“They were talking about my mom,” Amelia said to Grace, as the two of them waited for the Duke of Winchester and Havoc to arrive at the circular pavilion from where they could still see in the distance, the destroyed judgment hall.
Grace, both arms behind her on the pavilion’s railing, offered Amelia a woe begotten smile that cared and asked, “Is that what you got out of them fighting?”
There was something about the princess right now that struck Amelia as peculiar. It was almost as if Grace knew something she didn’t.
“Ooh, don’t make that face,” Grace said, and Amelia erased the upset pout she caught herself sporting. “Trust me, I’m as invested as you are in getting to the bottom of whatever it is the duke and your father are sure to reveal.”
“R-Really?” Amelia asked, hoping Grace meant it. Since she didn’t want to feel alone in needing to know why her grand-father would try to kill his son-in-law out of nowhere. Or what the cryptic words her father had told her could possibly mean.
The whole affair was downright abnormal. And when she thought of how close it seemed they had gotten to fulfilling a passage of the Historian’s novel, Amelia’s body would break out in goosebumps. She had never seen her father so injured until now. He might have brushed off his wounds before heading away to begin healing the duke’s knights, but from his pain filled expression Amelia could tell he must have severely strained himself in facing the duke.
“B-Because… It sounded like grand-father blamed my dad for mom’s death,” Amelia confessed to Grace, allowing the small voice in her heart to voice a blasphemous, impossible notion.
Grace’s head sharply turned, although her face remained calm. “Right? Isn’t that weird? What’s up with that?”
“It is weird!” Amelia said, glad to confirm she wasn’t lost alone in the fog, “I think… I think my dad might have lied to grand-father about how my mom died… But I haven’t figured out how. What do you think I should do?
“Besides keeping an open mind that’s ready to listen?”
“B-But what if they sent us here to get me out of the way?” Amelia asked, as the part of herself which liked to worry began dominating her thoughts, “What if they’ve started f-fighting again? — I should go check!”
Grace groaned, and put herself between Amelia and the pavilion’s entrance.
“You’re starting to panic,” Grace said, opening her arms wide, “Come on, I’ll help you calm down. They said they would come here together, so let’s trust them, okay?”
Amelia wordlessly nodded. Accepting the offer to bury herself in the princess’s embrace. A part of her still wanted to figure everything out, but honestly, she felt tired. And Grace made for an excellent pillow to close her eyes upon and rest for a time.
“I hope things don’t escalate any further,” she whispered, allowing Grace to guide them both towards the pavilion’s circular bench. “I wish… I wish my mom was still here.”
Grace stroked Amelia’s head. A comforting act, which caused her to slump even further into the realm of fatigue. To the point that by the time a pair of footsteps approached the pavilion, she was an inch away from falling asleep.
A man cleared his throat. Grace shifted enough for Amelia to jerk herself straight up in alert, finding that both her father and grand-father had arrived. Embarrassed at being caught in such an intimate position with Grace, Amelia on the double stood up to greet them with a curtsy.
“I’m… I’m glad that you’ve come,” she said, as the two men took up opposite positions on either side of the pavilion.
“Why wouldn’t we?” Havoc asked, “Didn’t I say we would be here after explaining ourselves to the king?”
“Please, sit down,” the Duke of Winchester said, and Amelia did.
She couldn’t help noticing the tension between the two men. But it was different from earlier, as if now both the duke, and her father, were less angry with each other, and more upset with themselves. Trying to anticipate what they might say was anxiety inducing. Amelia resisted the urge to crawl back into Grace’s arms for comfort.
“It has come to my attention,” the duke said, addressing Amelia, “that you are under the impression I might conspire with the Marquess against your family. Could you share with me why?”
“Even if you were, it would be my fault,” Amelia said, under her breath. No longer able to look at anything but her clasped hands.
“Nonetheless,” Havoc said, his arms crossed, “We want to hear your honest thoughts.”
Amelia’s jaw locked itself shut. It all felt so meaningless, needing to put into words an answer that was obvious as could be.
“I’m… Do I really need too?” Amelia asked timorously, before spotting of all things, Grace, who had left the pavilion, snuck behind the two men, and was now gesticulating with her hands as if encouraging her to speak.
