Destinare: A Destined Tale Of Time

XII Tyrant Papa

 “You truly are the spitting image of her.”

Azmeralda’s head jolted to look behind her, to see the same tall red-headed figure. Prince Iraj. She gulped while remaining silent. The previous incident with him and her father was one she found unsettling. Mysterious even. Something about him poked her curiosity to know more.

‘It’s about Papa’s past, that much I know. But there is no knowing what is in Papa’s past,’ she said in the back of her mind. Her crystallized eyes lingered on his emerald eyes. Now that she was paying attention to him, she saw the black circles under his eyes, the shadow cast on his pupils, and the sad smile lingering on his thin lips.

‘He looks hurt…’ the thought occurred to Azmeralda’s mind.

“Isn’t this the same man from this morning?” Tiberius whispered, leaning over to her ears.

Azmeralda snapped out of her daze, her attention shifted to Tiberius instantly.

“Y-Yes,” she stuttered, processing the question. Her eyes moved on their own to linger again on the man hovering over her.

“D-Do you know me, Your Highness?” Azmeralda hesitated. This man had reappeared before her too many times to be a coincidence. Her curiosity was poked.

Iraj was silent, thinking of his next words carefully. In fact, he wondered if he should truthfully respond to her. ‘What am I even doing here?’ he wondered, staring at the crystalized pupils before her. ‘There is only one person I have known in my life who has eyes like this…’

At the thought, the images from Iraj’s fragmented memories played before his eyes. Disguised in the figure of the tiny girl before him, Azmeralda.

“No,” Iraj said, after a moment of thought. Technically, he wasn’t lying. ‘I have never seen you until now,’ he continued silently. ‘Julian made sure that it stayed that way.’

“Then why?” Azmeralda replied instantly.

Something in her eyes burned for the knowledge that Iraj doubted he had the right to answer. ‘I owe her at least this much,’ he sighed.

“Why what?” He tilted his head in ignorance, again that sly smirk danced on his lips.

“Why do you keep saying I look like someone, Your Highness?” she elaborated, smelling something wrong with the way the conversation took. She couldn’t help but feel that she was falling right into the loophole as he manipulated the words to his advantage.

“Just a woman that I felt resembled you,” he simply said.

“Princess Azmeralda…” Tiberius whispered, taking a step towards her. “I don’t think you should be talking to him.”

Tiberius couldn’t help but feel suspicious of the Persian Prince. Perhaps it was the way he talked. The vague meanings would be interpreted differently. Something told him the Prince was fully aware of the fact already. Iraj had that kind of aura that made you truly doubt his intentions, even his loyalty.

Azmeralda knew that Tiberius was right. ‘I shouldn’t be here talking to him,’ she said to herself. ‘Papa made that clear enough.’ The fact that her father yanked her whole chair away was proof enough of what lengths he was willing to take, to keep the Prince away from her.

However, the question still remains... ‘Why?’

What was between Iraj and Emperor Julianus that would make him take such measures in public? Julianus was always composed, holding his head straight, never wavering before anything. So, why did it all crumble in front of the Prince of Persia?

Iraj curled at the corner of his lips into a sneer. “You look so much like His Majesty when you are in doubt,” he rattled off again.

With every word that he said, he seemed to be getting more and more closer to Azmeralda than she actually thought. Nevertheless, Azmeralda, no matter how hard she thought, couldn’t find where she might have been acquainted with the Prince. Even back in the imperial palace in Kemet, there wasn’t any special attention given to Persia because there was simply none.

Even her father, Julianus. ‘There is no way he would be so on edge because of a strange prince,’ she reminded herself of what her father truly was. All the dots led to the same conclusion. There was something she was ignorant about. ‘Just like the many other things that I don’t know.’

Iraj noticed the way her brows arched in doubt. ‘It’s not like I could blame you…I would be suspicious of me as well,’ he said in the back of his mind. ‘I should head back, he must be waiting.’

Before Iraj turned on his heels, he gave in to his urges to let go of his hand and ruffle the princess’s hair. Azmeralda was caught in the moment. She didn't feel it until it was too late and the prince’s hand was already ruffling her hair underneath her tiara. Surprisingly, his touch was gentle as the breeze tickled her face.

Hurried footsteps thundered their way into the background of Azmeralda’s vision. The next thing that she felt was the Prince’s hand yanked forcefully from her head. She jumped to see the furious expression of Emperor Julianus.

Julianus didn’t give her the time to even protest and yanked her behind him and out of view. Tiberius felt a lump stuck in his throat, he had no idea what he was supposed to do, so he silently shifted to Azmeralda’s side. Tiberius glanced around to see that his half-brothers were already being escorted away by the Queen’s servants. Honestly, this has got to be the first thing Tiberius approved of dragging the princes away. After all, nothing that was going to happen here was appropriate for children – not even for Tiberius himself.

