Stolen bride- Rebirth of abandoned duchess

Secrets

"Don't discard me please, even if I am overbearing and wrong you can scold me but don't leave me....I have repented for my sins Layla so please don't leave me again."

It was an enchanting but heart wrenching whisper that was sweetly expressed by the male that sat on the ground with Layla's dainty pale feet on his masculine palm. The red ruby pendant that the princess of Everdale usually wore was taken off by Icarus and now its gold chain was gently wrapped around one of her ankles as the ruby dangled from it.

A symbol of him chaining her to himself.

Icarus's obsession with herself was on the verge of madness but at this moment when the golden irises were bowing down with tears dripping down them, Layla was surprisingly not sad, to see him like this her heart blossomed into some sort of twisted happiness that her innocent mind had no name of.

"D-Don't cry please..." Fragile palms cupped his face and smoothened the frowning and distressed expression.

"A-Are you crying to take revenge from me? to show me that its really difficult to coax me after I throw a tantrum?" The innocent naïve question full of confusion made Icarus throw his head back and laugh for several moments so much so that the tears were mixed in the sadness.

"My little fool has returned." Layla pouted.

Why did it sound like he was praising her when he was not? Layla scrunched her nose thinking something before looking down at her feet for the first time truly noticing the vermilion ruby that Icarus gifted her on his birthday.

Surprisingly, it was crudely carved as if a novice or someone that had no talent in jewelry had melted the gold and inserted the ruby. It did not resemble the exquisite embroidered necklaces that Icarus usually presented to her but she did not understand why her heart loved a simple pendant more than any of those things.

Silence prevailed in the chamber for some moments, it was their wedding night but she saw Ilaria's painting and cried, then the ruby shone brightly and he cried. Was today a day for bawling one's eyes out...she was only thinking when the callused finger gently swiped beneath her red-rimmed eyes and Layla gazed at him.

"Why am I different? Why am I different from all other fiancées of yours, why wont you do the same to me as to them?"

"Because you are the one I was searching for."

"I don't understand."

"You don't have to little dove." Layla looked down and tried to reminisce her past life, she had never met Icarus in her previous life furthermore while she was a nun in the temple and was living her last days she had heard commoners saying that King of Ardos had disappeared.

Thinking of so many mysteries brought a headache to the female who looked at Icarus and smiled, she would find out soon even if he refused to say a word.

___________________________________________________________________

"Your majesty, the empress has come to visit you." Wrinkled face with grey strands of hair somewhat resembled Icarus's features when they frowned before sighing. Queen Mother Ciana stood up to welcome Layla into her chambers.

These past days she always visited Ciana and just sat silently while drinking tea and chatting about simple things without prying much but the queen mother of Zeyphyr was aware that she had many questions.

"I hope I have not troubled your majesty.." Ciana looked up at the female standing infront of her in a daze, exquisite pink irises filled with nothing but pure thoughts gazed at her own cocoa ones and Ciana forgot to reply to Layla for several moments until her chief handmaiden whispered something into her ear making her wake up from her stupor.

"Greetings to the moon of the empire, come Layla." She soon acknowledged Layla with polite words and welcomed her inside.

"Your majesty, I wished to talk about something." Ciana understood and dismissed the maids and asked Layla to take a seat. There was silence for several minutes where each of the person sitting was evaluating another before a sweet voice took initiative to ask.

"Does your majesty knows about a woman named Ilaria?"

"Out of all the questions I was thinking that you will ask this was the most unexpected, considering you are from Avesta, I thought you must have known about the hidden legend." Layla maintained her composure and keeping silence, hoping the conversation would continue.

"Empress Ilaria was the first queen of Avesta and was the wife of Emperor Zyram."

"No, not Empress Ilaria, I am asking about Ilaria whom Icarus have painted. He looks like he loves her" The words seemed to have brought some uncomfortable displeasure to Ciana thus the smile was wiped off from her face while it brought pain to the pink irises that were anguished and pained to say such words.

"Layla, I consider you as my own so I will tell you something but.....but you have to give your word to never utter it to an outsider." Only when Layla nodded did Ciana continue.

"You must have heard how Ardos was formed and established, at that time when Zeyphyr was perishing Icarus was only fifteen and together with me had suffered a lot of physical abuse, for days and nights he stayed inside his study locked up by his uncle-Elias who was vying for the throne.

Later when Elias opened the chambers thinking that he must have perished......my son was still alive but seemed to have gone insane for he covered all the walls of the study with a single name- 'Ilaria'.

He whispered and wrote her name like a lunatic making me fear that I have lost him....Elias too thought the same and had asked the soldiers to remove him from that chamber.

It was then Icarus first wielded a weapon and killed Elias and all his comrades. I have never seen his study...nobody has because those that stumbled upon it accidentally were either silenced or disappeared mysteriously but I have heard from a fallen soldier that he keeps an image of a woman in that study and it is Empress Ilaria.

That woman is only a legend and does not exist but that study has something Layla...it has something that he guards so ferociously. If you can enter and exit that place it already means he values you a lot." When Ciana looked up Layla, the delicate face was pale as her fingers shivered.

"....I accidently came across a book in the study and opened it, what if he was guarding that?"