The Fake Princess

17- Journals of Evil Deeds

I moved back home. My room has not been touched, dusted and clean for future use. I still have my mother's old room. When I first arrived, I ate brunch with everyone. Ambrose has finished his school so he has been living at home, working with the Duke to learn for his future. That unfortunately meant we would be spending time together. 

Ambrose didn't ask me too many questions. We had the same friends so he knows what has been going on in my life just like how I know how he's doing. The Duchess has been respectful towards me. She still doesn't favor me because I use her dead daughter's name, but I think she likes what I give her, the supposed mother of the Saintess. No one knows the truth, so she claims the brilliance that my real mom has earned.

The Duke is... kinder to me. He asks me how my time at the Temple was, asked how my studies have progressed and the use of my light magic. He doesn't bring up the topic of my future that much. He asks me when I'm planning to take the test and I reply with soon, when I feel ready for it. He accepts it and changes the conversation. Normally he would press me to become Saintess, but I feel like he wants me to marry sooner rather than later. 

After brunch, I settled into my room. I asked for privacy the rest of the day and night, not wanting to be disturbed unless it was for food or an emergency. I said to be woken up early for tomorrow since I will be visiting the Palace in the morning. I exchanged letters with Cassian and he asked to see me tomorrow. Now I know why he called for me.

In my room, I laid in bed and started reading one of the many journals of my mother. She wrote everyday during her time here and then hid them under a tile. I don't know why she took care in hiding them, but I'm glad I found them. I don't have anything else to remind myself of her, so whenever I visited, I read as much as I could.

I have now read up to her nineteenth year, the final year of her time here. My mom said she married my dad at twenty and had me a year later. I pick up the first book out of three. This was the year she wrote a lot. I originally wanted to quickly skip over the other books to know why she had run away, but I forced myself to wait.

I wanted to know about her childhood, the life that she kept very private when I was little. I wanted to know more about her, her family, friends and life at the Temple. So, I kept to the timeline, not wanting to rush. I wanted to grow up with her. I was given dinner and the words chilled the temperature of the room.

June 8th,

As a Kalido, formally known in society and throughout the Church, Uncle thought it was time for Lawrence and I to know about the true power of our family. He has always been secretive, but I didn't really piece it together before, living a naive life. I never pieced the secret meetings with the other Dukes that were done either in this mansion or in the others, never done at the Palace.

There was a secret room in the master study. The third candle on the right wall, right next to the family painting. He pulled the candle and a door appeared, an old hallway where I could hear the squeak of rats running from the sudden light. He guided us down the hallway, down the old set of stairs.

I was terrified, holding onto Lawrence to guide us. Uncle has never been like this before, this serious and... menacing. He spoke to us about our family. "We are warriors, we are meant to be the strikers of the royal family, gathering information from our enemies." "We have powers of fire, bright and hot to show our strength."  "If anyone tries to combat us, we can easily destroy our enemies." "We have to anticipate what our enemies will do, and that is hard. But, we found a way to infiltrate the enemy and sneak information and resources." 

Uncle finally lead us to a room. The sight was gruesome. It wasn't a room, but a cell. People of young ages and sexes were there. They were chained together. Even though they were all bones, all skin, almost dead; they couldn't escape from the chains. If they did, there was no where to leave but through the way we entered.