"Patrick, why don't you join me for the lunch? Dad also wanted to ask you about something important," Eva called out.
Patrick was sitting on a stone fence, shaded by an overhanging tree. He remained seated and replied, "With respectfully, I decline. You know better than anyone that I can't leave the castle."
"But—"
"There's no 'but,' Lady Eva. And the matter your father wanted to talk about?" Patrick rose and started walking back toward the castle. He answered her unspoken thought with finality: "I'm pretty sure it's the matter of marriage. Please tell him I can't, and you must know a true man can never replace a woman he truly loved with someone else, even after an eternity."
Eva's face crumbled. Tears streamed down her cheeks, a salty sea she tried desperately to contain, yet she managed to force a bright, brittle smile through the pain.
Emerald returned to his room after lunch, finding it empty. He hadn't seen Genna at the table, but for the first time, he wasn't worried. The sanity he had lost in the King's Chamber now protected him. He opened the door and saw Genna lying motionless on the bed. He walked closer—she didn't stir. He went into the bathroom to take a shower.
"Are you not gonna ask?" Genna's voice came from outside the shower stall. Emerald looked at the chilled glass and saw her silhouette standing there.
"What does it change?" Emerald replied, letting the water run. Genna held her silence.
"Why?" Emerald pleaded. "Why? Why didn't you do anything? Why, Genna? Why am I even here? Tell me, please, I can't take it anymore!"
A trembling whisper came through the glass. "I… I was afraid. I was afraid of losing you. I just wanted to see you being happy, and I thought I would lose you again, and I got scared. Forgive me, please. Zin, please… I've been waiting for you, waiting for decades."
Though Genna said the last part clearly, Emerald barely registered it; his forced composure filtered out the parts he wasn't meant to hear. Genna suddenly fell silent, freezing, her breath coming in rapid, shallow gasps.
"I'm good. There's nothing to be worried about, Genna, but I really felt being left out when you didn't even look at me back in there. Just forget everything I asked, please don't hurt yourself anymore." After his measured words, Genna silently slipped out of the room.
Emerald, his appearance strangely altered by the white hair and newly defined physique, gave his regards to Zedic, who also looked pale and preoccupied. Emerald was already worrying about the explanation he'd owe his friends and family.
He met Eva and Runa at the entrance, alongside the Elite Guards who would accompany him. Runa formally introduced the detail: "The white-haired guy like you, he's the captain, Corvus Jasiri. This big muscle man, he's Jaromír Hrubý. This sweet boy right here, he's Kimani Mahto. And at last—"
"I'm Ibrahim Besa. You can call me Besa," the last guard interjected smoothly. Emerald offered a small, unsettling smile.
Emerald waited, but Eva didn't show up for the departure. Accepting her absence, he took his leave. Runa accompanied him to Genna's estate, where he entered, found the mirror, and stepped through to his home. To avoid immediate confrontation, he climbed down from the top-floor sunshade and appeared at his front door at just past ten o'clock at night.
His sister opened the door first. Seeing her brother standing there with his shocking white hair, she shrieked: "Mom! Just come over here and look at what your dear son has bought home!"
His mother rushed over, scanned him head to toe, and called for Dad. Father checked the hair, a disgusted look settling on his face. "What in the world happened to you in a week?"
"It's natural," Emerald replied coolly.
"'Nature,' my ass! Who the f*ck do you think we are to believe this bullshit?" his mother blasted.
"Son, do you really think we're going to let you in because you said it's natural?" his father asked, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"It's just an after-effect of stress, you gotta believe," Emerald pleaded weakly.
"Your old man is fifty-six and he doesn't have a single white hair!" his mother countered.
"Well, get it dyed back or have it shaved by tomorrow. Now get in." His dad finally relented.
Emerald went straight to his room and collapsed onto the bed. He closed his eyes for a second, and the next thing he knew, the alarm was ringing.
He got up and began his daily routine. Opening his wardrobe, he froze. His closet was filled with completely new clothes; not a single piece of his old attire remained. He pulled out his college uniform, but it hung on him with a new, strange fit—it was larger. He stared at his feet, then moved to the mirror. His jaw dropped: he was as jacked as he'd always wanted, a sudden gain of twenty kilograms of muscle in one week.
How in the world am I going to explain this to my friends? he worried. The sudden fitness, and to add some spice, the white hair.
Emerald was late. The college compound was empty as the early classes were in session. He stopped at the classroom door, took a deep breath, and stepped inside. The lecturer froze instantly, and the entire class followed, giving him the collective, unblinking, 'what the f*ck is that' stare.
The silence broke when his friend Ananthu shot up, aiming to crack a joke. "How much crow sh*t is that on your head?"
(To be continued)