D-...
Athanasia happily waved hello to the giggling maids that passed her by in the hall, carrying baskets of clothes, handing over her soaked cloak to the butler waiting at the entrance of the main palace.
Divesting herself of her snow covered boots, she and daddy change into thin slippers that were set before them, before heading towards their room for a well earned rest.
Felix beside them, his uniform still as clean as ever, magic really was handy at times like this. The short period for which she wasn't able to use it had made her more uncomfortable than she had initially realized.
She had gotten so used to using her magic that it felt a piece of her had been locked away, and she wasn't able to touch it.
She breathes everything in, the crisp scent of the frosty outside air mingling with the slight warmth of the palace, not too warm and not too cold, the palace always felt like home, but even more so now after such a tiring day.
Her mana rushing around her, dancing over her hair, her arms. Feeling it in the tingle that came from her hands as she rubbed her waist over her shirt, her own warmth making her sigh as it seeped into her skin.
It swirled as if it were a panting puppy at her feet. Eager to please as it warmed her up from the inside, the subtle taste of sugared cherries upon her tongue.
Athanasia rubs her arms, stretching them out in front of her, and she sees Jennette run towards them, heels clacking along.
"Oh good god, not now! I'm not in the mood for this-"
Athanasia felt her hand tighten imperceptibly on her wrist as she darkly muttered the words under her breath, and he doesn't even have to glance at her to know what she was feeling.
Watching the insufferable annoyance speedily make her way to them with a wide grin, he felt the same as she did. Absolutely disgusted. And she hadn't even done anything to them yet.
Athanasia's smile speedily plastered itself onto her face, still keeping up appearances like she planned, and she just wanted to be done with whatever Jennette had planned.
Jennette finally reached them, and Athanasia graciously accepted Jennette's curtsy, and surprisingly, Jennette let them be.
Keeping her head bowed after moving to the side, out of their way, and they reached the office without any other problems.
It was odd. Strange, peculiar, all of the above.
She shouldn't hope that it was the end, but she of course, couldn't help but wonder if Jennette was finally toning down her eagerness towards the two of them.
She shook her head, loosening her ribbon from her hair and sighing in relief as the ache ceased.
Fluffing her hair out, she can't help but think there was something else, something coming towards them- and whether that would be something of Jennette's doing or someone else's is left to be seen.
Athanasia watched papa move around the room. He wasn't too tired or anything, she had seen him when he was exhausted, and that wasn't it. She leaned over and patted his arm soothingly.
He leaned against her hand, breathing steady and she sighed, tiredness threatening to overwhelm her before she could even collapse onto the couch for some tea.
She turns around, feeling him pat her hair in thanks, and started getting comfortable to his right, as she spotted the tea with just the right amount of steam rising off the surface.
Athanasia squinted, usually Lily would have made the tea and left it for them to enjoy, but Lily would know they preferred Lippe tea.
Why was it that it wasn't Lippe tea but black tea instead?
Lily would know that they don't take black tea unless it's with guests that prefer it, and even then they would rinse out their palette with a nice cup of Lippe afterwards.
The color, similar to Lippe with its deep golden amber hue, much like the finest of red ambers that tumbled through her fingers in the treasury, but the fragrance was worlds apart, from fragrant roses to... to the faintest scent of almonds.
Lippe's rose scent was never there to begin with, instead black tea with sugar hearts on a dish to the side, Athanasia's nails sink into the flesh of her palm, not unnerved or anything just feeling the whole charade they were putting up was tasteless.
If only she could feel confident enough to confide in Claude about who she really was, about what their world really is- how she had known before anyone had found out that Jennette was a black magic result.
She knew he had questions, and that he was choosing to stay quiet for her sake, and really, she wanted to cry at how sweet he was being, waiting for her to tell him in full. She would.
One day soon, after all of the necessary things were over, and she had planted enough golden chains along the road to her de-thorned path.
She flashed a look at Claude who had picked up his teacup with an unbothered face, but he didn't make any move to drink it, and she knew he knew it too. It hadn't been Lily who had left the tea.
