Chapter 193: The Meeting

A sad smile graced Lady Asher's face. She took in a deep breath and then wiped a nonexistent tear as her mind floated back to her younger days.

The tension of the war that had separated the North from the South had eased up a bit. It was not forbidden for citizens of Ghysem to venture into the South or vice versa. It was during the winter, and Lady Asher Ashlynn's husband had been sent on an errand by the king.

Life was beginning to bore her, and she did not want to feel like a burden to her friend, who was queen. Usually, she would spend her whole day with her best friend, but her friend had duties to attend to, and she often felt like she was in the way.

Ashlynn had seen the whole of the North, and her curiosity often made her wonder about the depths of the South. When she was a teenager and the war had happened, she had lived in the North all her life, and her dreams of visiting the South were crushed.

She did not have any children, so there was nothing to stop her. It was the perfect time for her to go to the South, travel through their cities, and appreciate life.

Her first two days in the South were spent at an inn. The rain had been unapologetically heavy and storm-filled, so she spent all her days indoors, eating breakfast in bed and looking over the storm.

Then, by the third day, the clouds had blown over completely, and she was finally able to leave the inn. She took a carriage to visit the royal museum—she had always loved art, painting, and everything of the sort.

As she entered, the museum's interior enveloped her: tapestries depicting hunts under full moons, thick trunks of large books, and wooden figurines. There was the smell of damp wood and brittle paper, the smell of something old and neglected, but underlined with something completely new – the smell of paint.

Thus her eyes fell on a particularly vivid painting of Queen Lyra Beloved Leader and Protector of the Pack. Queen was shown seated on a landscape; her eyes were gentle and powerful, and her head adorned with a wreath made out of wildflowers. The eyes of Lady Asher glistened with a hint of happiness and desire as she gazed into the painting with just her eyes.

She wandered, drinking in the history, until she stumbled upon a small room: Artists’ Refuge – Draw and Dream. She felt a shortness of breath and giddiness because of joy. Her husband had banned her from the act that she loved most, painting, observing it was a waste of time. Yet here, she felt freedom as she was in the area where 谛 was associated with pack and culture.

Lady Asher sat down at an easel that had a stool by it for painting supplies. She took her brush and soaked it into a pot of bright gray When she started painting, nothing else seemed to matter.

She dipped her brush into a vibrant shade of gray  As she began to paint, the world around her melted away. The canvas began to turn into patterns of monochromaticity. She painted the storm that she saw from the window of the cheap inn as a metaphor for her storm inside which was in fact melancholy.

Unknown to Lady Asher, King Ares the First himself had stepped into the museum, followed by his guards. His arrival was spontaneous, an occasion that seldom the king has for himself amidst the responsibilities bestowed on him. Everyone stood up to pay their respects to him but Lady Asher remained oblivious of her painting.

That was why he had noticed her.

He shifted his sight to Lady Asher who seemed to have immersed herself in painting. Time stood still. Delicate morning light coming through the high open shutters enveloped her in a warm, rather otherworldly glow.

Ares felt perplexed, not only by Lady Asher’s looks but judging that she owned a talent of the raw sort that the gods themselves had not seen fit to endow her with. She obviously painted with such rhythmic strokes on the canvas that one thought of it as something resulting from sheer divine inspiration. Brownish black shiny hairs brushed her cheeks and her face was thin and her eyes were large and alert and full of passion.

Some few hours went by without Lady Asher having seen the king and, therefore, was concentrating on whatever she was painting. Ares just stared, mouths agape and devoid of the usual scowl scribed upon his face.

At this time Lady Asher was liberated, her soul untethered. The King was struck with awe and admiration for her. He had not felt that way for any woman in his life; all the women in his life were for the sole purpose of birthing him an heir and they had only birthed him female children.

He did not only see a beautiful woman but an artist who fully transferred her soul into the brushstrokes on the painting. For the painting she painted, she chose to paint a lake near a seashore during squally weather with the nature of the water imitating the status of the sky. It was a piece that conveyed sad feelings.

As Lady Asher added the final touches to her masterpiece, Ares couldn't help but wonder: Who might this fascinating lady be?

"Greetings my lady," he said in a friendly tone.

Open-mouthed as she overpowered, seeing any form of company was not her expectation she turned around only to spill paint all over.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" shouting, her face red, she said. "Oh, your majesty?" She could only guess he was the king because of so many guards and with a royal robe it had to be him.

Ares laughed out as though the idea being put to him was hilarious and his eyes twinkled. "No need to apologize. Your art is breathtaking. Can I get acquainted with your name?”

Lady Asher let out the breath she had not been unconsciously holding and met the king’s eye.