I am just standing there, making small talk with Maria and my master, mostly over the latest gossip back home. Suddenly a large explosion happens and the building starts shaking and I grab my master as the building starts to collapse, Maria does too and we do our best to shield him. I feel something hit the back of my head and my consciousness fade. My master is safe though, that is what matters.
It is the third year of the reign of my master, Rache, Second Emperor of the Unified Empire. After the death of the old Second Emperor, his father, in battle Rache had ascended to the throne and with that I also came to be in charge of the Olderen Serventi Corps. His reign has proven to be popular and the people seem to love their young Emperor. Despite the change in status mother’s training continued and I have to cover up my wounds this time. I take off the top of my uniform, sit in front of a mirror, and I bring a rag soaked with medicine up to my bleeding wounds. I suppose I should be grateful the wounds aren’t too deep, my clothes took the most damage. I look over at the uniform I took off, I will probably have to burn it so the others don’t find it.
“Anastasia what happened to you?” A surprised voice asks from behind, I turn and see Adina standing in the door way, some towels dropped on the floor.
“Your Imperial Majesty, what are you doing here?” I ask, surprised at the visit.
“I had come to ask if you would join me in the bath. What happened to you?”
I don’t process her question and instead cover my chest with my arm. “Apologies for the state I am in, I will get dressed immediately.” I first reach for my blood spattered and slashed uniform but think twice and open a drawer to grab a fresh one but what I had reached for first does not escape Adina’s eyes.
“What happened here?”
“Your Imperial Majesty…”
“I order you to answer the question Anastasia.” Adina tells me, doing something she rarely does, use the word ‘order’.
“They are the result of training with my mother. To simulate an attack against an opponent with a knife she came at me with one.” I answer automatically, my jaw moving without my consent. The words escaping my lips without my consent.
“That does not explain the injuries.”
“After mother kicked my feet out from under me when I failed to disarm her she began stabbing me in the back with the knife. She made sure not to hit anywhere vital so after some of House Gadeon’s medicine I should be fine. It hurts a lot though.”
“Anastasia, I order you to tell me everything about this and your mother’s training.”
My body complies but I neglect to mention the results of the DNA test, it is best that she does not know about the results. It is for the best that she does not find out I am actually her sister. In this I see mother’s words about the Serventi keeping information their masters do not need to know from them. The ways around orders that we discover to carry out our duties to our masters. As I speak Adina’s face grows darker. “I see.” The Crown Princess says in deep thought. “I will message you later. Tend to your injuries.”
“Yes mistress.” Later that night I get a message from Adina, one sentence was all it said. Come to the Chamber of Stars tonight.
I arrive at the chamber, it is a very ornate chamber with most of the ceiling being glass to observe the stars. The only lighting permitted in this room is that of the stars. The walls carry tapestries explaining the history of House Olderen and there is a large set of stairs leading up to a throne. It is a dark and quiet room but it conveys a sense of peace and purpose. This room is only used for certain ceremonial occasions but most people come here to bask in its serenity. The Crown Princess directs me to hide in the corner so I hide behind one of the tapestries and Adina takes up position at the top of the stairs. Soon I see why she asked me to hide as my mother walks into the room.
Even though I have seen the state mother is in frequently I still have to wince at seeing my mother’s appearance, namely the eyepatch covering her right eye which she lost leading a counter-boarding action during the Battle of Talita. She declined a cybernetic one stating that the loss of her eye was punishment for failing her own master. I fact I realize that she has declined all forms of medical treatment since the former Second Emperor fell in battle and her uniform, that she had once perfectly maintained, is increasingly looking threadbare. Yet her words drive these thoughts from my mind.
“Your Imperial Majesty, you summoned me?” Mother asks with a bow to her.
“Yes,” She starts, her voice tense. “It is my understanding that you have been frequently training with Anastasia.”
“Indeed. She still has much to learn and I hope she will become a Serventi worthy of you and the Emperor.”
“I must register a complaint with your training regimen. It is morally wrong and hateful.”
“And what have I done that you have taken offense to?”
“Beatings, stabbings, actions and deeds that one can only call abuse or even torture.”
“And whatever makes you say that?” Mother’s tone has several shades of innocence that I can tell is fake and Adina doesn’t fall for it either.”