Composing herself somewhat, not wanting either the duke or her father to find offense in the princess’s antics, Amelia floundered an answer.
“Isn’t it because my mom… Your… daughter, used an elixir on me when I was born? Because of how weak I was? Making it so when she fell sick herself, there wasn’t anything able to save her…”
That was all she could manage. But the honest reply to the duke felt both liberating, and dreadful.
An elixir after all, was an item so precious no amount of money could buy one. And it was the duke who had once gifted his princess such a relic from a bygone era, in the hope it might protect her from harm once she left the Winchester household. Amelia made ready to lay her heart in the open. To apologize with every ounce of sincerity she possessed, only to falter when the room’s temperature raised itself by several degrees, giving her horrible flashbacks. As the two deathly still men began to silently stew. Their very emotions giving rise to a magic which at times, seemed to be a force they could barely control.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Suddenly, an unnaturally refreshing breeze brushed past them all. Both Havoc and the duke looked over their shoulders to spot Grace, who was climbing back into the pavilion.
“Can either of you… not?” Grace said, “Amelia’s struggling with her words as it is, she doesn’t need any more misunderstandings.”
“Not that there have been any!” Amelia said loudly, worried for the princess who had clearly overstepped.
Except instead of anything resembling offence, her father and grand-father, two of the most powerful people in the Velvetican Kingdom, both uttered an in sync; “pardon,” towards Grace while appearing ashamed.
Grace huffed and strode past them, returning to Amelia’s side. And as the Summer air began to cool, Amelia felt her awe for the fairy-tail princess increase to the point of heroic devotion.
The Duke of Winchester tapped his cane once. “I don’t understand,” he said, “You think because my daughter chose to use my gift on someone other than herself, I would be angry?”
“B-Because mom always told me how much you loved her,” Amelia said.
“I do. I still do.” Said the duke, who appeared to be struggling to see things from her perspective, “But I wouldn’t hate you for a choice Ophelia made. How could you think that?”
“I mean, you tried having me poisoned the night after finding us together on the veranda,” Havoc muttered, which earned him a murderous glare from the duke.
“Sorry, not helping am I,” Havoc said, as he looked to the pavilion’s ceiling.
Her world threatening to turn upside down, Amelia dredge from the hidden pits of her belly, a deeply buried moment from her past which when shared, would surely make everything clear.
“W-When the Duke of Winchester—”
“Call me grandfather,” demanded the duke, his grip tightly clenching his cane.
“W-when… G-g-grandfather never came to visit us for m-mom’s funeral… Wasn’t that because you blamed me for what happened?”
The duke nearly lost his balance. “Hold on,” he said, his face a visage of disbelief, “I was among those who lowered Ophelia into the ground. We buried her in our family’s lot, not in some backwater Barony!”
His cheeks scrunched in self-loathing. “Dammit,” he hissed, “I didn’t mean to say that, it just—”
“Came out that way?” Havoc finished, with distain. “Forget it old man, focus on the fact she’s still blaming herself for what happened to my wife.”
The duke grabbed Havoc by the front of his shirt, “Bastard! You’re the one who apparently never told her it’s your fault my daughter grew ill to begin with!”
Amelia found reality seemed to not be meeting her expectations. But try as she might, she could not find any signs the two men were lying. Which, caused her to panic. Resulting in a frantic search of every childhood memory surrounding her mother’s funeral for answers.
No… Not funeral, Amelia realised in horror, after re-evaluating the hopeless, gut-wrenching last moments she had spent with her mother, who had remained beautiful even in death; laying as if only asleep, in her casket.
An open casket she had never witnessed get placed in the earth.
Tears began falling upon the discovery of a horrible misunderstanding. “D-daddy, did you h-host the funeral… or the w-wake,” she asked Havoc, whose expression shot wide as he too understood.
As did the duke, who dabbed at his moist eyes with his sleeve. “Alright,” he said with determination, “that’s one down. But it still doesn’t explain why you would think your mother’s death is your fault for being born weak. That doesn’t make sense. Ophelia wanted a child no matter what. No matter the danger. It doesn’t add up.”
“Some things don’t make logical sense,” Grace said, and Amelia spotted she too was starting to cry.
