The Lost Princess

Chapter Two

Anne? 

I looked back and the Abbess’s eyes were narrowed to dangerous slits. “You dare speak to your superior in such a way? Who taught you Novice etiquette?” she said calmly, searing accusing looks at the Sisters, who were stricken with fear. Some huddled around Sister Celie, who was the Sister responsible for teaching manners and etiquette. “Was it you? Or you?” she asked, pointing a finger at Sister Mironda, then at a vaguely familiar elder Sister. They shook their heads, shaking in their wimples. 

Anne opened her mouth. “Silence!” she said with such authority it was impossible to resist. The Abbess froze, finger hanging in the air as she did not move. 

“It was none of their faults, none but yours. For this past decade, I have seen you alter Her rules, and Her convent, to suite yourself. You have ignored Her calls and proceeded to continue speaking in the name of Her. I infiltrated this school for a reason, and have concluded what I needed to know. Corruption has bitten you, Fallowny Seidol, deeply. I can see it, swarming around you to put fear into Her followers. You speak as if She wanted you to do this, but you know in yourself that you have ignored everything She has said. You work alone now, without your goddess to guide you,” Anne said, disdain lacing her voice. 

The Abbess stiffened and her eyebrows drew together. Her eyes became shifty and her face turned pink. “You, lowly Novice, have no power to say this against me. I am your superior, the one whose power is above all others and above you. I can have you cast out and banished faster than you can say Saint Roseia!” she said rapidly, sweat gathering at her temples. “What is your name, Novice?” she hissed. 

Anne lifted her chin defiantly. “Anne. I’m Anne Taith,” she said, in that calm way of hers. She smiled sweetly, cruelly, as a flicker of recognition passed through the Abbess’s eyes. “Do you remember me, Fallowny Seidol? Don’t you remember your little sister?” 

My jaw dropped open, along with dozens of other students. Anne was… the Abbess’s little sister? 

The Abbess stood frozen, her eyes wide and disbelieving. Almost immediately, she shook her head and resumed her narrow-eyed suspicious look. “I have no little sister,” she hissed. “She died years ago. You are not her, you horrible liar.” Some of the Sisters exchanged uneasy glances. 

“Oh, I suppose you won’t believe it. After all, you watched me die. You killed me,” Anne said with a sad, forlorn smile. “I was always the better daughter than you. I didn’t try and I didn’t know, not until I died, because you were always my role model. I admired you greatly. But you were jealous. You were jealous that no matter what happened or what you did, I would not die. You were twenty years my elder, and already a patron daughter, but you didn’t want to lose that power. That one thing that made you special that was starting to be given to me, because I was a patron daughter too, and your own heart had begun to turn evil.”

“So you killed me. Not directly, of course. You slowly poisoned me, made me sick, until I couldn’t fight it anymore. You told Mama and Papa it was because of an illness that couldn’t be cured, and I never got to say good-bye. After my death, Saint Roseia pitied you, seemingly broken of despair and jealousy and desperation. She stayed with you, until you started to ignore Her. You changed things for yourself and blocked Her out. Then, She truly began to withdraw Her powers from you and you knew it. Yet, your high ranking made you as powerful as you always wanted and you didn’t want that to end. Instead of doing the right thing and maybe getting back into Her favor, you made it worse for yourself, keeping your title as Abbess,” Anne declared and her story rang true to me. 

Anne had always been honest and there was no reason for her not to be now. As for the others, well, they had a harder time believing her. 

“Sit down,” hissed a Fourth Year.