Chapter five: Bloodcurdling situation

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Mona takes her sip from her cut-glass when her heart begins to race; she hides her shuddering hands below the table as her father addresses the man of victory. She is doing everything in her supremacy to make sure no one can sight the imbalance of her position, she did it once, but Lia was there to provide sustenance.

Very soon, her father will acquaint her to him and he will take a seat beside her. Afterwards, they will proclaim their engagement to the entire United Lands and then, she would be finished. She would be bound in a loveless, fear ridden marriage because of some gobbledygook that didn't take place before she knew how to walk or talk.

Instantly, she overhears her father's charismatic voice shifts to her and she knows it is time to pretend.

"This is my pride, Mona."

Mona takes a much needed lungful as she stands in her luxurious gown and takes her father's hand while she theatrically rears her eyes to meet the man everyone has been discoursing about.

Solaith's eyes are daunting to her.

But, she smiles while she has to move nearer to a bloodcurdling solider who has a lethal glare. And that is all she sees.

"Nice to meet you again, my lady." His vocal sound is high-pitched, strident and more charismatic than her father's voice—it causes another frisson and tremor down to her vertebral column before she can even cognize that she has to speak in return.

Again? You didn't tell me you met him before? Messiah asks.

"A pleasure."

Mona breathlessly answers without bothering to answer her father's question.

Mona hasn't beheld Solaith eyes for more than two seconds and she can already sense dread crawling up to her bones. Instead, she puts her focus on his chest, but the tattoos do not help the situation.

Mona apprehends how many and how byzantine, convoluted these depictions of tattoos actually fill up on his body and she coughs turning her face away while her father pats her back slowly.

Why don't we take our seats? Messiah says as he gestures Solaith to sit beside his daughter.

Mona takes a hold of her glass of water again trying to calm down her nerves, but it isn't working. She wants to hide her trembling hands, but it is all vain to even control. As she attempts to set the cup back, it suddenly falls and spills over to Solaith who is just getting comfortable in his seat.

She gasps in horror.

Mona faces him and their eyes dose on each other.

It seems no one around the table has realized what just happened. She grabs a linen from the table and tries to streak the water from his lap, but he holds her small hand instead.

She halts in an instance.

Mona wasn't expecting the callousness of his hands to feel lax and composed on hers. What sort of possibility is that?

Solaith's hands are still holding Mona's before she whispers.

"I...I'm sorry." Mona stutters not feeling as fearful as she thought she would be under his touch.

"Its fine...it's leather." Solaith undertones too like he doesn't want to catch everyone's attention.

For the first time without Lia, Mona looks into his eyes for more seconds and it is the obscurest shade she has ever seen, his expression tells a painful story, it looks like so much melancholy and despondency to her—she marvels if he ever smiled.

And if he couldn't wait to settle scores on her entire household, the motive for this marriage in the first place.

"Looks like they've taken a fondness to each other already." Made, Mona's elder brother says after watching his sister for minutes now.

Mona retracts her hand and removes her face from Solaith.

The table is filled with hilarity at the words spoken by Made, and Solaith can't even pretend that it amuses him. No one expects him to smile too.

Mona Aurora watches as Solaith mindlessly raises his glass for a toast, he does it so effortlessly, but yet it speaks enough volume from across the table and his clansmen immediately pick their glasses too, a beautiful sign of respect that catches the eyes of the multitude. "She watches as such artless and unconscious act spread throughout the ball, flagging way for a larger popularity for the man of Victory."

Mona sits in awe.

This isn't her first ball; neither will it be her last. And yet, she has never met a man, not even the king who would command such authority, not a word spoken from the man sitting beside her, and yet, such reverence.

What exactly did he give to these people?

"To the United Lands." Solaith merely speaks before he sips the red liquid.

An amplified volume of his speech echoes throughout the ballroom as the multitude recites and drink to his toast. Mona sips little and places the glass back, her father was right when he spoke of Solaith's resilience.

Lord Tako who seats beside Solaith begins to undertone something ever so quietly into his ear, around the table are people who are jesting with each other and thus, it's impossible to overhear what Lord Tako speaks of. Made, Mona's brother gazes at her and she can tell what he wants her to do.

The last thing her family wants is an engagement that hasn't even been publicized officially to get annulled on the day of announcement. Her grandfather calculatedly spread news of the union before an official release because he didn't want a third party to change Solaith's mind.

Mona's grandfather was convinced that there would be people trying to sojourn the engagement, and despite the fact that there were rumors of him having an involvement in the massacre of Solaith's family. He premeditated the advantages of having a man like Solaith as his in law, toying with Mona's life like a game of chess.

Throughout the scheming, he never once put his granddaughter's happiness into consideration. But, yet. Mona's inhales and unhurriedly turns to her would be, she tries to find her voice despite being known as a woman of liberation. It is now she realizes that every education her father ever gave had no stand in her grandfather's law.

At the end, everyone was still subject to his word, and on top of that she had to think of her family, if she wrestled with defiance then would she lose her family to the justice of the Sokha people?

In the United Lands, a person who is found to be traitor would be beheaded and their entire family would be turned into slaves, sometimes exiled and made a laughing stock. "Daughters like her would be sold into brothels, her brother and father would be sentenced to hard labor." That thought cornered her and she lost."

And so, she let go of the values of liberation. It didn't work in this instance; it is now useless to her. "If this marriage would save her and her family from such horrid sentence." Then, so be it.

Solaith? Her voice sounded too meager and weak, Mona squeezes her hand in regret at the way her voice came out.

She counterfeits a smile and swallows when he gazes at her, the unsympathetic stern on his face scares her to the curb.

"I wish to speak to you." Mona cools her voice.

And that is if you do not mind, Lord Tako? Mona asks as her palms sweats underneath the large table.

"Not at all." The man answers Mona and releases Solaith.

Would you like to talk here? Solaith asks as he removes his hands from the table.

"N-no." Mona stutters.

"It is unlike her to make these silly errors, but Solaith doesn't know her much." So, she perhaps gets an advantage.

"If you will come with me..." Mona says and he nods in response, she stands from her seat and prays for help.