Ash and Elara went together to the end of the hall.
'What am I even supposed to say to her?' Ash wondered as they moved through the mass of the guests.
His gaze was fixed straight ahead and all his thoughts were busy. Nothing sounded right. Whatever came to mind seemed wrong even as he tried to say it. Formal. Informal.
Too eager. He was terrible with meeting new people, and Elara being only five years old did not help because Elara had already made it quite obvious that she hated being there with him.
They reached the end of the hall where there was practically nobody anymore.
Just the two of them with the wall between them and the sounds of celebration that drifted to them from the other side of the hall.
Ash leaned against the wall.
Elara remained standing beside him not touching the wall, not looking at him, not doing anything else except standing there and staring at the party that they both had abandoned a minute ago.
Ash followed her gaze.
'Does Father want me to befriend her?' he thought. 'Maybe that is his intention. Does Father know that I haven't got any friends?'
That was a fact indeed. Five years in this world, and there was not a soul he called his friend.
He had spent all those years locked up inside the walls of the mansion with Rose and his brothers and servants who greeted him politely yet kept some distance knowing that despite all that, he was still a child of a noble family.
And there was not a single kid his age with whom he could practice.
He had also been rather bad at making friends before. That was not a newly acquired skill.
He cast a sidelong glance at Elara.
Her chin was lifted and her face was devoid of any expression whatsoever. Elara did not look at him once they both stopped, she did not say a word since the apology she had been forced to give.
She was simply standing there silent and indifferent as though expecting him to do all the talking and break this uncomfortable silence first.
'Why won't she speak?' Ash wondered. 'Why would it have to be me?'
Immediately following this thought, another one popped into his mind - 'why am I so nervous about talking to a five-year-old kid.'
He took a deep breath and was ready to say something - anything to interrupt the awkward silence – when a sound echoed from across the hall.
It was not the sounds of conversations. It was something else. The kind of sound that meant attention had collected suddenly around a single point.
Ash turned his head in its direction.
The guests were already gathered in a sort of group in the center of the hall looking inwards, toward someone whose presence they were concentrating on and Ash could see nothing but heads and backs of people who stood in his way.
'What is happening over there?' he wondered.
He pushed himself off the wall and headed towards the commotion without any further deliberations on his part. His legs started moving of their own accord and he heard nothing behind his back.
Nobody was trying to follow him and he did not turn around to look.
It was difficult to see what was happening inside the circle of people as the gathered guests made a solid wall in front of him. Ash recognized his father's voice but could not see him.
He could not hear what the man was saying but the intonation told him that it must have been rather unpleasant.
He started moving through the circle of people trying to see what was happening. Ducking under arms, stepping around turning backs, moving slowly, but eventually managing to break through.
There was a man, a woman standing beside him, and a kid in front of them both.
There was also Draco.
Ash looked at his father's face and felt a chill crawling down his spine.
Draco had appeared before him in a lot of different moods. Reserved. Quiet. Controlled.
That was how he was today at the beginning, and the warmth that had appeared when he talked with Viran. However, he had never seen him like that before.
His father's face was tight with anger. Not controlled kind of anger, but the kind that was fighting against all the restraints trying to get out.
Draco's jaw was tightly set and his eyes were fixed on the man before him looking like he wanted to kill him where he stood.
He was gripping his fists.
Rose was beside him, holding his arm, restraining Draco's movements. He saw her tight grip on his wrist and her cool look hiding God knows what feelings beneath.
Ash stood at the edge of the crowd and stared.
He did not know who those people were. He had never seen them before. The kid who stood beside them, probably his own age or higher, was looking at Draco as though fearing that he would pounce at them any second.
The man before Draco must have been saying something because Ash managed to hear him clearly enough now.
His father, who was so self-possessed and controlled before the whole gathering in the hall, was restrained from hitting him by his wife.