Chapter 122

One of my greatest strengths is my ability to think and view the world beyond the lens of someone born into this era.

But at this moment, my head goes blank. My head is buried in his armpit, one shoe is halfway across the room, and my elbow pressing up against a body part that if treated without care could end the bloodline of House Wolfe with Elias.

I try to lift myself up, but it elicits an uncomfortable gasp from Elias. Sweet Jesus, please kill me now. Believe me, I’ve read all about these kinds of dumb, awkward tumbles in romance novels. Heck, there may have even been one or two between my big brother and Clara in this very webnovel I’m now a part of. However, I don’t think either of them fully encompassed just how goddamn awkward it is, especially considering we are kids who practically lost their teeth yesterday.

“Sorry!” I yell, my voice muffled in his neat shirt I’ve definitely messed up. I roll to the side, never more thankful to feel the hard floor below me. I teeter to my feet, feeling completely out of sorts as I see Elias staring at me from the floor.

It takes me a second to remember he can’t get up on his own.

“Shoot,” I grab my head in frustration, just to feel that the hairdo Marie did for me has also come undone courtesy of my dazzling display of clumsiness. “Ok, I got this don’t worry. Give me your hand.”

I head straight to Elias’ side, stretching out a hand as he stares at me with bugged-out purple eyes. I don’t blame the kid, he must be traumatized.

.....

“Give me your hand, Elias!” I urge again.

“Your face...” Elias stares up in awe. I wonder if he’s got a concussion until he opens his mouth again.

“It’s so red.”

I inwardly roll my eyes, cursing the pale skin that displays every shift in my emotion. Just going up the stairs results in red cheeks for the next 30 minutes, my skin must be as thin as paper.

“Hmmm seems like you’re completely fine then.” I cross my arms and walk over to my shoe across the room, my dignity in tatters. Turning around abruptly when I hear a suspicious wheeze of air that sounds like a smothered giggle, I’m met with innocent eyes blinking back at me.

“I can’t get up on my own,” Elias finally says in the midst of our stare-off.

I huff out a breath. “I know.”

The wheelchair has been upended so I right it first before trying to pull Elias from the floor. But Elias must be eating very well because my arms quiver as I lift him up from under his armpits. With our heads tucked together in this awkward position, My nose is right by his neck. But Elias bears no discernible scent. He’s not even radiating the warmth of a typical person, to the point that I could mistake him for a mannequin.

With Elias back in his chair, I rub the back of my neck and look away, certain that my face must be red again.

“Sorry.” I sit on the sofa, feeling a twinge of guilt as I take note of my lack of pain from the tumble. Elias probably took the brunt of our fall.

“You already said that,” Elias replies. He doesn’t look miffed or annoyed, instead, his face carries a faint half-smirk of amusement.

“Yes, but I’m saying it again in case your father looks for me to settle this wrong,” I say, pouting my lips childishly. “You can tell him it was an accident. If I ever have any children, he can adopt them and add them to his bloodline.”

“Ha! He won’t care. He won’t even hear of this,” Elias tells me, his gaze reassuring.

“Really?” I light up instantly. “Ah, you’re the best, Elias! I take back what I said last week, you’re my favorite person ever.”

“It’s nothing. My father wouldn’t care about such minor matters. Every letter I’ve ever sent him has been returned without being opened.” Elias speaks matter of factly, seemingly immune to the pain his father inflicts upon him.

It’s a sensation I willingly endure. Unlike Elias, I’ve experienced another, better life with a parent who loved me. But even in this second life that I’ve entered with the mentality of an adult, I have still felt for myself how much not having loving parents affects my childhood. I don’t want to watch Elias become embittered by the failings of the adults around him.

“Hey,” I say, creeping around the coffee table to him. “Forget your dad, ok? You’ve got me. I’m your family.”

I take his little hand, expressing my support for the kid. He doesn’t let go, but the cynical edge to his words doesn’t fade. If there’s one thing we have in common, it’s daddy issues.

“It’s alright,” Elias tells me. “I understand that having a defective son instead of his wife is a hard pill to swallow. But you, on the other hand, still live with your father and see him often. Unlike me, you have a chance to build a relationship with him.”

I let out a loud sigh. “Look, I’ve told you a thousand times, I don’t care about having a relationship with him. We are no more familiar than neighbors living on the same street.”

