Chapter 164: Chapter 164

164 Chapter 164 : Heart to heart

Jeffrey cleared his throat to get Elric’s attention but it seemed that his mind was too occupied. Jeffrey shifted a little in hopes that Elric would look over but still nothing, the silver haired king maintained his brooding gaze outside the carriage window.

“Your royal highness!” Jeffrey called out and finally got Elric to look at him. “Could you please put your claws away, this carriage is rather small and I don’t wish to lose a limb.”

Elric looked down at his hands and noticed his elongated nails that were inches away from Jeffrey’s knees. “Sorry,” Elric muttered to the man sitting across from him. He retracted them and leaned back on the carriage chair, a frustrated look on his face.

“Are you alright?” Clovis asked his brother. The question shocked everyone, even Clovis himself, under normal circumstances he would have just pretended not to notice anything and let Elric pout. He was the kind of man who didn’t care about anyone’s affairs or life but his own, but ever since he met Julia, that sneaky beautiful little dwarve, he had completely changed.

Clovis was about to take back his words when king Elric muttered a low ‘no’.

The king gazed up at his brothers and sighed heavily before speaking, “it’s my wife.”

“Yes we heard about your little skirmish,” Jeffrey responded, “you were quite loud.”

Clovis gave Jeffrey a disapproving glare before turning back to face Elric, he didn’t know how to comfort him about the matter, but what he did know was that he would be equally affected if he ever got into a fight with Julia. Wait, why was he even thinking about getting into a fight with Julia?! It’s not like they were together or anything like that.

Clovis cleared his throat and leaned towards his brother, “I heard that the closer you are to someone the more you argue. It will pass, don’t dwell on it too much.”

.....

“You think so?” Elric mumbled, his intense gaze fixated on the passing trees on the outside.

“Of course,” Clovis commented, “she’s your wife, and you two love each other. I wouldn’t worry if I was you. Now peppy up, you’ll worry father if you show up looking the way you are now.”

Love? Elric dreaded the throught but he had a feeling no love existed between him and Melissa anymore, if at all it ever existed to begin with. Her heart belonged to that pointy eared cocksucker Gareth and it triggered him to the core. He couldn’t lose his wife to him, not after everything he had done, all he had gone through, just to make her his wife and to make her happy.

“Hypothetically speaking,” Elric spoke to the two men in front of him, “if my wife and I separated and she married another man, how do you think that would play out?”

“Gods that would definitely be a dent in your honor,” Jeffrey quickly responded, “as a man and as a king.”

Clovis elbowed the man sitting next to him to shut him up but he kept taking.

“And after everything you’ve done,” Jeffrey added on, “the war against Ervelon, the coronation, the extravagant wedding and not to mention the massive library that took months to build!”

“Jeffrey shut up!” Clovis chided his loud mouth brother. He turned to Elric and gave him a reassuring smile, “look, not all relationships work out, but that’s nothing to be ashamed of, if things aren’t going the way you want between the two of you and it seems they can’t be fixed, there’s really no point in holding on. Some problems are best solved by letting go.”

“I bet you know a lot about letting go don’t you Clovis,” Jeffrey commented with an arrogant smirk on his face, “by the way have you told her? Because if she hears it from anyone else that you’ve moved on...”

“Jeffrey it would be wise if you learnt how to shut your mouth!” Clovis growled, his brother was always one to whirl people up but it’s like these past few days he had made it his mission to irritate Elric and him till they snapped.

“You’ve moved on?” Elric asked Clovis skeptically, “how haven’t I heard of this? Is she Merian?”

“Go on Clovis, share the news with our dear little brother,” Jeffrey snickered.

The oldest prince took a deep breath and leaned back on the chair, “you’ve been occupied with matters pertaining the kingdom brother, I wouldn’t want to bother you with my uninteresting love life.”

“Oh but au contraire brother, your love life is extremely interest- ow!”

This time Clovis elbowed Jeffrey in the stomach and glared at him. “I said learn when to shut up brother.”

*

Emma placed her palms on a nearby windowsill to maintain her balance and drew in a long deep breath. “Does she know?” The woman turned around and faced the nosferatu queen, “does she know that she’s pregnant?”

“She doesn’t seem to,” Marceline commented, “she’s too occupied with how miserable she is without Gareth that she can barely notice the subtle changes her body is undergoing.”

“Well then lets tell her, she needs to start taking better care of herself!”

“Not yet,” Marceline disproved, “if we tell her now we’re just going to give her an excuse to act irrationally and leave Elric.”

Emma furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, “isn’t that the point?”

“You saw how angry Elric was today didn’t you?” Marceline spoke in hushed tones, “and that was only because he thought she was hiding a souvenir from Gareth. Now imagine what he would do if he found out she was pregnant with Gareth’s child?”

Emma clenched her chest, Marceline was right, Elric was unhinged, he could hurt Melissa or the baby. “So what do you propose we do?”

“Keep it a secrete until I can find a way to take Melissa with me back to Wintershold, at the least until after the baby is born, she’ll be safe there.”

“You know how possessive Elric is of her,” Emma pointed out, “what makes you think he’ll just let you whisk her away to the snowlands?”

“It will take a bit of time but I will convince him that she needs to go home and get acquainted with her people,” Marceline explained, “we just have to keep our mouths shut until I convince Elric.” The nosferatu queen made her way to Emma and cupped her shoulders firmly, “I’ve lost a grandchild before Emma, trust me, you do not want to go through that.”

*

The camp site was quiet and almost all the soldiers were asleep, all except the ones keeping watch.

Gareth turned in his sleeping furs and noticed that the man who was supposed to be sleeping next to him was not in the tent. Where had Aiden run off to? The eleven prince quietly but hastily got up and made his way to the opening of the tent, he peeked outside and scanned the quiet camp before finally catching sight of Aiden sitting by the dying fire.

He walked slowly towards him, trying his best not to make any sound and wake Finwe and Zander who were fast asleep in the next tent.

“I thought that maybe you had made a run for it,” Gareth spoke as he sat down across from the red haired man.

“Where would I go when you’re the only one who can lead me to my sister,” Aiden responded while keeping his eyes on the glowing ambers of the dying fire. “I just needed some time alone.”

There was an emotion on Aiden’s face that moved prince Gareth’s heart a little, the nosferatu prince looked almost sad, and Gareth knew it had nothing to do with Melissa.

“Tell me about her,” Gareth asked Aiden.

“What?”

“You’re thinking about Estel are you not?” Gareth questioned him, “tell me more about her, I’d love to know what my sister is like from the point of view of the man who loves her. No one describes a woman better than a man who looks at her through rose colored glass.”

Aiden blinked a few times as he eyed the elf prince, he wanted to know about Estel? Gosh, where to start? She was so many things, heck she was everything! How would one describe a person so ridiculously prefet. It was then that Aiden realized that he hadn’t spoken about Estel the way he was about to in a really long time, he actually felt a bit nervous. He had avoided talking about her in depth because the memories were a bit too heavy to resurface.

“Tell me about how you met,” Gareth asked after noticing that Aiden was hesitant. “You can’t start from there, you can tell me as much or as little as you want.”

“Only if you tell me what tricks you used to steal my sister’s heart,” Aiden mumbled with what looked like a smile.

Gareth nodded his head in agreement, “of course, that story is one of my personal favorites, I’d be glad to tell someone new about it, Zander and the others have grown tired of hearing it.”

Aiden leaned back on the log and gave Gareth a smile, guess this was happening, he was about to have a heart to heart with someone for the first time in years.