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I gasp despite myself, my shut eyes flickering to reveal the bone-white faces of the imperial physicians before me. According to the practices of this time, they could be put to death for failing to save the emperor.

I mentally reach out to this energy again, seeing in my mind’s eye the way it crackles and jumps like electricity. It’s a beast uncontained, but only a small sliver of what must belong to a greater entity. Immense fear pools in my gut at the thought of meeting wherever such a foreign power must originally come from.

Regardless of that visceral terror, I orient myself quickly as I recall my brilliant plan at hand: slurp up the purple energy like spaghetti.

It’s wary of my presence now, an almost sentient being that becomes rowdier as I approach. I do not hesitate.

I draw it into me the way one takes a deep breath of air. It feels wrong immediately. It feels more like drawing in a deep breath of water rather than air. My body wants to sputter and gasp physically, even as I feel the cool, evening air lazily swimming around me during this tense moment.

We are two completely opposing energies. Whatever magic rests in my father does not agree with mine because as it enters, I feel worse than ever. It’s not just nausea anymore, my entire body is at war against itself. One second my flesh is scalding hot, then it’s as if I stand at the top of Mt. Everest without a jacket on. My heartbeat goes so fast it feels as if it may beat out of my chest, only for it then to go so slow I can feel the blood moving through it like sludge.

.....

I want to abort, but I can’t. My hands are glued to his skin, my body all but a statue that my soul resides in.

And then, perhaps out of pity, a sliver of growing hope begins to show itself.

I can feel my father’s wound.

It is truly terrible. But what is most terrible about it is that it is the material within the bomb that has rendered him to the ground so effectively. Mercury, my mind tells me even though the last time I studied chemistry was in high school. The shrapnel is made of lead and within it is some extraction of mercury. No wonder he fell. This kind of injury would kill anybody.

This time, my healing is unrestricted. I finally take the injury unto myself, the golden shower a welcome sight as a flash of great pain ignites in my side. And to think Emperor Helio looked so calm with this kind of grievous wound wrecked upon him.

I release the breath and the strange power goes slithering back to where it came from. Warmth floods back into my father’s skin and I see his fingers twitch. I did it. I managed to eat this strange power long enough to do what needed to be done.

But oh boy, do I hurt!

My eyes open and I see my father looking back at me. He looks like he just woke up from a nap, his eyelids are low, giving him a sleepy, unguarded look. I’ve never seen such an expression on him before and for a second I cannot hear anything else around me as I’m hit with questions from the peanut gallery. The corner of his mouth twitches, perhaps a smile?

I do not get the chance the find out as I fall backward into a faint that takes me away before my head hits the ground.

I dream.

It is not the other Winter’s cries I hear tonight, but another one that cuts my heart to pieces. My mother. My real mother.

She carries much of her pain within her, my mother. Looking at her tired, yet smiling eyes, I was never burdened with the difficulties I knew she went through on a daily basis to pay rent and tuition. But it was at night, when I woke up for a glass of water, that I would hear it.

A smothered sound, probably held back by her hand, yet unmistakable. Whenever I hear the soft keening sound of my mother’s cries, it would make me cry too. But I never went in to comfort her against my better judgment and she would never mention it. Now, I wish I had. I wish I’d held her tight and let her know how much I loved her.

I can see her for the first time, kneeling on the floor of the bathroom of the apartment we lived in when I was in middle school. She clutches the skin like a lifeline, the running water somewhat obscuring the sound of her crying. She’s in her old panda print pajamas. I have a matching set too, somewhere in my closet.

“Mom!” I yell out. But my voice can’t make a sound.

I can’t tell whether this moment is in real-time or a flashback. Either way, it doesn’t matter as my “eyes” greedily look at a face I thought I would never be able to see again. But all too soon, black encroaches on the edges of the scene, which draws back further and further from me until it is but a speck in the distance, and then, nothing.

I open my eyes to great fanfare, by Emma’s standards I suppose.

The money-loving stoic was perched by my side, but the moment my eyes opened she pats the back of my hand and exits the room, presumably to fetch someone.

Marie is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. She bursts into tears, the water glistening on her cheeks and falling onto my bedspread.

“Your highness! By Helio’s great mercy, you have awoken,” she babbles.

“Indeed,” I mutter, struggling to sit up until Marie helps pull me into a sitting position. “How long was I out?” Outside, I can see sunlight.

“The time for lunch has just passed,” she says. “Are you feeling alright?”

“I’ve had better days. May I have some tea, please?”

“Of course, your highness!” And just as quickly as she entered, Marie has left. Usually, she designates one of my maids or attendants to do so, but she seems especially high-strung today.

I look at Emma with questioning eyes.

“What happened?” I ask her.

“Unknown assassins attacked the imperial family last night. There were no casualties or injuries. Long live the emperor,” Emma says. It sounds strange, but I’ve known her long enough to know she’s just reciting the headline of the most popular newspaper.

I tap my chin. “So they’ve decided to hide the fact that my father was injured?”

“And yourself,” Emma adds. I can detect a sullen cloud hanging around her short figure.

