He watched her. Watched her blonde, seemingly soft hair sway with her body as she was twirled in her midnight blue dress. Watched the way the light in the room gave her tattoo an angelic glow. Watched the way her hard, brown, eyes deliberately avoided colliding with his dark, lifeless green. It wasn't fair he thought to himself, to fall in love but then have it snatched away from your grasp, it wasn't fair he thought that everyone else could still laugh and smile despite the cruelty of the world, no it wasn't fair at all. He can still picture everyone's shocked expressions perfectly. Their wide eyes, filled with disbelief and disgust, he had hated them. He can still hear her screams as the alchemists dragged her away, he had searched everywhere for her, asked everyone, begged even but if anyone knew where Sydney Sage had been taken they hadn't told him. Of course they wouldn't be satisfied with just torturing her, he had to suffer too. So his father promptly decided that he, Adrian Ivashkov would be betrothed, to any royal moroi girl. Even Lissa couldn't do anything to persuade him. Jill agreed to it, only to save Adrian from being married to any of the other, judgmental moroi, after all she herself knew what it was like to have the the one you love taken away. He looked at her, placed firmly in his arms as they slowly swayed to the music, both their minds occupied with different people. Despite everything she was the one he wanted to save the most if he couldn't have his chance at freedom than he would everything in his power to make sure she gets to see Castile. He looked at the guy that held his blonde alchemist and felt like setting fire to everyone in the room. It was none other than Keith Darnell. He noticed her stiff body language and her reserved expression, it was clear to anyone that she felt uncomfortable. He wanted to save her, embrace her, run away, but no it was too late for that.
"They're engaged" Jill whispered.
He looked at her, her eyes were locked on the girl that occupied his thoughts everyday.
"It was against her will of course, her family must have decided it for her." Jill said quickly afterwords. He gave a helpless shrug.
"I know"
He had never expected on finding her here but now it seemed foolish that he hadn't. After all why wouldn't the Alchemists be invited to the queen's 20th birthday? Any public event Lissa held was a potential assassination opportunity. He had excused himself out of the ballroom and into the front court yard and sat down on the hard, wooden bench. He sat perfectly still for what seemed to be a hundred years, maybe it had been, the world could have been on fire and he wold have oblivious to it all. He just sat there, he wasn't even thinking, it was a montage of the memories, memories that should have been long forgotten. Her laugh when she saw the Dracula golf course, her irritated voice whenever he had done something ridiculous, her beaten self after the fight with Lee, Her dirty, smudged face when she fixed his new car that he somehow broke, her teary eyes when he kissed her and she realised that they weren't possible, the way her arms wrapped themselves around his neck on their last day at Amberwood. It was too much, all of it. He had demanded to see her when she got released from the re-education center. They were oddly alright with it, he had wondered why at the time but now he understood their reasoning perfectly. She hadn't recognized him. She hadn't recognized him as him. All she saw was Adrian Ivashkov a moroi that could easily snap her neck into two. He had left after five minutes. He hadn't been able to bear it, still couldn't but Jill and Eddie had gone and seen her and they had stayed for far more than five measly minutes, trying to coax her into remembrance but no matter what Sydney Sage refused to return to her old self. And now here she was dancing with scum, there was no doubt in his mind that she remembered everything now, but refused to acknowledge it. He didn't blame her, he would rather see her with Keith than see her back in that hellhole.
Soon he would get up and go back into the party as if he had never left, as if he had no idea who the girl with the lily tattoo was.
Love he thought was a cruel twisted game and he was nothing but it's mere puppet.