If she had ever doubted the corruption in her heart, Helene couldn’t deny it now as the forbidding desire to burn her half-sister’s face off with the dripping candle wax consumed her like a poison.
“Leave us, Wendy,” Morgan dismissed the anxious maid.
With an obedient bow, Wendy scampered away, leaving them alone in the dark room. In the deafening silence, Helene clenched her fists, her eyes solely trained on the letters Morgan was dangerously waving across the candle’s flame. Not only were they a precious collection of letters her mother had sent her throughout the years they had been separated, but they also held the only word she received from a trusted confidante back in Ravenia, who had been faithfully sending messages assuring her of her mother’s wellbeing.
“So, what is it this time?” Morgan began. “Where could you possibly have been at this godforsaken hour?”
She didn’t respond, her sights still focused on the letters.
Morgan followed her gaze and laughed. “I came across these scraps, and believe me when I tell you I’ve never read anything more pathetic. It disgusts me to think Father would ever spare a glance for someone as lowly as your mother.”
Helene looked up slowly, meeting a pair of blue eyes that looked too similar to her own. She loathed the resemblance. There was no doubt that they shared a father, with the same dark hair and delicate features, and she would have done anything to erase the connection. In fact, there was nothing she wanted more than to lunge across the room to gouge those eyes out herself.
“Say one more word about my mother, and I —”
“You’ll what?” she asked with mock fear, cocking her head dramatically.
I will burn you alive.
When silence answered her, Morgan barked a taunting laugh, standing up and circling her as she flipped through the tattered papers.
“And who is this mysterious correspondent you’ve been receiving messages from? Your secret lover? Or conspirator? Or maybe one of those lowly rats trying to squeeze their way into your little scheme?”
Helene couldn’t stop from scoffing in disbelief. The amount of times she had been accused of conspiring some wicked scheme to exploit her way into the Royal Family for power sickened her.
Morgan stopped, her eyes flaring in temper at the sound.
“What bothers you the most?” Helene asked darkly, stepping closer until they were mere inches apart. “The fact that you share blood with a lowly rat like me? Or that I’ll soon have a higher position than you come tomorrow? I hope you know that green is not a good color on you —”
Helene’s face snapped to the side as the force of her sister’s hand whipped across her face. Her cheeks stinging, Helene rubbed her jaw as she looked back with a humorless smile. It didn’t surprise her one bit.
As if it wasn’t enough, Morgan grabbed a fistful of her hair and shoved her against the dresser. Helene stifled a cry of pain as the sharp corner dug into her ribs.
Pulling at her strands until her scalp burned, Morgan leaned over from behind and whispered into her ear, “Don’t be so vain, little sister. We’re simply selling you off to the highest bidder. You’re a worthless pawn lower than the dirt on my boots, and I’m going to relish watching you suffer as your pathetic little plot falls to ashes around you.”
Kneeing her harshly in the gut as the final blow, Helene’s breath was knocked out of her as she fell to the ground.
“You’re up to something. I know it,” Morgan said coldly, walking over to the flickering candle still burning by the divan. “I don’t know what it is, but trust me when I tell you I’m going to find out. But, in the meantime, I’ll be gracious enough to do you a favor.”
Dropping the bundle of letters onto the wooden floor, Morgan took the candle and held it over the pile of papers. Scrambling in panic, Helene crawled across the floor, but in the blink of an eye, she watched as the flames engulfed the quickly burning parchment now turning into ash.
“NO!” she shouted, lunging across the room.
Sneering in twisted satisfaction, Princess Morgan raised her nose. “I will not have you taint the Royal Family with traces of your peasant mother.”
Slamming the door to her cries of horror, Princess Morgan left Helene in a state of frenzy. With tears blurring her eyes, she scrambled to the growing fire and sifted through the flames, ignoring the agonizing burn on her fingers as she tried to salvage what remained. Looking around hysterically, she spotted a basin of water resting on a table. Instinctively, she rushed over and doused her hands holding the burning letters. But, it was too late.
