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“I- Yes, they are true, but-” I stutter. I’ve been thrown for a loop. It’s as if I flipped to the last page of my math exam to find a question from a unit we haven’t covered yet. My father’s cold eyes seem to trail me just out of sight, I can practically feel them on my back. But somehow, I keep myself from turning around and checking like a maniac. “I- Where exactly did you hear this from?”

I barely manage to parry the inquiry with one of my own, perplexed at how he had come to such a conclusion. The wind has been knocked out of me figuratively and I struggle to regroup.

The warmest smile my father ever gave me plays through my mind. It was the day I was able to display how useful my abilities would be on the waterfront when I’d regrown a man’s severed head. The veins had been first to return, like roots settling into soil. They’d twisted and tangled in the air like snakes as muscle and bone rebuilt around them. The prisoner of war who’d been beheaded had indeed come back to life, but he did not have a hair on his head and he was missing the memories of his youth.

He didn’t seem to have a clue of what was happening, smiling rather foolishly as everyone around him except for my father and I had marveled at the miracle before them. But fat tears dribbled out of his eyes and watered the grass below his knees as if some part of him realized the loss he had endured even if his mind couldn’t remember.

Lips had peeled back from teeth that resembled a beast’s more than man, my father’s first smile to me. I was numb to it all, the grotesque scenes I’d witnessed, the blood on my clothes and on my hands. All I’d wondered was whether he had smiled this way too when I’d hugged him in his tent under the cover of darkness. Then I’d felt foolish for even wondering.

Love? It is not love, but the equivalent of a soldier treating his good sword with better care. He may buy it a fresh scabbard and sharpen it often, but he does not love his sword. It is merely a tool of great use to him, one that can be discarded easily should it break.

.....

“Such news was so commonly spoken of it seemed to walk into my ears of its own accord,” Prince Amir joked lightly. His words are probably true, my informants have long told me how popular news about the bastard princess is amongst the upper classes.

My high has been doused and I am not grateful to the culprit. My fake smile is not as pretty as it was earlier as I go on the offensive.

“Why are you so curious about such mundane matters, princeling? Surely you would be better off learning about those who are actually in contention for the throne rather than a bastard like me.”

“I have never seen you as such. In Aidel, there is no such thing as a bastard. Any child of the king is a prince or a princess,” Amir explained in a hasty manner.

“But even princesses cannot inherit in Aidel,” I finish. “And although the king’s children qualify as princes and princesses, there is still a large difference between those born of his wives and those born of his concubines. Something I am sure you can attest to from your personal experience. Unless the law has changed quite recently.”

The warm toffee skin above his jaw ticks as his infuriating grin fades. Amir is concubine-born, of that I am sure. He is too cautious, too clever. “It hasn’t.”

We walk in silence the rest of the way, each of us embroiled in our own thoughts. But I cannot focus on my father and the mistaken perception of our relationship for long as I spot the clue Emma had hidden in this area for me to find. The second item I need to fulfill my plan is buried beneath a lone daisy planted within the crook of a tree’s roots.

They’re out of season, daisies. But none of the current party would know, as I’m the only one who has regularly sold flowers and have a basic understanding of their flowering seasons.

The heavens must pity me as a welcome distraction for Amir flits between bushes in the form of a small doe. He is smart, I’ll give him that, but Amir is still a boy. The young prince is eager to give chase. His displayed muscles immediately tense up and his gaze follows the small deer more avidly than a hawk.

“That deer... I must have it,” he half mutters to himself, the wild urge to hunt sending his feet careening after the critter, which immediately senses his movement and runs off the best it can. The sighting drags Amir along with his men away from our party finally and leaves me alone with Julia and the three guards.

It is today I learn that Julia’s wicked smile so resembles our father’s. Sometimes I forget that she is his child too with the way she takes after the empress in so many regards.

“So,” she drawls, turning away from Amir who has disappeared with exuberant hooting. “I pray you have not forgotten my earlier words.”

“How could I?” I roll my eyes and subtly pull the vial from my pocket. The words Jack had enclosed with this package had been that the blood of a single griffin would be potent enough to lure the threatened griffin away from her nest.

Julia is unbothered by my external confidence. Without so much as turning to look at the guards, she orders, “There seems to be a rabbit in the bushes behind me. Go give it chase.”

“Yes, your highness,” they reply, thumping their chests and immediately going off to search for the “rabbit”. Even though they are part of the royal guard, I’d bet my useless right hand that they are all from families subservient to House Duvernay. As they’ve scampered off, I am alone with Julia for the first time in my entire life.

“You want to kill me?” I ask without preamble. My tone is bored as if I’m asking for the weather.

Julia nods enthusiastically, then after much thought, shakes her head. “Mother said I’m not allowed to kill you just yet. But she never said I couldn’t maim you.”

It seems Julia is capable of being creative in her thoughts when it revolves around more violent matters.

