Broken trust

Vexed beyond reason, Adela's knight who stood four steps down from her ran a hand through his wet hair.

"…Do you plan to stay here all day and get yourself ill?"

As if displeased to look over the events of the day, the sky thundered above Lanark indignantly.

Adela had already lost count of the times she knocked on the Archduke's closed door. Undoubtedly, her father required reflection time before he would agree to an audience, but neither that fact nor the teeth-chattering shivers in her face swayed her from challenging the bolted door standing between them, for that was her way of asking him to open up his heart to her.

With throbbing knuckles, she knocked on her father's door once more, "F-Father…I respect your lack of desire to c-c-communicate… If you would only listen to what I have to s-say to you,"

With a long sigh, Arkin's eyes descended on Adela's sopping wet coat then lingered on the small puddle forming beneath her.