“I saw the injuries from today’s ‘session’ on her back when I entered her quarters,” She tells her, the tenseness and severity never leaving her voice.
“I see. She has failed again at being a Serventi if her master needs to go to her quarters. I will correct such a slight soon, I assure you.”
“You will do nothing of the sort. I forbid it since I have seen the results of your methods. They are wrong.”
“With all due respect, Your Imperial Majesty, I suggest you stay out of our methods. This is how a Serventi is molded into the perfect servant. I would never disappoint your father by giving you a failed one. This is how things are done in our caste.”
“I will do nothing of the sort until you agree to cease this ‘training’ you have been giving her.” Adina’s body is clearly frail and weak yet the fact that she can stand up to a trained killer like my mother without blinking, without even the slightest of wavers in her voice, testifies to her strength and I have to admire her.
“You have no authority in that regard dear. Only the Emperor does.”
The minutes tick by as Adina stares her down. “You will not cease your training of her in this manner correct?”
“Correct.”
“Even on order of the Emperor?”
“The Emperor’s order would bind me yes but if you went to him I would simply invent new methods to properly teach her. The traditional methods could use some updating.”
“I see. Then…” Her voice takes a dark turn. “Then as First Princess of House Olderen and younger sister of the Second Emperor I hereby sentence you to death.” Before mother can react to her words a gunshot rings out.
Despite the surprise mother easily dodges the shot and both of us can see that Adina had a pistol hidden in the folds of her robes. “You should not play with firearms dear. They are not toys.” Mother tells her sweetly. Mother runs at Adina but I charge out of the tapestry, tackling her to the ground. Mother gives a faint smile and punches me in the stomach, getting back on her feet. “One.”
“Keep her distracted so I can get a shot Anastasia!” Adina yells at me, taking aim with the pistol.
I throw a punch but Mother dodges my fist and grabs it with her right hand “Two.” I shake her hand off and jump back, giving Adina space to shoot and I grab one of the poles used to hold up the tapestries and charge her with it. Mother grabs it and pulls it out of my grip and hits me on the chin with it knocking me flat. “Three. Four.” Mother then starts to approach Adina but I get up and run at her wrapping my arms around her waist. She rams the rod into my foot causing me to jump back in pain “Five”. I pull out a knife but Mother disarms me with the pole. “Six” Our dance goes on but Mother grabs me with a knife braced against my throat, using me as a human shield to protect her from Adina. “Seven.” She whispers.
The door to the room is kicked open and Serventi swarm the room weapons drawn, followed shortly by none other than my master, the Emperor, in his full regalia that he tends to wear when possible.
The Emperor demands an explanation and, after a lot of finger pointing, yelling, and explanations, the full story is laid out. “I see.” Rache says, clearly furious. He turns to his sister who moved to his side during the discussion. “Adina you are not to do something like this again. Do I make myself clear? I said do I make myself clear?!” He yells at her.
“Yes brother.” Adina whispers, cowed by Rache’s anger that he has never shown to her.
“Good. And you.” He turns to mother. “You are no longer permitted to train Anastasia under any circumstances. I, in fact, order you not to do so. Am I clear?”
“Yes, Your Imperial and Blessed Majesty.” Mother tells him with a bow.
“Good. My father’s Serventi or not if I catch you doing this kind of training again I will execute you. I should do so for even raising your hand against Adina but I understand she went after you with a gun so I will show leniency.”
“I thank you for your mercy, Your Imperial and Blessed Majesty.” Mother answers with another bow.
“Everyone, aside from Anastasia, dismissed. I wish to speak to her in private. Also, someone get a seamstress to fix the hole in Adina’s robes.”
“Yes, Your Imperial and Blessed Majesty.” They all say and file out.
As soon as the door closes he turns to me and to my shock he starts yelling at me. “How the hell did Adina get her hands on a firearm?!”
“She must have asked another Serventi to provide her with it.” I answer quickly.
