The Diary of A King's Mistress

11th January 1668

        As I awoke the next morning, I found my father in complete despair. His eyes were heavy from the dearth of sleep. His skin too became waxen, and he began to look sickly himself. The night played out uneventful. My brother had not moved. But something else did. As we awaited him to become conscious, the book flew open by a squall of wind. It opened to a plant called Nerium. Unlike the other plants in the book, this one did not have a picture abreast the information about the plant itself, but I knew by the description that it was the plant that we had found yesterday.

        It was a poisonous plant. It caused everything he had just gone through, except death. I read over the passage so many times I could recite while asleep, but there was no way to help him. My mother had fallen asleep next to Nicolo, her breath too had become shallow. It was just a mystery to me on why he reacted the way he did. The plant only is poisonous if ingested, and yet it remained in full form on the table where he left it. Or so I had thought, at the base of the flower, were two teeth marks indicating ingestion. I shut my eyes so tight that they ached. Nicolo always had misadventures, for a child of his age, he was very uncoordinated and awkward. Unlike other boys his age, he was not taken by sport but my poetry and literature like me. He was like father in so many ways. My father studied to be a doctor for six years, at the time, I was ten years old. His face was always buried deep in a medical book, but it became to expensive so he had to leave his studies and work as an assistant to a doctor in a medical center nearby. But even the most trained doctor, could not have saved Nicolo. By this time, I guess the poison had reached his heart because his breath ceased completely. In the early hours of the morning, even before the sun awoke, Nicolo Hathaway died. My mother was shattered, like a hand mirror dropped from the very high tower in the tallest castle. Her pieces were out for all to see. Her vulnerability so exposed, she was unable to disguise her tears in public so she just stayed inside. My father cursed to the wind for some time before throwing all his books across the room. I just sat beside him and looked at his lifeless corpse. For most, this would be morbid and disturbing. But when you love someone unconditionally, you want every moment with them you can get. I just remember staring at him, wondering and reflecting back on moments I had shared with him. I also found myself deeply saddened by the thought that he would never know a woman's kiss, never know an age past seven, and never know any place but Fate's Whisper.