Azmeralda lost sense of what was going around her, including Tiberius. Her eyes and mind were now locked onto trying to decypher the complexion on her father’s face. If back at the banquet she thought he was angry, then that word no longer fit the description of Julianus now.

Pure fury loamed in his eyes. His golden pupils were now black from the shadow cast on his face. The frown from his arched eyebrows appeared almost painful. A deadly aura emitted from the very skin on his bones. If back at the banquet a thread was all that held him back, Azmeralda believed that the thread now snapped.

The monarch inside him was surfacing, perhaps even a tyrant. Azmeralda saw her father’s cloak float around him. Certainly, it wasn’t the breeze…

‘Oh no…he is unleashing his mana…,’ Azmeralda silently screamed, her eyes blew wide open as she saw the golden shimmer forming around her father. The very air around them seemed to heat up.

“P-Papa…” she hesitated, glancing at his hand that was still holding her wrist. Despite the fury and the loss of mind that he appeared to be in, his touch was nothing but gentle on her hands.

“I told you…” Julianus finally broke the suffocating silence. In his mind, he had already killed the Persian Prince a hundred times. “I told you not to dare to even look at her. I see that you have forgotten your place, Prince.”

The title was spat out like poison in Julianus’s mouth. Just breathing the same air as this man made him nauseous. He couldn’t help but remember it all again.

The blood. The stench was dense in the air. The darkness that seemed to last forever. Julinaus’s own b****y hands, he could sometimes still see the blood on his own hands. The blood of his one and only…falling to her eternal sleep right in his arms.

‘Those green eyes…those venomous eyes…’ Julianus thought, his jaw clenched tight. “Whenever I look at them I want to rip them out,” he mumbled out loud, his voice was low, cold and hard. It came out as the dagger it was meant to be.

Iraj, on the other hand, didn’t seem shocked by any means. In fact, he looked as if he was awaiting it. Azmeralda, caught in her father’s grip, didn’t dare to even move, not because of her fear that her father would hurt her, no, never. Julianus would never harm her, not in a million years. Azmeralda was taken aback by her father’s unexpected tantrum and the reason why he lost his composure to this extent.

To the extent that his mana was leaking out of him. ‘If he goes berserk this whole palace will be in ruins! I have got to stop him!’

“Papa…” she repeated, her voice coming out weaker than she wanted. It was deaf to Julianus.

“I only wanted to say hello to the Princess,” Iraj finally said, the corner of his lips still held up in a smirk. “Why are you so on edge, Julian?”

Azmeralda’s jaw dropped, she doubted what her ears heard. However, the flinch she felt from her father’s hand proved otherwise. This unknown man just called her father, the Emperor of Kemet, the empire Protected by God Ra…he called him by his nickname. This man was either really really dumb with no sense of reading the situations or he had a death wish.

Azmeralda believed the latter. ‘No one in my entire life called Papa that…no one even dared’.

The heavy silence was broken by the sound of her father’s laughter. Humorless laughter. It sounded to her more like a cry of pain than anything. They soon resided and Julianus shifted his attention back to Iraj.

“You really don’t understand the position you are in now, do you?” Julianus said, narrowing his eyes. “Do you know that I could have your head off here and now? Your dear father wouldn’t even blink.”

Azmeralda didn’t grasp half of what her father was saying, but it didn’t need a genius to know that it was a threat.

It was Iraj’s turn to laugh now, it was a moment before he caught his breath again. “If you wanted me dead then you would’ve done so years ago,” he said. “You lost your chance, Your Majesty.”

The way Iraj was shifting back and forth in attitude was making Azmeralda’s head spin. In fact, this whole situation made very little sense to her, and it was even more confusing for Tiberius. It felt to him that he was prying into private family matters that shouldn’t involve him. However, he didn’t dare to move a limp.

Julianus was silent. The words processed in his mind as he weighed his options. The golden shimmer of mana around him subsided as the sane part of him started to take control again. The realization of where and with who he was standing smacked him across the face. He took a deep breath as he stepped back, finally letting go of Iraj’s hand.

The place he held left a mark of where his fingers had been. In fact, the place he touched was throbbing with pain. Iraj even doubted that he was going to burn his hand off for real. ‘You have always been rational, Julian,’ he said, taking a good look at his throbbing wrist.

Julianus was silent, his senses regained one after the other. It was then that he felt his other hand still holding Azmeralda. He yanked it away in fear of hurting her when he was out of it.

“Are you alright, Azmeralda?!” Julianus exclaimed in worry, turning his back to Iraj.

Azmeralda nodded once. Her eyes got caught in her father’s eyes as she tried to read his mind, but never got the time. Once Julianus made sure that she was fine, he turned back to look at Iraj. Something felt unsettling about giving him his back, it was vulnerable. He feared betrayal…again.

“Consider this your last warning, Iraj. Don’t you dare touch my daughter!”