“I’m not injured-” I protest, only to feel constraint to my throat. There is a bandage, presumably for the bruises from the assassin’s hands. “Oh.”

“It is a shame you cannot heal yourself, your highness,” Emma says, letting out a rare sigh.

I let out an unladylike snort. “Tell me about it,” I reply with an eye roll.

We fall into a long, but comfortable silence. Unspoken questions float in the air, and surprisingly Emma is the first to shoot them out of the sky.

“You are wondering where His Majesty is?” Emma states.

“A little. But don’t worry, I didn’t expect anything,” I admit quickly. But her next words nearly cause me to leap out of bed.

“He was here all last night,” she tells me.

“What?” My head whips around as if I will catch the emperor still lingering in the corner as if I were still taking lessons. “I-In here? In my room?”

Emma is a good sport, nodding along to my inquiries.

“Hmph. I would’ve thought he didn’t know the directions to this wing,” I cross my arms and look away. But wouldn’t you know it, a tenacious smile begins to tug my cheeks upward.

“The first empress did used to live here,” Emma says matter-of-factly.

“He was in this room. Well, I’ll be damned,” I murmur as if I didn’t hear her, just as heavy, male footsteps make their way to my room.

“Not if I have anything to say about it. Winter, you saved Father!” Augustus runs in, barely out of breath even though I can tell from his attire he was in the midst of his swordsmanship practice halfway across the palace.

“Winter! Oh, my lovely sister, Winter!” He showers my cheeks in warm kisses, like a joyous soccer fan who’d just watched his favorite soccer team steal the game with a last-minute goal.

“Stop. Stop!” I try to say. But when I do speak, it comes out as a giggle.

In truth, I don’t hate it. No one has ever been this affectionate with me in this world. Marie carried me often in my youth and has more hugs than she can spare, but there must be some propriety between royal and servant so she never takes her affection as far as I would like.

Augustus pulls back, his messy black hair making his face look even more youthful. “You did it! I knew you could! Oh! Are you alright, are you hurt?”

His eyes make contact with the bandage around my neck, but my spirits are so high I can’t feel an ounce of pain.

“I can’t feel anything,” I tell him truthfully. “How are you?”

Augustus bounces off the bed, into a sword fighting stance. “I came out of that with nary a scratch!”

“Not even one?” I ask curiously.

“Not even one,” he answers with a smug glint in his eyes.

The tickling suspicion from the prior evening comes back with a vengeance, although I don’t let any of it show on my face. If Julian were indeed the culprit of this incident, wouldn’t taking Augustus out of the picture be his priority?

Augustus is a gifted swordsman, that much I know for certain. While perhaps he has some room to grow in a political sense, as someone personally trained by the Mad Dog, his skill level is all but a given. That being said, those assassins had decent skill and peculiar weaponry, while Augustus was also trying to protect the high priestess at the same time. In any webnovel, this could be written off as a bad case of plot armor.

But for my father to get wounded while Augustus walked away unscathed sounds too strange to be true.

“Is Aria alright?” I ask my brother.

“Aria? Is that her name?” A faint flush rises on Augustus’ face, but I dismiss it for him being out of breath from sprinting up the stairs to my room. “Yes. She is fine. She told me to extend her condolences for your injury.”

“How kind of her,” I reply, thinking warmly of the only person who makes my Holy Church work more bearable. Being the promised child was the only way for me to survive, but at the same time, I hate being one.

“Wait,” Augustus says, a thought occurring to him. He turns to me in confusion. “How could she have known that you were hurt? She promptly left after I took care of the assassins, I don’t believe she laid eyes on you once.”

I think back on Aria’s all-seeing blue eyes fondly.

“She saw it, obviously,” I tell him in a cryptic manner, enjoying the look of confusion a little bit too much. Aria’s blind eyes grant her sight to many things I cannot count.

“But she-” He cuts himself off. Thankfully, Augustus isn’t too slow and is able to piece together my meaning quickly. A look of respect and reverence overcomes his face. “Lady Aria is truly worthy of being the high priestess of that damned church.”

“Damned?” I repeat, my heart agreeing with his every word.

“Take heed not to repeat such words, Winter,” Augustus lectures, awkwardly clearing his throat and conveniently forgetting I had uttered the word myself not long before.

“Whatever you say, my damned brother,” I say in a charming voice.

Augustus bristles like a porcupine that’s been startled. “Winter! What did I just say!”

“Emma, help!” I wail playfully as Augustus wags his finger and tells me how it is unladylike to say such words. If only he heard my language on the regular.

“She won’t be able to help you,” my oldest brother replies devilishly, stepping in closer with his fingers wiggling like he’s about to tickle me.

“Oh really?” I answer with a devious look of my own. “I’ll bet 5 gold coins that Emma will be able to last 5 minutes against you.”

To Emma, I frantically turn and whisper. “Would you be able to do that? I can lower it to 2 minutes.”

“I could do 10,” my beloved friend says confidently.

“Attagirl,” I tell her, she nods back to me, already unsheathing the dagger on her side.

And indeed, 5 minutes later I grudgingly hand the 5 gold coins to Emma.

.....