Stolen bride- Rebirth of abandoned duchess

Red rubies

PRESENT

Angst, love and so much hopelessness was swirling in the atmosphere, Layla had never earlier had any memory of Icarus but the way he looked at her with love and hatred was so complicated that she could not say a word. She was certainly was a pawn in his game but when she looked at his saffron irises they were almost so fragile like a broken glass.

He watched her unshed tears and then he looked at her trembling figure, he could not bear it anymore. The walls he had built crumbled the moment the pendant of red rubies started to glow so gorgeously that it was dazzling in his eyes.

Layla never knew when she fell in love with Icarus so when the rubies started shining she looked at the King of Ardos in horror...just like his seventeen fiancées who he discarded previously being so cold and indifferent would he also give her up?

Fragile arms wrapped around the torso of the virile male and Layla clutched onto him like a small child who did not had any idea what she did wrong but wished to make up for her mistake.

"Don't throw me away....I-I can bear my father selling me off, can bear my brothers hating me...can bear my fiancée using me and can bear all the hatred and contempt but...y-your hate...I can't..." Icarus embraced her tiny body and picked her up in his stronghold.

He did not answer her but cling onto Layla with his hold so tight as if afraid that the moment he let go would be the same moment when she would disappear.

She had returned.

His Ilaria had returned

Just with a different name and oh so beautiful it was....Layla

He remembered the time when he saw that embroidered charm on the coat of Duke Everdale...he could not sleep after that.

Thousands of years ago even before the founding of Avesta he had a delicate female in his hold who did not know how to play music or dance or paint or even to embroider and that was maybe the happiest thing for him because it was later him who taught her all that.

She wanted to learn how to embroider a pouch for him to ward of evil and ensure his victory in battles when she was pregnant with his child in her belly, it was him who was so afraid that she would prick her fingers that instead of teaching her how to sew a pouch he rather taught her how to make a charm.

The first she made was for him.

Those crude designs and irregular shapes could not be compared to any exquisite embroidery in the world for it was his beloved...his Ilaria who made it.

Layla did not understood and after some time even had stopped crying because the person who was holding her did not looked like he was discarding her rather....his body shook as if he was waiting for her since so long that after having her he did not know how to say anything, as if all his world that was lost was returned to him.

All those centuries ago when Emperor Zyram poisoned himself after reading the last letter of his late wife which lasted thirteen years after her death, he expressed a last wish from his son Arvaram.

'After my death, take out my eyes before I am buried and with your power turn it into a gem...if you wear it around your neck.....you will be invincible.'

Since Emperor Zyram had red irises it would be miraculously made into a ruby yet Crown Prince Arvaram who knew his unfortunate father had died so miserably could not stand anymore and after his death did not follow up on the last wish.

Even during his worst Emperor Zyram protected his son for it was Empress Ilaria's blood and soul.

Even when he was drowning he did not let his son be wavered by the storm.

Crown Prince Arvaram could not see his father such so rather than being consoled and forgetting he prayed to the god for his entire life.

'Let them meet again. Let my father meet mother again.'