“How bothersome. I was actually looking forward to you trying,” I whine. It’s not a lie, I was indeed curious to see how Julia would go about trying to get rid of me permanently.

Julia cocked her head to the side, a scientist examining a strange specimen. “You are not... afraid?”

“Afraid?” I smother a laugh. “Julia, do you know how many times Mother has tried to kill me? I’ve lost count. And they were spectacular attempts too. Imagine a fleet of arrows sailing through the skies, more plentiful than the number of birds that fly home during the winter. Men in clothes as black as night who do not pull their punches.”

It’s like I’m telling a child a story as I paint the picture of the previous attempts on my life.

I smack my head as another one comes to me. “Oh, and poison! How could I forget poison? I’m surprised you haven’t tried that before. I don’t take any anti poisons regularly so it would be rather easy to do away with me in that fashion.”

I pantomime choking and dramatically stick out my tongue before I dissolve into a hearty laugh.

“You... are strange.” The knife in Julia’s hand lowers a bit before she is reinvigorated. “But it is no matter to me. I simply wish to carve away at your skin until your appearance is as lowly as your birth.”

I flutter my lashes. “Is that your way of calling me pretty?” I ask. I’ve successfully backed up to the tree where Emma has buried the one item that will keep me alive when madness ensues. The daisy sits between my feet, its innocent appearance rather deceptive.

“Who cares? Augustus will not find you so pretty and fun when I am done with you. And then what will you be? A lonely, broken princess that anyone can trample on.” Julia muses. “Shall I cut off your hands, so you can no longer heal others? Or should I take off your insolent nose?”

My nail digs into the cork that stops the vial, it pops off with a soft hiss and I can already smell a faint coppery tinge in the air. As I tip the contents out over the forest floor, I start talking.

“You know, Julia, you’re not so bad. I mean, you’re a brat, and the way that you torture your maids is truly horrific. Oh, and your obsession with Augustus is really freaking disgusting and will get you killed in the future just so you know. But I mean, most of it is because of your mother, right? She messed you up completely. Nature versus nurture,” I ramble.

Julia starts walking towards me with her detached expression, a caricature of the psycho murderous kid that seems prevalent in horror movies. She is close enough for me to see the flecks of dirt that have stuck onto her silver skirt.

“I do not know what it is you speak of. But I have decided I shall start with your hair,” Julia tells me.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is-” A trembling screech fills the air, so loud it causes the nesting birds in trees to fly off. It is a sound unlike anything I’ve ever heard in both lives even though I was a regular on the National Geographic channel in my past life and have seen all kinds of animals.

“I’m sorry.”

I whisper the apology to my half-sister who is but a few months older than me. The last few drops of griffin blood I splash onto her skirt, but she doesn’t notice. The fake evidence has been planted.

I’d never experienced an earthquake before but I’d imagine it feels like now. A soft tremor, so faint that you think you imagined it. But gradually, the sensation becomes impossible to ignore as your entire world starts violently rocking.

“Have you gone mad, you bastard girl?” Julia is so focused on me that she doesn’t even seem to notice the way the very ground beneath our feet has become unstable. The blade comes to my neck, the familiar cool metal kissing my neck. I have had a knife held to my throat far too many times in my short life.

“Not quite,” I say. Every word causes the blade to press deeper onto my neck although the skin doesn’t break. Her hand is remarkably steady despite the shaking that is increasing with each passing second. “But if we both survive, you will certainly wish you had because you are going to be in a lot of trouble. Tell Mother...” My voice trails off. What do I want Katya to hear?

“Mother doesn’t care for anything you have to say,” Julia hisses. She really is an unoriginal villain. It’s a shame. I would have expected more from Katya’s daughter considering how brilliantly diabolical the empress is. The words I’m looking for finally come for me.

A strange smile twists across my face. “Tell Mother that she has taught me well. Tell her that I’ve learned from the past lesson she gave me. I will look forward to her next lesson.”

The lesson of how to pin a major crime on someone else. I don’t say it aloud, but Katya should understand well enough, even without Julia to verbally pass on my message.

The screech sounds again and this time Julia reacts, fear latently crawling across her face as she whips around and realizes that it is just us in this clearing and we have no defenses.

“W-What is that?” she gasps, her face turning as white as my hair.

“Oh, just an angry griffin coming to kill the intruder in her territory,” I shrug. I chuck the empty vial in a nearby bush and begin digging up the buried object, my foot mercilessly smushing the daisy.

The trees part like the Red Sea and a beast that belongs in a fairytale emerges. Sweat prickles at the back of my neck. My heart pumps so hard I can feel it pulsing in my chest as my breath stops in its tracks. Its front talons are buried in the dirt, each claw easily the size of my forearm. It has the body of a lion, but the head and wings of an eagle. A tree beside it creaks and teeters dangerously, the sheer power of the beast so great even the tree trunk can’t withstand its might. A single thought dances through my mind as the gravity of this mess catches up with me all at once.

Why didn’t anyone tell me that griffins are the size of a damn house?