“Baby girl,” Havoc said sadly, moving to kneel on the ground beside Amelia; taking her hands in his own, “I have never once blamed you. For anything. Your mother growing weaker than normal, following your conception…”
“Was the fault of your father,” the duke said. And Havoc did not disagree.
“How?” Amelia asked, now a blank slate who wanted only to know.
“He isn’t human,” the duke said, slapping Havoc’s calf with his cane, “Doesn’t matter if he’s part god or part dragon, fact is, my daughter, your mother…. Her body couldn’t handle the pregnancy. The stress weakened her to the point that when she caught ill, it happened so quickly a mage trained in the healing arts couldn’t reach her in time.”
“Then it is my fault!” Amelia said, attempting to pull her hands away from her father; wanting nothing more than to flee. Only she couldn’t. Since the strength needed to move even Havoc’s pinky couldn’t be found in the entirety of her body.
“Was it your fault Ophelia’s pregnancy lasted eighteen months?” the Duke of Winchester asked, approaching her also. “Would you blame a baby for throwing up after eating?”
“B-But why did you never come to v-visit m-me after,” Amelia said, sobbing, when she failed to find any reason why anyone would blame a baby. Or why a loving mother would ever burden a daughter with the details of how she struggled to bring a child into the world.
“I… I sent letters, several in fact.” The duke’s head turned slowly towards Havoc, “Did… Did your father never share them? Did he not tell you that while I couldn’t bring myself to visit your house, you were always welcome at mine?”
“Your first dozen letters were drunken ramblings of how you would flay the skin from my bones for existing,” Havoc said, his voice filled with guilt, “after a while, I instructed my aid to start burning them without reading. Figuring if the Kingdom ever actually needed me for anything of importance… the king would write me himself.”
“Oh, right… I only started inviting Amelia once I thought she had grown old enough to travel long distances in a carriage without feeling sick…” admitted the duke.
Making to stand, Amelia’s hand slipped out from Havoc’s. Only this time, she had no desire to leave.
“W-what do I d-do?” she asked, “W-w-what c-can I say? I d-don’t know what to think.”
Somehow, even as the world madly spun, a part of Amelia’s tangled psyche remained cognisant enough to notice the princess slide up beside her.
“Do you want help understanding?” Grace asked.
“P-p-please,” Amelia said. Unprepared for the question Grace would ask Havoc.
“The Baroness’s pregnancy… Did you know it would endanger Ophelia?”
“The mages who studied our bodies did inform us of the potential risks, yes.”
“Then, was the birth of your daughter a decision the two of you made, together?”
“I would have sooner gelded myself than force her.”
“See?” Grace cooed, her voice permeating throughout Amelia’s mind to somehow begin washing away grief, as if even her words could be instilled with magic, “It was never your fault. Why should it be? When your mother chose to have you, and save you? Search your memories,” said the princess, and Amelia did, causing every cherished moment she held with her mother to scroll past her eyes, “She loved you, right?”
“She did,” Amelia gasped, as if coming up for a breath of air denied unto herself since so long ago.
“Then do you blame her? Or your dad, for their decisions?” Grace asked.
“N-Never!” Amelia said, twisting away from the princess with the intention to reassure her father that she would never even consider the thought. She found her father, with his inner most feelings on display, to the point it was clear he’d thought at some level that Amelia blamed him for Ophelia’s death.
“And your grandpa,” Grace continued, to which the duke grumbled something about having only given Amelia permission to call him as such, “Don’t you want to make up the time you lost together because of a mistake which should be left in the past?”
“Mhmm,” Amelia whimpered, although she’d meant to say, ‘yes’.
“So, out of everything in the world, what do you want most of all, right at this moment?”
Amelia considered what she wanted. She took in her grandfather, who struggled to maintain a straight face instead of a frown. And her father, who she had never before seen with a spec of moisture in his eyes.
“I… I want my family to get along,” she said, barely able to see through which streamed, desiring only some sort of proof her life, although a lie until now, might soon become better. “I w-want a hug.”
Grace stepped aside, with a proud look on her face, allowing the two older men to temporarily set aside their differences, and give Amelia what she asked for.
“D-Does this mean I can see her?” Amelia blubbered, upon breaking away from their touch. “C-can I visit my mom?”
The duke nodded meekly.
“I’m sure she would love that.”