she would never forgive or forget.

She would never forget her emotions either, for they were unique to this moment. She had to bite her tongue so that they wouldn't show, so that she wouldn't be vulnerable in front of a woman she didn't even know. Her head and heart both ached from sorrow, wrath, and hatred that overwhelmed her beyond measure all at once. Ever since the death of her parents, her life's been going downhill without a moment of rest, and now she'd ruined it furthermore. If she had done something, if she'd said a word to her husband, this unfamiliar woman wouldn't be here, erasing her value and her place.