“I see. Do I need to order every Serventi to not provide her with one? She needs to not do this again. Adina is too pure for this so if we fail to protect that purity what can we protect in this war? The Empire? We have shed so much blood we can’t remain pure. The Empire is not pure but I must protect it as Emperor. But as a brother I want to keep my sister pure, I want to keep something untainted. Do you understand? I could not protect Rain from the horrors of this war but I will do all I can to protect Adina. She must not experience war and violence, you have seen what it has done to Rain, done to me.”
“Yes. I promise you I will do all I can to help keep Adina pure.”
“Good. It is a shared promise then, the one we must keep if House Olderen is to maintain their honor.” He walks up to the stairs and sits down on them, the image of an Emperor in full regalia, with his elegant robes and crown, sitting on the stairs casually with the stars shining down upon him from the glass ceiling is an extremely sharp contrast but yet I can see the weight on his shoulders, the burden that comes with ruling an Empire so young while also leading fleets and armies and ordering them to their deaths. “Come, sit with me.”
“I shouldn’t.”
“It wasn’t a request so please,” I quietly sit down next to him and he looks to the ceiling at the stars above. “How long has this been going on?”
“Since I was six.”
“So long?”
“Yes. You remember my trip to Serus?”
“Adina was knitting you a scarf for when you returned, yes I remember.”
“That was the start. Mother stranded me in the middle of the frozen wastes and left me there to walk back to the settlement. She started the beatings when I was eight.”
He cringes. “You went through a lot, yet me and Adina didn’t know, didn’t realize.” He gets up and bows to me, his every move carrying a trained regality that one expects from an Emperor, from someone trying to be an Emperor despite having the position pushed on him at such a young age. “I am sorry for our sin of ignorance. May you and the Ancestors forgive us.”
“Do not bow to me master. You did not know because I did not tell you. Because I didn’t want you to know.”
This stuns him and he sits back down next to me. “Why?”
“It was selfish of me but every time something bad had happened to me at mother’s hands I was soon brought into the presence of you and Adina and your smiles made all the pain I was feeling go away. I did not want those smiles to go away so I lied and kept up pretenses about everything.”
“Had you told us you would not have suffered so.”
“I know but I felt like I would lose your happiness had I done so and with mother having your father’s ear I had feared retaliation by causing her master to get involved.”
“I see. Do not keep her actions from me again are we clear?”
“Yes Master. My life for yours and Adina’s.” I tell him, feeling a great burden lift from my shoulders. My elder brother and elder sister, the ones I am dedicating my life to, finally know and peace has come. I will serve them until my death for my love of them. Love. That word sends a shock through me and I ask Rache
“Master, may I be excused? I wish to return to my quarters.”
“Of course, good night Anastasia.”
“Good night master.” I walk out and, as soon as I am out of the sight of the guards, run to my quarters and do not stop until I am back in my room. I collapse on my bed sobbing. Love… Love… I love them both, I love them both so much. Adina is my sister so I love my sister. Rache is my brother so I love my brother. Yet I can’t tell them. They can never know the truth. They are my siblings and my masters. But for Rache is it just siblings or…
“What are you doing?” A sharp voice asks me, snapping me out of my woes and my weeping, and out of that thought that should never be asked.
“Mother…” I whisper.
“Had the Emperor not forbidden it I would be beating you right now for failing to stop me and protect your master.” She raises her left hand, bound tightly in a black glove. “You could not even take advantage of the fact that my left hand was near crippled at the battle that cost me my eye. Overall you absolutely failed as a Serventi today.”
“Yes mother.” I hang my head. “I know I can never beat you.”
“And now you are here sobbing over your situation like a maiden instead of the Serventi that you are and always will be. I swear, were you not the Emperor and Crown Princess’ Serventi I would kill you right now for your disgrace.”
“That every reason?” I challenge her
“Do not get into that. I loved the old Emperor, the one whose child I bore and pretended was my husband’s, as all Serventi love their masters and Serventi being used for such affairs are common. It was nothing more than an affair of the flesh while the Emperor’s Sister-Wife was away. But all of that means little if the product of that union fails in her purpose. You guard, protect, and serve the Emperor and his family, there is nothing more than that one should want to do for their family. He will never know but that is okay. She will never know but that is okay. That is perfectly fine for our lives as their Serventi, their maids, bodyguards, and assassins.”
This is the hardest for me to understand but I know this is a truth I must accept. “I understand mother.”