Her strength leaving her once the flames extinguished and the papers were left sodden and disintegrating, Helene dropped to her knees — her tears stopping and a formidable vibration of fury starting from her chest and suffusing to every nerve in her body.
She thought she was doing the right thing.
She didn’t fight back. She took every strike, subdued her rage, turned the other cheek. Not because she was any better, but because she feared that if she did fight, she wouldn’t know when to stop. But, now, as she sat there holding the ruins of her mother’s letters, she wasn’t so sure anymore.
How many times throughout the wretched years had she held onto the words her mother had written to her? During her lowest moments of being forced into a mold she would never fit and in the midst of being thrust into a life she never wanted, she would read through them over and over again, desperately missing the life she used to have before she was taken away.
Morgan wasn’t wrong. She was just a pawn. A spare daughter to marry off for gain and power. In fact, if she wasn’t already promised to the Prince of Silva, Princess Morgan would have been the one attending the Betrothal Ball instead of her.
Her mother had worked so hard to hide her away from the very life she was now trapped in. And as the people who scorned her thrived in their filthy wealth and power, her mother was dying.
Closing her eyes, she reached up to grasp the stone necklace — her single connection to her mother now. She had lost the letters, but she refused to lose her mother. In fact, she would live through whatever sorrows or sufferings to ensure it.
Just don’t take my mother away from me, she prayed. Not the only good thing I’ve known in this wicked world.
---
Come morning, the aides assigned to help her prepare for the coming Ball were shocked to find the Princess staring at the wall with hollow, sleepless eyes. Still huddled beneath the basin and clutching the stone at her neck, she shut out the outbursts from her ladies.
When the coaxing from them got too much, she appeased them and went through the process of being scrubbed and groomed like a pretty pet. Throughout it all, she felt distant, as if her soul had left her body and she was watching from somewhere far above.
They were knotting her hair in a neat chignon and brushing pigments to liven her heavy eyes when she saw herself flinch from the sting still present in her swollen cheek. The next thing she knew, someone was placing a cloth of ice to soothe it. And, when the burns on her fingers that looked as horrid as they felt were discovered, they tended the wound without a word. It was almost like a ritual they had in place — expertly hiding the marks left by her family who despised her.
Dressed in a lavish gown of brilliant blue silk and silver lace, she stared at her reflection in the mirror, unable to recognize the woman staring back. She looked…unreal. Beautiful. Elegant. Glamorous. But unreal.
As she found herself in an opulent carriage being driven away towards the Imperial Palace, she suddenly found it hard to breathe. It was just hitting her now. For months and months she had known and prepared for the sacrifice, but now she was truly losing her freedom. Instead of the King or her hateful half-siblings who despised her existence, she would now be bound to a stranger. A man she had never met, but was forced to spend her life with.
When her father had announced that she was to be wed to the Crown Prince of Theolos, Helene had considered running away. After being taken away at the tender age of 13, she was familiar with countless attempts at doing just that. It wasn’t until they threatened her mother’s life that she was smothered with obedience. So when she found out she was to be shipped off and married to a Prince of an Empire known for their ruthless power, she went to the extent of considering forging her own death to break free.
Then an unfathomable sickness claimed her mother. And, like a twisted turn of fate, rumors of the Dreamers of Theolos reached her ears as she searched recklessly for a cure. After that, what else was there to do than comply?
“Helene,” her father’s gravel voice called.
She looked up at her father, a daunting man with stern, blue eyes and a lined, yet imposing face. Beside him, Queen Irene glared with disdain.
“Yes, Your Majesty?”
“You will submit. Is that understood?” he boomed.
Biting the inner flesh of her cheeks, Helene tasted blood. But, with years of forced tutelage and obedience carved into her being, she bowed her head in deference and said, “Yes.”
Comments (2)
See all