Chapter 73 - Double Marriage

Who was that man? Alexa examined him from top to bottom while she took the nightingale from its captivity and calmed the bird with affection. The tall warrior with an enigmatic expression, a shaved head in the old Roman style, strong and clearly aged by battles, kept a calculating gaze on the maiden. A slight, almost imperceptible, smile escaped the corner of his lips.

He was a Lazarite and he knew who she was ... That meant that ...

She didn't know what it meant. In the past, the Pater Chapter in Constantinople, headquarters of the Order, had split up because of events involving the Dallassenos. This could only be the trigger for something much bigger. But the fact is that Alexa's family has been betrayed more than once. Should she trust this man, who presented himself to her as a member of an Order that was officially abolished and extinct?

Or was that a divine sign that Alexa Dallassenos was never alone, as an initiate was taught to believe?

She just had a way of knowing.

Still holding the bird, she approached the guard. Closer, the remnants of his scars were more visible on the sun-tanned skin and a bad life.

"What's your name?"

"Balbo, Your Highness. Balbo Cerdán, at your service," the man maintained his military stance according to the entire guard of the castle, without really looking at it now. Alexa was a little uncomfortable because he was the first person to call her Princess.

"Well then, Balbo Cerdán. Are you part of the guard of my, my… Prince Alexander?"

"Your Highness, I am part of the personal guard of the Second Prince. I am also his fencing instructor!" he spoke with false pride, Alexa realized right away. This was very intriguing. Did he poison the Prince?

Alexa definitely needed to know, and the best way was to play the game.

"I am sure we will see each other constantly, in this case," she said this in a normal tone, but lowered her tone to ask,

"Tanaion?" this word mean the specialty an initiate sought inside the Order. And it indicated that he followed the rites and manners to sweep from the world of the living those who needed to perish. With time and liberal interpretations of the high masters within the order, they were just well-trained and very lethal assassins. Alexa's father, Bryenios Dallassenos, was an opponent of this prosaic and corrupted mentality of some inside the Order. The mission and talent of the Tanaion were largely misused in exchange for power and temporal wealth. Even so, his second brother Narces was a Tanaion himself.

Again Balbo made the sign that symbolized a Tanaion, and Alexa made back the sign that symbolized an Archophoros, or Light Bearer. They nodded in recognition, and the damsel walked away.

The discovery of a Lazarite so close to her future husband seemed so unlikely and strange, as well as surprising. Why was he at Holstein, and why was the Tanaion Balbo beside the Sleeping Prince?

When the bird calmed down, Alexa put it back in the cage, and the beautiful nightingale seemed to be happy and went to eat his millet.

With one last look at her future husband, she left the room. For the first time, the maiden thought the Sleeping Prince's mystery could be solved much more easily than she had previously thought.

And maybe Magnus didn't have to make his long and dangerous journey.

When Alexa left the Second Prince's quarters, people greeted her, bowing at her passing.

She was now Princess Alexa of Holstein.

°°°

The capital had prepared for one wedding, but they were getting the wedding of another Prince. Which commoner really cared about which of the Prince was marrying, as long as the celebrations continued? Music and wine distributed for free kept the city partying, hat's what Alexa saw when the Bridal procession went across the crowded streets.

Girls and boys danced, in their beautiful white and red clothes embroidered with bright colors and floral motifs, and threw flowers at the Bride's carriage. This time it was a closed carriage, and Blue Eyes was seated in front of her, staring at Lex with a mysterious expression. But they couldn't talk even if they wanted, as they were not alone. Edel and Maria accompanied Alexa to help her. After the attack at the parade two days ago, the guard was reinforced all the way. Alexa however, was attentive.

The procession reached the door of the cathedral, and a chill of excitement ran down her spine. The maiden wondered if she could still get away. Or whether she should run away.

'Do I really need to get married, as Blue Eyes says? What will happen if I say, NO?'

And the damsel also wondered why she had so easily agreed to marry John Blackrose, when he proposed, covered in blood. And comparatively, why was she considering fleeing so as not to marry the most handsome man she had ever seen?

Lady Saskia and her tutor walked through the flowered arches in front of the cathedral. During her passage, Alexa blinked her eyes, seeing everything blurred and feeling herself entering a kind of ceremonial trance. What was happening?

Was it a petite mort?

But if so ... What was causing this sudden blurred vision, the feeling that her feet didn't touch the ground? Why was the sky too high, and hell, just below her feet?

The colorful shapes of the richly-dressed nobles, on the sides of her field of vision, were just brilliant Shades with white ominous grinning masks.

The tall, slender columns of the central nave were lost in the darkness of the ceiling, if any. It felt like a night where the stars were hiding. Even the profusion of flowers, they were nothing but dry and shriveled branches in her path.

At the far end of the bridal alley she was walking on, she saw the Great Infernal Goddess Persephone, with gleaming eyes, waiting for her with a smirk. Alexa could feel, somewhere not far away, the threatening and antagonistic presence of the ghostly powers, without seeing them, really. The maiden blinked again, astonished.

"Did I die?"

In a way, she felt light and just curious about how and why. Standing upright beside the Underworld Goddess, the Sleeping Prince was waiting for her. Alexander turned to Alexa, and smiled.

"What ... ?!"

The maiden felt herself stumble over the hem of her dress, and the ghostly vision that struck her disappeared as if swallowed by her own mind. Only her heart thudded in her chest like that bird in its ornate cage. There she was, stumbling over her wedding dress, in the bridal alley of her own wedding.

"What the hell did I see ...?!" Lex murmured to herself. Father Agnello held out her hand to help her balance and her ladies rushed in an uproar to help with the dress again.

"Stop grumbling, and behave like the first time I saw you," Blue Eyes spoke through his teeth, keeping his smile. The ladies left her front after fixing the dress and the rug, and Alexa looked up at the altar, a few meters away.

There, beside the Bishop and his father, First Prince Magnus Von Wuttenfal was waiting for her.