“If you love the Emperor and Crown Princess protect them and do everything for them, that shows your love for them.”
“Yes mother.”
Mother sits on my bed, leaving her back open to me. “You may hate me for what I have done, you may find my methods despicable but you are still my daughter and I was doing what I felt to be best for you, as my mother did for me.”
“I hated it, I hated it all.”
“I did too, I hated it and I hated my mother. Every waking moment I spent hating her. I hated her to her suicide when her master inevitably died and I still hate her, her training was more extreme and despicable than what I put you through. Yet she was clear in one thing, my destiny was to serve the Emperor so perfection, absolute perfection, was required. If I was to murder, I was to do so and leave no witnesses that could be traced back. If I was to steal, I was to do so and do it in such a way they didn’t realize it was missing until I was long gone. I was to do every single thing he ever asked of me and I was expected to do it perfectly, no my position demanded it, not expected it. I had to be the model Serventi, the example all Serventi look towards and who fulfilled the wishes of the Emperor. When I became pregnant with you I felt joy I had never felt before and when you were born and assigned to Rache and Adina my joy reached even higher peaks. But I instinctively fell back into the thinking my mother had for raising me for you were to be my successor. I worried about their future so I fell back into the training my mother used in hopes it would work again.”
“I see.”
“I feel a bit sad at the idea of you hating me but I will have to hope having my daughter hate me for the rest of her life is worth it to the Emperor. In the end that is what matters, not our simple lives.”
“Are you asking me for forgiveness?” I demand, outraged as she had just this morning had been stabbing me with a knife.
“No, I suppose not. I know that would never happen. My mother never asked me for it and I am unsure if I would have given it to her. I suppose this is just my way of conveying sympathy even as I have done this.”
“I will give you an answer sometime in the future, mother.”
“I don’t think I will live to hear your answer, if I survive this war I will be surprised. But that does not matter.” She gets up, walks around the bed, and bows to me on her hands and knees, her forehead touching the floor “Please protect the Emperor and First Princess, without him and Adina House Olderen will fall, and civil war will destroy our home and potentially the Unified Empire.”
“What about Princess Rain?”
“I think we can both agree that Princess Rain must be kept from the throne at all costs.”
“On that we can agree. The Emperor will always be safe provided I am at his side.”
“Yes. Do your duty to the Emperor and the First Princess and you should be fine, and everything should be fine” Mother looks me over and gives a small smile, a motherly one. “It seems your wounds opened back up, probably because of that running you did.” Without another word mother heads over the basin and soaks the rag in the medicine inside.
“Anastasia what happened to you?” A surprised voice asks from behind, I turn and see Adina standing in the door way, some towels dropped on the floor.
“Your Imperial Majesty, what are you doing here?” I ask, surprised at the visit.
“I had come to ask if you would join me in the bath. What happened to you?”
I don’t process her question and instead cover my chest with my arm. “Apologies for the state I am in, I will get dressed immediately.” I first reach for my blood spattered and slashed uniform but think twice and open a drawer to grab a fresh one but what I had reached for first does not escape Adina’s eyes.
“What happened here?”
“Your Imperial Majesty…”
“I order you to answer the question Anastasia.” Adina tells me, doing something she rarely does, use the word ‘order’.
“They are the result of training with my mother. To simulate an attack against an opponent with a knife she came at me with one.” I answer automatically, my jaw moving without my consent. The words escaping my lips without my consent.
“That does not explain the injuries.”
“After mother kicked my feet out from under me when I failed to disarm her she began stabbing me in the back with the knife. She made sure not to hit anywhere vital so after some of House Gadeon’s medicine I should be fine. It hurts a lot though.”
“Anastasia, I order you to tell me everything about this and your mother’s training.”
My body complies but I neglect to mention the results of the DNA test, it is best that she does not know about the results. It is for the best that she does not find out I am actually her sister. In this I see mother’s words about the Serventi keeping information their masters do not need to know from them. The ways around orders that we discover to carry out our duties to our masters. As I speak Adina’s face grows darker. “I see.” The Crown Princess says in deep thought. “I will message you later. Tend to your injuries.”
