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It takes everything in me to keep my face calm as if I know what it is I’m doing, while internally I’m screaming every swear word known to man.

My eyes flicker over to Emperor Helio, but his matching gold eyes are shut as if he were taking a nap rather than painting the stone floor of the amphitheater a new color. It’s soaking into my skirt and coating my hands and filling my eyes until all I can see is red.

My hands shake on my father’s chest as unwelcome possibilities run through my head. Yes, I would be happy to have Augustus take the throne, but he’s far from ready. He’d get eaten up and spat out within five years if he’s lucky. Not to mention, two words keep plaguing my subconscious during my weaker moments: what if?

What if my father and I could have a good relationship? What if I could pull the classic webnovel princess move and become the apple of Emperor Helio’s eye? What if... what if I could finally have the second parent I was cruelly denied in my past life? Not a father, but a dad.

“Hey, Dad! How was work?”

“See you after soccer practice, Dad!”

.....

I’d watch my other classmates preen under the loving attention of both of their parents after a school play while my mom would be forced to show up halfway through because she was working hard to support us both.

Not all of my mom’s boyfriends were crazy or ill-intentioned, but none of them ever fit that Dad-shaped hole in my life. And now, my last chance at one is bleeding out in front of me.

I hate everything. I hate being a stupid kid. I hate my powers. I hate being an imperial family member.

This world is as comfortable as a shoe with a pebble in it, every time I think I can acclimate, the world cruelly reminds me why I won’t.

“Hurry up! Why aren’t you doing anything yet, Winter?” Julian has morphed into that irritating fan in the stands who jeers at his own team when they aren’t performing up to par. But this isn’t a damn soccer match, it’s a life and death situation.

“What’s going on?” Augustus has arrived too, taking the steps two at a time as he rushes to where we are. Aria is nowhere in sight, hopefully, tucked away in safety.

“The shrapnel. Someone needs to take that out if I’m going to heal him. Otherwise, he’ll heal with the metal sticking out of him,” I order, attempting to sound gruff to cover up my panic and insecurity. Even excluding the strange force that keeps me from healing our father, the pressure and weight of expectations are enough to make me physically sick.

I take deep shallow breaths during my brief reprieve, as the imperial physicians slowly and safely extract the shrapnel from the emperor’s stomach.

“Bloody hell,” Augustus says under his breath, his face going white. “What happened? How is he like this? Winter – are you alright too? You’re not hurt are you?”

His rapid-fire questions are faster than bullets, but I can tell he’s trying to put on a brave face just like me. Not to mention, he is also the only person to check up on how I’m doing as well, which gives him extra brownie points.

“I’ve been better. Nearly went deaf,” I joke next to my father’s dying body. It’s such an out-of-body experience, I half feel like I’ll wake up from a nightmare. I still don’t know how the hell I’m going to heal our father.

The shard is extracted from his chest with a sickening squelch, but neither Augustus nor I visibly react to it. It’s a bit sad that the two of us have been desensitized to such sights.

But on the other hand, Julian has been reinvigorated, bending down to my kneeling level and once again yelling, “Heal him! Please! Quickly!”

That thought that didn’t fully have a chance to bloom earlier gets her chance, and I level a suspicious glance at Julian.

“You are too anxious, to the point that you are hindering me more than helping me. Either take a deep breath and calm down or leave,” I order my second brother in an icy tone.

He must be truly disoriented because he doesn’t say a word of rebuttal as Finn comes and leads him away. But his absence gives me the opportunity to speak with Augustus one on one.

“Augustus, I have something I must confess,” I tell him, tugging his sleeve and dragging his attention away from the imperial physicians pulling out the smaller pieces of shrapnel now that the larger one has been removed. They are using magic to heal them, but it is clear that the large one formerly in his appendix would need to be handled by myself.

“Is it about Julian? Don’t mind him,” Augustus says, patting my shoulder comfortingly.

“No, no, not Julian. Although he is acting very strange today,” I shake my head, lowering my tone so the physicians can’t hear me. “It’s about father.”

“What about him? Aren’t you going to heal him after they are done?” He scratches at his dark hair with a look of confusion.

“Well, to be honest with you, I cannot heal him. I-I don’t know why, but it’s not working,” I confess. My voice breaks halfway through speaking, I can hardly bear to look up at Augustus as I speak like a child confessing to eating all the marshmallows.

But once I look up, I regret it.

Because nothing cuts through one’s soul more than undisguised, unrequited disgust.

“What?” I spit out, perplexed and vaguely disheartened even though he hasn’t yet spoken.

My oldest brother shakes his head and dips in close so his words can cut even deeper. “You would kill our father for me to take the throne?” he whispers in disbelief. “Our own father?”

His words take a moment to interpret, but when his underlying meaning becomes clear, I shove Augustus away from me.