With everyone within the palaces on their side through this war, it couldn't have been one of them, it would have taken more than bribery for them to even divulge a little hint of a secret.
It could only be one person. A single person that hated how Athanasia was loved by Claude. Someone who had acted oddly after rushing to meet them in the corridor.
Jennette.
Right on time, or should she say, the absolute worst timing of all- not even a cursory knock to alert them of her presence- even if they could tell by the flurry of footsteps-
Jennette burst through the doors, yelling out "Father! About your tea- !" looking around frantically before her eyes landed on the emperor's face.
Claude is still looking down at his teacup, this time with his hand slightly shaking in barely suppressed anger.
His annoyance through the roof and a pulse throbbed at his temple, his fury at being interrupted of his time with Athanasia outwardly showing.
Yet, ignorant Jennette pounces upon the invisible opportunity, moving closer and raising her voice over Athanasia's quietly frustrated remark of, "Jennette, what are you doing?".
Jennette's shrill squeal of, "I was the one who brewed the tea, father! How did you find it?"
The whole thing so absurd that Athanasia could only shake her head in dismay, and she awaited papa's verdict upon the whole fiasco, rather than dealing with it herself.
She found it was wildly entertaining to see papa unleash his rage on his retainers, so what would it be like to see his true anger thrown at Jennette?
Athanasia's lips twitched as she held back her grin, patting his knee as she watches the scene unfold.
A group of maids, all with unabashed disgust leaking out of their very pores, Lily heading them with her signature, "I hate you, but I will be professional" smile, and Felix, his serious look on his face, accompanied by two knights of his squadron, who have all followed Jennette in with her flailing of arms and movement.
With such an audience, it was obvious that Jennette hoped for something.
A big change that would make people look at her differently than before, obviously it had all been planned out and scripted in Jennette's head.
Claude is still silent, and Jennette's hands are clasped in front of her, the very image of a praying saint just like "her", and a hopeful smile upon her face as she waits for her 'father' to look at her with love and to call her over to say she was his lovely daughter.
His only loving daughter, just like how she was in that time.
Athanasia knew Jennette would try something like this, but she didn't know it would be something so telling- and stupid.
She hadn't put it past her to get desperate after months of not getting anywhere, and it had actually happened.
Tired as she was from the journey that had took longer than anticipated, Athanasia tapped papa's hand, and he looked straight at her, even as Jennette stared- horrified in the background.
His eyes meet Athanasia's, and well... nothing happened.
Nothing that Jennette had wanted to happen anyway- and especially not towards Athanasia- which was at least a god given mercy at this point in time.
Jennette now, was more confused than anything, and she twisted her head from left to right, looking between the two. No abrupt outbursts, no odd smiles, nothing different in father's eyes.
Just a deep, steady calm.
The elicited reaction not what she expected and hoped for. At least not aimed towards Athanasia. But since nothing was happening towards Athanasia either, didn't that mean she had failed?
Jennette's face grew pale, biting the inside of her cheek as she waits for her father to say something.
Anything.
"Come here." Jennette jerks her head up at the cold voice, that was still as cold as ever, blinking as she sees father, still looking at Athanasia but she was already sitting right next to him, so..so it had to be her that he was calling for!
She threw caution to the wind, nearly slipping on the marble floor in her beige slippers as she dashed over to his side and bobbed her head in a fashion of a mock curtsy.
Too eager for his attention to see anything else but father, she missed Athanasia's disparaging smirk.
Claude blinked, affectionately gazing at Athanasia's face- every expression of hers was endearing to him-and he turned his head to glare at Jennette again, the culprit of their troubles.
"Kneel."
The sheer power of Claude's tone ripped through the very air with that one command, Jennette's legs unwillingly giving out from underneath her-with nowhere to go but down, the people behind her staggering from the impact of their emperor's crackling fury that could raze an entire county to its grave.
Felix stands tall, like a strong oak tree against the force that was lashing all around them, shielding Lily behind his broad back as his red hair whips away from his forehead.