“Yes mistress.” Later that night I get a message from Adina, one sentence was all it said. Come to the Chamber of Stars tonight.
I arrive at the chamber, it is a very ornate chamber with most of the ceiling being glass to observe the stars. The only lighting permitted in this room is that of the stars. The walls carry tapestries explaining the history of House Olderen and there is a large set of stairs leading up to a throne. It is a dark and quiet room but it conveys a sense of peace and purpose. This room is only used for certain ceremonial occasions but most people come here to bask in its serenity. The Crown Princess directs me to hide in the corner so I hide behind one of the tapestries and Adina takes up position at the top of the stairs. Soon I see why she asked me to hide as my mother walks into the room.
Even though I have seen the state mother is in frequently I still have to wince at seeing my mother’s appearance, namely the eyepatch covering her right eye which she lost leading a counter-boarding action during the Battle of Talita. She declined a cybernetic one stating that the loss of her eye was punishment for failing her own master. I fact I realize that she has declined all forms of medical treatment since the former Second Emperor fell in battle and her uniform, that she had once perfectly maintained, is increasingly looking threadbare. Yet her words drive these thoughts from my mind.
“Your Imperial Majesty, you summoned me?” Mother asks with a bow to her.
“Yes,” She starts, her voice tense. “It is my understanding that you have been frequently training with Anastasia.”
“Indeed. She still has much to learn and I hope she will become a Serventi worthy of you and the Emperor.”
“I must register a complaint with your training regimen. It is morally wrong and hateful.”
“And what have I done that you have taken offense to?”
“Beatings, stabbings, actions and deeds that one can only call abuse or even torture.”
“And whatever makes you say that?” Mother’s tone has several shades of innocence that I can tell is fake and Adina doesn’t fall for it either.”
“I saw the injuries from today’s ‘session’ on her back when I entered her quarters,” She tells her, the tenseness and severity never leaving her voice.
“I see. She has failed again at being a Serventi if her master needs to go to her quarters. I will correct such a slight soon, I assure you.”
“You will do nothing of the sort. I forbid it since I have seen the results of your methods. They are wrong.”
“With all due respect, Your Imperial Majesty, I suggest you stay out of our methods. This is how a Serventi is molded into the perfect servant. I would never disappoint your father by giving you a failed one. This is how things are done in our caste.”
“I will do nothing of the sort until you agree to cease this ‘training’ you have been giving her.” Adina’s body is clearly frail and weak yet the fact that she can stand up to a trained killer like my mother without blinking, without even the slightest of wavers in her voice, testifies to her strength and I have to admire her.
“You have no authority in that regard dear. Only the Emperor does.”
The minutes tick by as Adina stares her down. “You will not cease your training of her in this manner correct?”
“Correct.”
“Even on order of the Emperor?”
“The Emperor’s order would bind me yes but if you went to him I would simply invent new methods to properly teach her. The traditional methods could use some updating.”
“I see. Then…” Her voice takes a dark turn. “Then as First Princess of House Olderen and younger sister of the Second Emperor I hereby sentence you to death.” Before mother can react to her words a gunshot rings out.
Despite the surprise mother easily dodges the shot and both of us can see that Adina had a pistol hidden in the folds of her robes. “You should not play with firearms dear. They are not toys.” Mother tells her sweetly. Mother runs at Adina but I charge out of the tapestry, tackling her to the ground. Mother gives a faint smile and punches me in the stomach, getting back on her feet. “One.”
“Keep her distracted so I can get a shot Anastasia!” Adina yells at me, taking aim with the pistol.
I throw a punch but Mother dodges my fist and grabs it with her right hand “Two.” I shake her hand off and jump back, giving Adina space to shoot and I grab one of the poles used to hold up the tapestries and charge her with it. Mother grabs it and pulls it out of my grip and hits me on the chin with it knocking me flat. “Three. Four.” Mother then starts to approach Adina but I get up and run at her wrapping my arms around her waist. She rams the rod into my foot causing me to jump back in pain “Five”. I pull out a knife but Mother disarms me with the pole. “Six” Our dance goes on but Mother grabs me with a knife braced against my throat, using me as a human shield to protect her from Adina. “Seven.” She whispers.