“Are you stupid? How could you think that?” I scoff, my heart pounding with hurt. His disgusted expression lightens, but only slightly.

“Then why won’t you heal him?”

“So you will just assume I’m telling falsehoods, then,” I say flatly, nursing my wounds internally as I strike back.

He doesn’t deny it, even though I wish he would. I roll my eyes.

“I don’t want to be emperor,” Augustus almost pleads with me. His eyes are redrimmed, a physical manifestation of my internal feelings. I consider being soft, but there is nothing soft about death and succession.

“Listen well, brother,” I start slowly, but irritation makes my words come out faster and faster. “Even if I wanted to kill father, it would not be now, or next year, or even ten years from now! Because you are not ready to take the throne, you’d lose it within a fortnight along with your head.”

I know I just predicted he’d lose it in five years, but what he’s just said has lowered my expectations to the ground. My last words come out like a slap, shocking Augustus into silence.

“Anything else to add, dear brother?” I ask sarcastically.

“No.”

“Good. Then help me think of ways to save father’s life that don’t involve my abilities.”

Augustus’ expression hardens, then he shakes his head hard. “I’ve been to battle enough times to know that it is the kind of wound we would write off for dead.”

“Shit.”

A pit seems to open up beneath me, sending myself and my heart into freefall.

“I’ll just have to try again, I suppose. But... but what if...” I look up at Augustus, unable to say my next words.

My father has passed out behind the proverbial wheel, but neither Augustus nor myself know how to drive. Julian isn’t particularly power-hungry, but the empress would do everything in her power to put him on the throne regardless. House Duvernay would stand behind him too. Other players would come sniffing, sharks that smell blood in the water and want a taste of this powerful empire.

There would be no powerful Houses inclined to stand behind us, save for perhaps House Amarelius should Lord Wolfgang be inclined to help us out of loyalty to our father. Augustus would have to wed a wife from a powerful House fast, but I’ve watched enough Game of Thrones to know that that is still no guarantee to keeping our heads.

No. Losing Emperor Helio is not an option today.

“I’m just going to have to try like my life is on the line,” I mutter to myself. Because it is.

“If it doesn’t work, I’ll have a physician claim that it was a strain of poison that has never been seen in the empire. Or forbidden magic,” Augustus says helpfully, racking his brain as he gives our father a distressed glance. The last of the bomb fragments have been extracted and it will soon be my time to act.

“Cursed magic,” I correct him, referring to a term I’ve only read in books.

“That’s what I said,” Augustus replies without a beat.

“Idiot,” I snort, the weight on my chest lightening slightly as I slide to my knees beside the man who has done little for me other than ignore my existence for the most part other than sitting in on my lessons. Should a miracle be performed and I bring the emperor back from the brink of death, I’m going to demand something in return for the favor. And yes, before anyone asks, I did just conveniently forget the fact that my dad just saved my life.

My hands rest back on the white formal military jacket, now dyed red and warm with my father’s blood. There is too much of it, to the point that even modern medical services may struggle to save his life. But, I don’t start attempting to heal right away like last time.

Instead, I close my eyes and think.

Much like I’d encountered with the dying prisoner and Julian’s strange head injury, there is a mysterious purple energy that is completely against the golden healing energy that resides within me. Rushing to eradicate it to get to the wound causes a sharp recoil, hence the nausea I felt at the whiplash.

With Julian, I’d tried to push at it softly, which worked for a moment before it recognized there was an intruder and forced me out just as brutally. There had seemed to be no method to work around it, and I must admit, after Julian’s betrayal, I wasn’t the most invested in trying.

In fact, I’d seen Julian’s stint of prolonged unconsciousness as justified karma. Something inside me was deeply satisfied at the sight. I suppose it was the guilt of feeling happy to see him half-dead that drove me to try so hard to heal him that I threw up for days on end with my efforts.

Today, there is no guilt. There is only panic and stress and my father’s slowing heartbeat that I can feel through my fingertips.

I need to try something new, and fast.

I grit my teeth so hard my jaw begins to ache. I tried to force my way through this foreign energy and failed. I tried to coerce it out of the way and failed.

I could try forcing my way through it again, but logic tells me that would be ineffective again.

“Have you saved him yet?” Julian whimpers somewhere in the background. I’m surprised to hear how his voice is thick with tears.

“Be quiet!” Augustus chides. But I can hear the worry in his voice too. As the only person to whom the emperor played any sort of fatherly role, I cannot imagine how devastated he would be if I fail. He might say that he believes me today, but the human heart is a fickle thing. Tomorrow, a Lord Bromely type of fellow may yet again convince him that I intentionally did away with Emperor Helio.

“Your highness, perhaps some silence would be advisable,” Finn says politely to Julian when he continued to babble incoherently.

Hearing his voice makes me think once more of those lemon tarts of old and the craziest idea ever suddenly pops into my mind.

What if I just ate this strange, foreign, purple energy?