Heart's Desire

Chapter 23

We reached the building where the council meeting was going to be taking place. I remember going in here a few times with my father. We'd sit in on some of the trials that were taking place and how everyone voted. It was an interesting system to learn about, but not when I am five years old and all I wanted to do was run around the palace chasing butterflies or anything that moved.

I took in a deep breath, mentally preparing myself for this moment. Odessa came up beside me and reached down, intertwining her hand with mine. I turned to face her as she raised up my hand, kissing the back of it.

"Whatever happens, we're doing it together."

"Together," I said.

"Lead the way ladies," my mother said.

Odessa let go of my hand, flipped up her hood and walked towards the doors. She placed both of her hands on them and pushed them open. The entire council was there and my father was in the corner, listening to everyone speak. As soon as everyone registered the doors had opened, they turned to find Odessa stepping into the room, with me behind her and with my mother behind me, all of us wearing our cloaks with the hoods up.

"Excuse me, who are you?" the head council man asked.

That was our guy. The guy my mother knew.

"You already know who I am," she lifted her head up.

She reached up, slowly removing her hood. As soon as her hair became exposed, everyone there knew who she was. Her head turned in every direction as she glanced around the room, taking in all of the expressions that were thrown her way. She heard the whispers and saw the pointing.

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I am the monster you see me as. Just because I was born a woman and have the body of a male, you see me as some impure being. A demon. I will not stoop down to your level to call you the same thing. Especially you."

She turned towards my father.

"W-What ever do you mean?" my father asked, standing up.

"You know exactly what you did," Odessa said.

"Please, remind me of what I did," my father said, walking towards her.

She pulled out the letters. His face immediately fell.

"What is this?" the head council man asked.

Odessa stepped towards him, but my father went to reach for the letters. She pulled them back, glaring at him.

"Step back. You know the power I hold."

"And you know the power I hold."

"Not that kind of power, my Caesar."

Odessa handed the letters to the head council man and he read through them. His eyes widened.

"Does he know the context of the letters?" I asked my mother.

"No. All we told him was to play along with us disrupting this meeting."

"Is this all true?" he asked my father.

"What are they?"

"You really asked her father to kill her when she was born?"

The entire room gasped.

"N-No," my father frantically looked around. "That must be forged."

"They're not."

All of us turned to find Odessa's mother hiding within the crowd. She removed her hood from her cloak and walked towards us.

"Everything he said is true. Especially in those letters."

"No one has a signature like yours," the head council man said.

"Y-You're really going to believe letters that happened years ago? And from someone who is long dead?"

"What is the meaning of this interruption?" the head council man asked.

Odessa turned and faced the crowd.

"Your Caesar is not a great man. He is cowardly and easily scared when someone threatens his power when it's not someone who is tied with him. If I would be the partner of Y/N, that means I  would be Caesar by marriage. And that scares him. What scares him more is that his daughter is going against his word. But, this isn't my story to tell. I was just a mere victim of his ideas of infanticide and the ways he revealed me to the public. He could have went about his day, but he had to show me off against my will. Went against my privacy and showed all of you what is behind here without your permission! But like I said, this isn't my story to tell."

She stepped aside and let me address the council. I removed my hood and my father gasped. I sneered at him before turning my back to him.

"My people," I said. "As daughter of our Caesar, there have been instances where he is abusing his power. While it is tradition to marry me off to someone who has power, he assigned it to someone who is corrupt in many ways. Ways that I myself cannot comprehend. But that doesn't matter. He abused his power to get his way in many circumstances. While he has not done it to me, he has done it to someone else."

I gestured to my mother and she stepped up, removing her hood. My father's face fell even more that my mother was going to be threatening his position.

"Hello, dear husband," she snarled.

"What are you doing?" he hissed through clenched teeth.

She turned to the council, "Y/N is not his daughter. She is mine. A guard took advantage of me. I tried to fight back, but the guard was too strong and overtook me. And he was drunk. And instead of understanding the situation, he was more worried about Y/N lacking his blood. That she wasn't blood related to him. He threw me out. He refused to let me parent the daughter I had and went through nine months of hell. He never helped. He never did anything. And the only time he cared was when after she was born. And he only came to 'check-in' on me when he needed advice and anything I could offer. Where was that when I needed you?"

The three of us turned and faced my father. His eyes were flitting between Odessa, me, and my mother. His mouth opened and closed, trying to form some sort of words. Something to defend himself.

"Is this all true, Caesar?" the head council man asked.

"Y-Yes," my father admitted. "It's all true."

"Council?" he turned to the number of people. "Punishment?"

"Punishment," they all said.

"Odessa," he turned to her. "Would you like to fire back at him for what he did to you?"

"Please," she said.

"What would your punishment be?"

"Punishable by death."

"Understood."

"I want everyone to be there."

"Pardon?" my father asked.

"You showed the entire empire who I was," she stepped towards him, grabbing the front of his toga and pulling him towards her. "I'm going to do the same thing to you."