The door to the room is kicked open and Serventi swarm the room weapons drawn, followed shortly by none other than my master, the Emperor, in his full regalia that he tends to wear when possible.
The Emperor demands an explanation and, after a lot of finger pointing, yelling, and explanations, the full story is laid out. “I see.” Rache says, clearly furious. He turns to his sister who moved to his side during the discussion. “Adina you are not to do something like this again. Do I make myself clear? I said do I make myself clear?!” He yells at her.
“Yes brother.” Adina whispers, cowed by Rache’s anger that he has never shown to her.
“Good. And you.” He turns to mother. “You are no longer permitted to train Anastasia under any circumstances. I, in fact, order you not to do so. Am I clear?”
“Yes, Your Imperial and Blessed Majesty.” Mother tells him with a bow.
“Good. My father’s Serventi or not if I catch you doing this kind of training again I will execute you. I should do so for even raising your hand against Adina but I understand she went after you with a gun so I will show leniency.”
“I thank you for your mercy, Your Imperial and Blessed Majesty.” Mother answers with another bow.
“Everyone, aside from Anastasia, dismissed. I wish to speak to her in private. Also, someone get a seamstress to fix the hole in Adina’s robes.”
“Yes, Your Imperial and Blessed Majesty.” They all say and file out.
As soon as the door closes he turns to me and to my shock he starts yelling at me. “How the hell did Adina get her hands on a firearm?!”
“She must have asked another Serventi to provide her with it.” I answer quickly.
“I see. Do I need to order every Serventi to not provide her with one? She needs to not do this again. Adina is too pure for this so if we fail to protect that purity what can we protect in this war? The Empire? We have shed so much blood we can’t remain pure. The Empire is not pure but I must protect it as Emperor. But as a brother I want to keep my sister pure, I want to keep something untainted. Do you understand? I could not protect Rain from the horrors of this war but I will do all I can to protect Adina. She must not experience war and violence, you have seen what it has done to Rain, done to me.”
“Yes. I promise you I will do all I can to help keep Adina pure.”
“Good. It is a shared promise then, the one we must keep if House Olderen is to maintain their honor.” He walks up to the stairs and sits down on them, the image of an Emperor in full regalia, with his elegant robes and crown, sitting on the stairs casually with the stars shining down upon him from the glass ceiling is an extremely sharp contrast but yet I can see the weight on his shoulders, the burden that comes with ruling an Empire so young while also leading fleets and armies and ordering them to their deaths. “Come, sit with me.”
“I shouldn’t.”
“It wasn’t a request so please,” I quietly sit down next to him and he looks to the ceiling at the stars above. “How long has this been going on?”
“Since I was six.”
“So long?”
“Yes. You remember my trip to Serus?”
“Adina was knitting you a scarf for when you returned, yes I remember.”
“That was the start. Mother stranded me in the middle of the frozen wastes and left me there to walk back to the settlement. She started the beatings when I was eight.”
He cringes. “You went through a lot, yet me and Adina didn’t know, didn’t realize.” He gets up and bows to me, his every move carrying a trained regality that one expects from an Emperor, from someone trying to be an Emperor despite having the position pushed on him at such a young age. “I am sorry for our sin of ignorance. May you and the Ancestors forgive us.”
“Do not bow to me master. You did not know because I did not tell you. Because I didn’t want you to know.”
This stuns him and he sits back down next to me. “Why?”
“It was selfish of me but every time something bad had happened to me at mother’s hands I was soon brought into the presence of you and Adina and your smiles made all the pain I was feeling go away. I did not want those smiles to go away so I lied and kept up pretenses about everything.”
“Had you told us you would not have suffered so.”
“I know but I felt like I would lose your happiness had I done so and with mother having your father’s ear I had feared retaliation by causing her master to get involved.”
“I see. Do not keep her actions from me again are we clear?”
“Yes Master. My life for yours and Adina’s.” I tell him, feeling a great burden lift from my shoulders. My elder brother and elder sister, the ones I am dedicating my life to, finally know and peace has come. I will serve them until my death for my love of them. Love. That word sends a shock through me and I ask Rache
“Master, may I be excused? I wish to return to my quarters.”
“Of course, good night Anastasia.”