His gray eyes uncharacteristically serious as he glares down at Jennette's figure in barely concealed contempt.
Athanasia simply watches the delectable show from her seat, squishing a cushion nearest to her, like a cat kneading its most favored blanket in the house.
Athanasia shifts her territorial gaze to Jennette on the ground, to Claude's left and sniggers before shoving her face into a pillow to hide her giggling.
Claude was still holding the teacup when he poked Athanasia's side to get her to pay attention. It was a wordless "Look up", and Athanasia did so with great anticipation at what was to follow.
Papa didn't disappoint her, he never did, not this time around anyway.
The still steaming tea is poured onto Jennette's lap, and Athanasia sees the pained shock that Jennette's eyes display before an ear piercing shriek leaves Jennette's red painted mouth.
Athanasia with great glee wrapping around her heart, disdainfully peers down at Jennette's miserable state.
Jennette makes to get up, the scalding tea seeping into her dress and onto her legs, and she finds she can't move an inch from her position. Leaving her in a vulnerable state of suffering from the burns of the tea she had made.
It was madness it was. Her mouth forced shut without her permission, even her screaming unable to leave her as Claude had enough of her noises, his mana clamping her jaw together.
Her gurgling catches in her throat, the noises hardly nice to hear for the rest of the people in the room as some inconspicuously cover their ears or turned away from the grisly sight.
Father hadn't drank it... hadn't drunk the liquid at all.. even though there was nothing that could have let either of them know who had brewed it.
There hadn't been anything wrong with the choice of tea- if Athanasia drank it with her that time, that meant father drinks it too!
There wasn't any identifying smell to the potion either- after she had poured it into both cups- what could be better than father loving her as his daughter, if Athanasia loved her as a sister too?
Coercion meant she would hand over her seat without a struggle, to sign it away-the same smell remained from their tea... so what tipped them off?
Jennette doesn't know- didn't bother to care to know, about their actual tea preferences. The only things she actually knew were the things Duke Alpheus had bothered to tell her.
Like how the two always took lunch together, how they took tea in the garden, that Athanasia got many gifts from father, that father adored Athanasia, that father cherished Athanasia to the point that the crown princess seat as heir apparent had been hers at the tender age of four.
If only- if only Jennette had been the one to be born in the palace. If only she had been born with golden hair. If only she was as lovable of a princess, as lovable as a daughter in father's eyes.
If only she had been born Athanasia and not Jennette.
He continued, "Did you think you would be successful? You undeserving, befouled wretch of a being." and Jennette felt her whole body flinch in response to his words, shivers wracking her shoulders.
He gripped the light yellow porcelain in his hand and he threw it onto the ground right in front of Jennette, letting it smash into pieces.
A stray, sharp fragment slicing her cheek as it pinged off the floor, flying past her before digging into the plaster behind her.
Rain poured even more heavily outside, so much so one wouldn't be able to see in front of them for more than a foot.
Large pieces of icy hail that could crush bones smashing against the magically strengthened arched windows, before a thunderingly loud crash of lightning sounded- as if it were right in the room with them.
Athanasia took a quick glance behind her, her eyes darting to the storm outside and a glimpse of red sprites made her almost gasp in excitement as she hid it away inside her. It was magnificent, seeing their crimson flickering.
The lights flickered, chandelier swinging perilously from its claws on the ceiling that trembled, and Athanasia could feel Claude's mana swell into a monstrous beast before them all.
The force so large, so deep and cold, it was as if they were staring into the unknown of an abyss before a rockslide buried them all alive within its maw.
A terrifying premonition of what was to follow, had Jennette have been a prisoner of war- no, even they would have better circumstances than her at this moment, they knew, Jennette knew, that she wouldn't be able to talk her way out of this mess she had created.
She had dug her own grave, and now she would be buried within it, rocks and wet dirt packed on top of her, struggling would be useless.
She would be buried alive.
죄 를 두번다시하다니. 아직도 정신을 안차렸네.
"Committing the same sin twice you say.
You still haven't come to your senses."