To Love, Once Again

Chapter 83

"No!"
"Kyaaaa!!"

Screams sound out as Icaros crouches, ready to pull his sword at them. Gone was his flirtatious manner, to be replaced by a warning look, the face of a true guard.

"Captain, you misunderstand!" Lady Damar raises her voice for the first time, body frozen in shock at Icaros' change.

"I'd like to understand your intentions then, M'lady. Bringing a weapon like that here is reason enough to be wary." He nods to the small dagger, perhaps a letter opener? in Lady Damar's hand. It wasn't just Lady Damar. In the hands of each noblewoman there, they'd drawn out a small knife. Fruit knives, letter openers, some even with a larger steak knife that they'd wrapped in a cloth.

Icaros whispers to Sera, who'd stood out of her seat. "Your Majesty, step slowly towards the door."

But Sera ignored him. These women didn't give off any sense of insanity or cruelty. Yet, their desperation for something was clear in their wavering gazes; Sera remembered Lady Damar's words before she'd withdrawn the knife.

Something about paying penance, and returning?

"Icaros, stand down."

"My Queen?"

"I said stand down." Sera doesn't let up, keeping the firmness in her voice. It makes Icaros reluctantly release his grip on his sword.

And he steps back when Sera taps him on the shoulder and waves him back with a smile.

"This was the only way we could think of to prove our sincerity, my Queen." Lady Damar's voice trembles. Tears well in her eyes as she brings the knife up, the other women following her.

"What!" Shocked, Icaros straightens his back.

Swish.

On cue with Lady Damar's movements, the other noblewomen slice a lock of their hair off. Sera watches as a younger girl with black hair cries as she silently cuts her hair off. Just one lock, but these women acted as if they were shaving their entire heads for her.

"My ladies, your hair.. " Lady Damar bites her quavering lip at Icaros' murmur.

Sera slowly leans her head towards Icaros, not taking her eyes off the resigned expressions of the women. "Icaros, what are they doing...?"

The room is quiet as the women go about cleanly cutting off the one lock, with all the heaviness of a holy ceremony. "My lady, remember when you first arrived at the border camps, many recognized you as the Summoned One?" Icaros asks.

"Yes, I remember the soldiers staring at me all.the time. What does that have to do with this?" Sera tilts her head, fingering a strand of her own long brown hair. Sera's hair had been short when she first arrived, cut into a sharp chin-length bob. She'd been the only woman in the entire camp to have short hair at that length. Everyone else had long, waist length hair wound up into simple buns. As the war continued, her hair grew since she was too lazy to cut it. By the time she went back with Lucien to the capital and held the wedding, her hair had grown long, long enough that she never thought to find out just why long hair was so important.

"My Queen, we show our sincerity to you." Lady Damar kneels and lays the lock of hair at Sera's feet, right before the tops of her slippers.

Each woman steps forward, setting down the knives and tenderly cradling their hair in their palms. Bowing, they set the strands before Sera's feet, then let another woman take their place in turns.

They side-step the overturned table, lining up at the sides of the room as each woman draws before the Queen.

While she whispers with Icaros, Sera sees the completely flabbergasted expressions on Hilda and the maids faces. What the nobles had done here must be unheard of.