It was untimely. The King of the Alethani Kingdom, Arteon Alethani, came into the dining room, followed by the rest of the Royal Family. Elise couldn't catch up to the situation, and she realized late that everyone had gotten up to salute. She quickly stood up and made a suitable salute like everyone else. At least she hoped it was suitable. They moved to their seats in silence while everyone stood in their place, waiting for them to sit first.
"You all may sit. Let us enjoy our meals together."
Elise had seen him before in a gathering of local lords. He looked so high and mighty on his purebred white horse, and the luxurious crown on his head. She was just a child back then. Now that she looked at him again after all that had happened, he looked like another ordinary man. He was in his early forties and had shoulder-length brown hair and a same-color goatee beard with a mustache. Nothing was interesting about him; an average man with average features just happened to sit above all.
His wife and three sons had sat in the empty seats next to him, with him at the head of the table. His wife was as beautiful as Elise remembered, with her dark curly hair and flawless face. She could put a shadow on Lady Cartha with her jewelry alone. She was the who her mother arranged her engagement with. That beauty had passed to her sons, too.
The third prince was a little child, six or seven years old if Elise remembered correctly. He was sitting between his mother and the Head Magician. His older brother, the second prince, was sitting in front of him, next to Avir Fortis. Elise heard he was good with the sword for his age, so Avir Fortis himself was teaching him personally. And the Crown Prince, the one Elise was about the engage, was sitting next to his brother. He was the closest to the King, along with the Queen, and the one to talk first.
"Why is she here?" He turned to his father and asked.
Well... at least he was direct. A dead silence fell onto the dinner table. The only sound was coming from the kitchen aids who were getting the starters to the table from the side tables. They too had a visible discomfort on their face after the question. The King must not have expected him to be this direct. He raised his eyebrows with surprise and looked at him for a moment. That moment was enough for Lord Landa.
"Ah, don't be like that, my prince." He answered instead of the King. "I was the one who suggested to our King that she should attend this dinner." His unbearably disturbing grin was making it hard to look at his face. Was he thinking that smile was making him sympathetic or something?
"I am sure there is an explanation for what the young Lady Vandenberg did. Why not hear her out before putting her in the most respectable Royal Court?"
Some voices of approval rose from the table. That somehow comforted Elise. Knowing that she had support in the court was a good feeling. Her father and House Vandenberg had a good reputation, and no sane person would want such a well-known House to lose ground over something trivial. At least the ones that care about the Kingdom's future. But the Crown Prince was not thinking those things through.
Crown Prince, Alber Alethani, jumped up furiously. "Who are you to decide something that concerns the Royal Family?" He said while pointing his finger at Lord Landa.
"My prince, I..." He stopped mid-sentence while looking toward the King. Although a bit late, the Crown Prince also noticed and turned toward his father.
The King had raised his hand for him to stop. "I was the one who made the decision, he merely gave a suggestion."
"But father..."
"Do you defy my decisions?" Now Elise could see. It was his eyes that were not ordinary. His looks were filled with dignity and authority, befitting of a King. He was someone who knew his power and was not afraid to use it.
The Crown Prince yielded against his authority and sat back in his seat. "Sorry, my King." But his anger and discomfort were not yet gone. "But she is someone who humiliated us, the Royal Family, by breaking our engagement. And she committed adultery against me, the Crown Prince. Are you just going to ignore all this?"
"Of course not. That is why she was arrested, and that is why she is here now. Now stop disrespecting our guests any further." He turned to the other guests. "Please accept my apologies on behalf of my son, and please enjoy yourselves this evening."
Elise was relieved once again until she saw Lord Landa's grin. Why was he still smiling? Things seem to be shifting towards their side, so why was he... she saw her father's face. He had a dark expression and tensed up like drum leather. Elise knew her father; if the Crown Prince had kept talking, he would have blown up and done or said something irretrievable. This was his plan all along. He trusted the young prince's pride and her father's short temper to cause enough trouble. She must have done something to prevent that.
She reached her father's shoulder once again and whispered, "This is what he wants, calm yourself." He visibly relaxed with a deep breath, but Landa was not finished with his plan yet.
He looked directly into her father's eyes and talked quietly enough to let him hear. "Yes, let us enjoy our meals, right, Vandenberg. It could be your last with your daughter, after all."
Regory Vandenberg lunged toward him. Some shouts of surprise rose at the table. Elise could not react in time, but fortunately, Lord Fortis was there. He stopped her father before he could do anything. "I know you are behind all this, Landa! I don't know what your end goal is, but I will do everything in my power to prevent it."
"Calm down Vandenberg. You are in the presence of his highness, the King." Avir Fortis was trying to pull him back to his seat, but her father had already snapped. He was resisting Lord Fortis's grip with everything he had to lunge at him again.
"VANDENBERG!"
The King himself had gotten up and pointed his finger at Elise's father. His anger could be seen on his face.
"Stop this nonsense at once! I am giving your daughter a chance, but you are spitting in my face. If I had not considered you as a friend, she would have already been in a dungeon cell, waiting to be executed. Now sit down and keep quiet, or else!"
This was not going well at all. Elise helped Lord Fortis calm her father. She needed to say something before this whole situation got any worse. But the Queen acted first.
"If you want to blame someone, Lord Vandenberg, blame your daughter. She is the one who caused all this mess. She could marry my son, the Crown Prince, and be the Queen Candidate. But no, she chose to escape with an unknown man."
That was it. Enough was enough. Elise intervened before someone else said anything else.
"I did not escape with anyone. I escaped because I was bored. I was bored with all of this..." she tried to explain herself by showing the room and everyone in it, "...this life. This is not for me. I can't just marry someone I don't even know, and sit around in a castle, and be a..."
She looked at the Queen and interrupted herself before saying anything insulting to her. She needed to be clever about what she said, unlike her father. Things were already out of hand. She slowly got up to gather the attention.
"...A Princess or Queen. I am not fit to be one. I am a warrior. I like to travel and see new horizons or experience new things. I am an Adventurer!"
She stopped talking for a moment to catch her breath and assess others' reactions to her words. Lord Landa still had that annoying grin on his face. Most of them were listening to her with curiosity. But not all of them.
"Pfft! An Adventurer, she says." The Crown Prince seemed not to be affected by her words. "How can a woman like you be an Adventurer? And how are any of these connected to you running away with another man?"
"He is not my lover! We have no such relationship! It is a disgusting rumor made up by this man here." She pointed at Lord Landa. "We met in North, he is teaching me how to... how to travel. His son was the only one who saw me and my master after that Dragon attack at North, which was also caused by his son."
He was still unfazed, that man. What a hard opponent he was to fight. He had a completely different fighting ground than her. Was her father always dealing with these kinds of guys? Her respect toward him had gone up again.
"Hah, teaching how to travel? What kind of nonsense is that? Now what, are you going to say you fought the Dragon off by yourself too?" The Crown Prince was set on messing with her, it seemed. "I bet you can't even lift a sword properly."
Elise opened her mouth to answer, but another voice got in her way.
"Oh, she could kill half of this room before any of you could stop her."
"..."
"..."
The Traveler was standing next to one of the side tables and eating a kind of pastry from it.