Elias stares at me like he can’t believe a single word that just came out of my mouth. So shocked is he that he gets into a fierce coughing fit that wracks his thin chest pitifully.

“Elias!” I pat his back, waiting for the coughing to subside. I’m not a particularly heavy child, but the impact of our collision must’ve had more consequences than I anticipated.

“I’m going to go get an imperial physician,” I tell Elias, unable to sit around and watch him suffer any longer.

“No, wait!” A hand grabs my wrist, surprisingly able to stop me in my tracks despite his seemingly weak grasp. I turn back and look at him, two doe eyes peeking out between locks of sandy brown hair.

“I don’t need help, I just need you to promise me something,” Elias’ yearning look tells me all I need to know.

“No. No, I won’t.” I had lied earlier when I said that my father and I were like neighbors. It was more like a cat and mouse.

The cat catches its prey, curious about the little creature. Will it eat the mouse? Will it let it go? Only the cat knows. And all the while, the cat toys with the prey that increasingly piques its interest.

I’m not invisible anymore. When my father looks at me, he doesn’t look through me any longer. There’s a distinct curiosity in his gaze, made more obvious by the fact that I actually see him every day, unlike the first two years when I saw the emperor a handful of times. It’s as if he’s asking himself, after all she’s been through how is she not broken? How is she still standing?

I don’t presume to know what forces my father has under his hand. They must be plentiful, to the point that if he knew all of my planning and secrets, I wouldn’t be surprised. Is that what has attracted the emperor’s attention?

Because if so, I’m not flattered, but even more disappointed.

“Don’t ask that of me,” I half-plead with Elias. We both know that he was about to ask me to try to make nice with Emperor Helio.

“I overstepped.” I can practically see Elias retreat back into his shell.

“No, you didn’t,” I say, trying to assuage Elias’ guilt. “You care. Which is all that matters.”

I settle back onto the sofa on my side, ringing the bell so that a maid can bring tea in.

A few moments later, in comes Sage, the newest maid to my palace. But unlike the others, she’s young, scarcely older than Elias and I. Her skin is well tanned, greatly resembling me in my past life as a young Hispanic woman. Her eyes are eager and bright, darting everywhere as she pushes the cart of steaming tea and treats into the room. But those eyes eventually settle on one target and stay there.

Elias Wolfe can no longer be called cute, having begun his transition from boy to man as is befitting his age of 12. The faintest bone structure has begun to carve itself into a face smoother than marble, the unique eye color that shines under his mop of hair no longer as round and sweet as it used to be. As she is indeed a young girl, it would be rather strange if Sage wasn’t bewitched.

I watch with faint mirth as Sage carefully attends to Elias, setting up his tea with more care than I usually see her put into me. I’d almost forgotten the way one’s first crush blooms right around this tender age. Middle school feels like centuries ago.

To his credit, Elias is gracious even as he notices my maid’s extra attentiveness. He’s always been a sharp-eyed kid, which makes me glad. I don’t want to see him get tossed around and played the way I was in my early days.

“No Emma?” Elias finally asks when Sage leaves, pink hearts practically glowing in her eyes. “You got a new playmate?”

“Emma is... occupied,” I murmur in a knowing manner, sipping my tea. “For now, I’ll let my mother think that she’s managed to get one of her spies to put a wedge in our relationship.”

Yes, Sage is a spy of the empress. Her innocent large eyes and curiosity at the sights of the central palace when she first arrived were very disarming, I cannot lie. But it was too convenient, the timing of her arrival two years ago. Emma sniffed her out first, discovering the remains of a burned letter that carried the rose sigil of House Duvernay.

It was then we’d concocted a fun little scheme, to pretend that Sage’s attempts at ingratiating herself with me had worked and driven Emma away. And now, we wait, wait for the empress to try to snap Emma up to her side. Wait for the hunter to become the hunted.

I smile to myself. “A good old-fashioned double-cross,” I say to Elias.

“To smile in the face of the one you aim to destroy, there is no greater pleasure is there?” Elias says, taking a sip of tea with the grace trained into every noble child. Even when discarded by his father, Elias still carries the bearing of a proper noble son of a prominent House.

I swirl my finger around the mouth of my cup, watching the steam rise from the delicate china cup.

“I guess. Do you think I’m a bad person, Elias?” I don’t look up as I ask him the question.

