Chapter 103: The Play
The room always spoke of her presence.
The heavy, grunt and elegant sound of boots that the knights wore around her, and the soft ruffles of her long silk dress.
This immediately caught Ymir’s attention.
When she stepped fully into view, the difference from every previous meeting struck him like a quiet blow.
Violet looked less like a saintess and more like someone that simply drew prayer toward itself.
A black veil of translucent silk draped her head and shoulders, the same fine cloth flowing with every step, gliding across the marbled floor of the Sanctuary.
Beneath the veil, the soft line of her jaw and the faint shimmer of her eyes remained visible; enough to remind anyone that a living woman still walked beneath the holy fabric.
She stopped in front of Ymir, while her sisters gave way and walked towards the door, along side the knights that stood there to protect them.
For a moment neither spoke.
Ymir’s gaze had not moved from the moment she entered. It traced the fall of her veil, and the way silk caught lights through the tinted windows.
"You’re taking your time staring, Your Highness." She voiced out, in a soft and faintest edge of tease.
He took a step, and got close enough that the black silk of her veil nearly brushed the front of his coat.
"I am," he answered as his lips curved in a smile.
Violet unclasped her hands, without raising her hand she gestured with her palm open flat. A fairly unspoken command she had used on him more than once before.
"This is a funeral...Ymir," she said.
"You know..." Ymir did not step back like she expected him to. He reached for the hand she had offered as a warning, closed his fingers gently around her wrist, then slid down until his thumb rested against the soft center of her palm.
"These little commands of yours never hurt me," he said, and leaned in further.
"But if I wanted to...I could drop the façade just as easily as you raise that hand, and take what the entire kingdom worships from afar."
Violet’s breath caught. She flinched in that very instant.
She was used to him listening, she wasn’t used to...him like this.
"Don’t mistake my patience for obedience," He scoffed, and stepped to her side.
"But then again...I love when women get all authoritative on me," he said, raising his hand in an elegant gesture towards the door.
Ymir straightened and rolled his neck, and that familiar playful smile returned to him as if last second had never happened.
"Shall we, Saintess?" he asked, offering his hand.
Violet stared at him for a moment, her eyes were wide open, and skin was flushed of deep rose beneath the black silk.
They stepped into the hall, and several heads turned.
No announcement was made, just her presence was enough for every single priest, knight, noble, royal, advisor, and foreign adversary to turn their heads.
They all stood in a fluent movement, as the ruffling sound of clothes resounded across the room.
Ymir’s eyes moved across the room, face to face, and row to row. Cassian’s men, Cymbal’s section, elders of the court, high priests, Orochi, nuns.
Wait a minute...
’What the fuck?’ he thought as Ymir’s gaze passed Orochi who was sitting in the far end of the room, ’Does he think this is a theatre?’
Ymir didn’t nod at him, he didn’t even look twice.
Violet nodded in a simple, quiet gesture.
Silk rustles, chairs shifted, and one by one the people took their seats.
He found Eisi next. She sat apart from the rest of her house, placed deliberately in the row reserved for wives who had not yet been seated beside their spouses.
He let his eyes move past her, across the open floor, and land on Cymbal, wearing a black three-piece suit with silver jewelleries that complimented his blonde.
He was sitting straight backed, hands folded, and Ophelia of Lunar, his wife had her hands on her lap.
Before the movement could fully settle, Ymir stepped in close behind Violet, his hand came to rest against the small of her back.
"You know the plan," he whispered, brushing his thumb against her spine, and withdrew, turning towards Graves who apparently sat alone in a long bench dedicated for the fifth Prince’s people.
Violet moved to the centre of the hall, alone, and came to a halt in front of a black coffin.
A single bell rang once. The sound climbed to the dome and reverberated throughout.
She lowered her veil back from her face, lifted both hands, and began.
Her voice was low, and even. Despite that, it filled the hall, and was heard by everyone present everywhere, loud and clear.
Not long after, Marcellus who was outside, entered the halls, and his presence made Eisi shift her attention and look at the doors.
But that small gesture, was not ignored by one person.
And that was Cymbal, who was constantly looking at her since the moment she had entered.
Three lines into Violet’s prayers, and Cymbal did not even account the presence of his brother entering the halls, yet his eyes caught the slightest movement of Eisi, despite sitting besides his wife.
Ophelia’s fingers tightened slightly over the hem of her dress, but she didn’t say anything.
Further back, near the last of the lantern light, a man who wasn’t a noble, or a knight, and by every account, was old enough to not have a seat within a hundred feet of the front, sat with his hands folded, watching the room.
Winifred.
Winifred;s hand moved to his collar, and adjusted it.
His eyes found Cymbal, and he held his sight for a moment.
He was about to reach his hand out, and place it on Cymbal’s shoulders...
Then, without any reason a man in his position should have had to look there at all, they found Ymir.
"!"
Winifred’s soul screamed looking into the red of Ymir’s eyes.
Red eyes. Looking back at him, and only him.
Across a room full of a hundred people who mattered more than he did on a paper.
The bare sight of his eyes sent creeps down to his old spine, and his hands shivered in the cold.
His hand came down slowly, found the want at his side instead. His fingers curled around it out of habit.
For Winifred, silence itself descended upon him. He couldn’t hear a word Violet recited in her prayers.
Even the divine powers that spread throughout the hall were failing to calm his soul.
’Ah...I miscalculated...’ the old man thought, gripping his wand.