The awkwardness of the previous incident has faded. That’s the beauty of my friendship with Elias, we get along like peanut butter and jelly.

“No. On the contrary, I would do the exact same thing if I were in your shoes.” I glance up to see Elias nodding earnestly, always on my side no matter what.

“I’d hope not,” I chuckle lightly. Slowly over the years, I’ve been letting Elias get a taste for some of my machinations. “You should be a better person than me.”

“Oh?” A teasing aura surrounds my typically well-mannered friend. “But I am. In our games of chess, you never see me coming until it’s checkmate.”

“That’s because I’m rubbish at chess and you know it!” I growl, waving a threatening fist at Elias. Ms. Laroche would have a stroke if she saw me break my ladylike bearing just now. But with Elias, I don’t care about that stuff. He’s seen me masquerading as a peasant and didn’t care about my decorum then, so there’s no point in pretending I have any now.

Amidst our animated conversation, we wind up outside in the gardens eventually. I don’t know where Chester, Elias’ bodyguard and butler, has disappeared to but I find myself pushing his wheelchair as we wander amongst the flowers imported from all over the empire and taken pristine care of by a team of talented gardeners.

“What’s your endgame?” It’s an abrupt shift in our conversation, but I can understand what Elias is asking right away.

“I want her to be alone,” I mutter, the face of the woman who has tormented me since I was a kid flashing through my head. We’ve reached the miniature forest and I stop pushing the wheelchair.

“In a way, we are all alone,” Elias muses slowly.

I shake my head before realizing he can’t see it. “No, none of that philosophical nonsense. I want my mother to truly be alone. No one will stand by her side. Not her son. Not her daughter. Not her precious House. I want her to get a little taste of my life.”

“And then...?” Elias trails off.

“I don’t know. She thinks she knows me. She thinks she knows my plans, my people, my resources. But that’s what I want her to think. I want her to get so comfortable that when I pull the rug out from under her, she can do nothing but fall and break!” I don’t realize that I’ve been raising my voice until I close my mouth.

Elias is quiet for a second, then two. I worry that I’ve frightened him with the fire of my need for revenge.

I feel even more exposed before him than I did in the dressing room. “Sorry, I-” I start, intending to backtrack from my words.

“Don’t be,” Elias says firmly. He looks back at me, his face carrying a grit I’ve rarely seen. “I’m with you. I want to watch you see this through, by your side. But there’s one tool I think you’re missing.”

My lips tug down into a frown as I can already feel the direction this is going. “Nope. Not my father.”

Elias nods. “No, not the emperor. Someone better.”

“Who?” I ask warily, leaning in anyways to hear what he has to say.

“Not who, but what. And that, is the Holy Church,” Elias tells me with great confidence.

I scratch my head before absentmindedly running my fingers through the loose tresses.

“Huh? I already do have that tool.”

“Yes, but you don’t use it. You allow it to use you. The same way your father uses you to bolster the imperial bloodline.”

“You don’t need to remind me,” I grumble as Elias throws back the same words I’d told him in a previous argument of why I hate my father. The trees in front of us silently mock me, nature’s symbol of my father. If I ever leave this godforsaken palace, I don’t plan on visiting the eastern part of the empire where these tall trees apparently grow in abundance.

“Do you know how come I always beat you in chess? I take out your linchpin, the key piece in your defense. Once that falls, so do you.” Elias says with a smug grin on his face. “The Holy Church is House Duvernay’s linchpin. It’s why their power remains unchallenged in the capital. Threaten it, and you will find that there is little they will not sacrifice to keep it.”

“Even an empress?”

“Especially an empress.” Elias taps his chin with a devilish look that’s quite adorable on his younger face. “It would be a tad bit more difficult to use than just using your father, but it’ll do.”

.....

“I’ll never use my father. I don’t need him. I can take care of Empress Katya myself.” My teeth clench at the thought of ingratiating myself with the devil and trying to inspire him to care for me. The man’s heart is dead. For everyone except Augustus, that is.

“I know,” Elias says. He wistfully looks in the distance. “You’re brilliant. That’s what makes you the perfect tool.”

“Tool? I think you’re mixing me up in that head of yours,” I laugh, tapping at the side of Elias’ head. He laughs too and for just a second, I can pretend I’m a carefree kid without the weight of the world on my shoulders.