“Good night master.” I walk out and, as soon as I am out of the sight of the guards, run to my quarters and do not stop until I am back in my room. I collapse on my bed sobbing. Love… Love… I love them both, I love them both so much. Adina is my sister so I love my sister. Rache is my brother so I love my brother. Yet I can’t tell them. They can never know the truth. They are my siblings and my masters. But for Rache is it just siblings or…
“What are you doing?” A sharp voice asks me, snapping me out of my woes and my weeping, and out of that thought that should never be asked.
“Mother…” I whisper.
“Had the Emperor not forbidden it I would be beating you right now for failing to stop me and protect your master.” She raises her left hand, bound tightly in a black glove. “You could not even take advantage of the fact that my left hand was near crippled at the battle that cost me my eye. Overall you absolutely failed as a Serventi today.”
“Yes mother.” I hang my head. “I know I can never beat you.”
“And now you are here sobbing over your situation like a maiden instead of the Serventi that you are and always will be. I swear, were you not the Emperor and Crown Princess’ Serventi I would kill you right now for your disgrace.”
“That every reason?” I challenge her
“Do not get into that. I loved the old Emperor, the one whose child I bore and pretended was my husband’s, as all Serventi love their masters and Serventi being used for such affairs are common. It was nothing more than an affair of the flesh while the Emperor’s Sister-Wife was away. But all of that means little if the product of that union fails in her purpose. You guard, protect, and serve the Emperor and his family, there is nothing more than that one should want to do for their family. He will never know but that is okay. She will never know but that is okay. That is perfectly fine for our lives as their Serventi, their maids, bodyguards, and assassins.”
This is the hardest for me to understand but I know this is a truth I must accept. “I understand mother.”
“If you love the Emperor and Crown Princess protect them and do everything for them, that shows your love for them.”
“Yes mother.”
Mother sits on my bed, leaving her back open to me. “You may hate me for what I have done, you may find my methods despicable but you are still my daughter and I was doing what I felt to be best for you, as my mother did for me.”
“I hated it, I hated it all.”
“I did too, I hated it and I hated my mother. Every waking moment I spent hating her. I hated her to her suicide when her master inevitably died and I still hate her, her training was more extreme and despicable than what I put you through. Yet she was clear in one thing, my destiny was to serve the Emperor so perfection, absolute perfection, was required. If I was to murder, I was to do so and leave no witnesses that could be traced back. If I was to steal, I was to do so and do it in such a way they didn’t realize it was missing until I was long gone. I was to do every single thing he ever asked of me and I was expected to do it perfectly, no my position demanded it, not expected it. I had to be the model Serventi, the example all Serventi look towards and who fulfilled the wishes of the Emperor. When I became pregnant with you I felt joy I had never felt before and when you were born and assigned to Rache and Adina my joy reached even higher peaks. But I instinctively fell back into the thinking my mother had for raising me for you were to be my successor. I worried about their future so I fell back into the training my mother used in hopes it would work again.”
“I see.”
“I feel a bit sad at the idea of you hating me but I will have to hope having my daughter hate me for the rest of her life is worth it to the Emperor. In the end that is what matters, not our simple lives.”
“Are you asking me for forgiveness?” I demand, outraged as she had just this morning had been stabbing me with a knife.
“No, I suppose not. I know that would never happen. My mother never asked me for it and I am unsure if I would have given it to her. I suppose this is just my way of conveying sympathy even as I have done this.”
“I will give you an answer sometime in the future, mother.”
“I don’t think I will live to hear your answer, if I survive this war I will be surprised. But that does not matter.” She gets up, walks around the bed, and bows to me on her hands and knees, her forehead touching the floor “Please protect the Emperor and First Princess, without him and Adina House Olderen will fall, and civil war will destroy our home and potentially the Unified Empire.”
“What about Princess Rain?”
“I think we can both agree that Princess Rain must be kept from the throne at all costs.”
“On that we can agree. The Emperor will always be safe provided I am at his side.”
“Yes. Do your duty to the Emperor and the First Princess and you should be fine, and everything should be fine” Mother looks me over and gives a small smile, a motherly one. “It seems your wounds opened back up, probably because of that running you did.” Without another word mother heads over the basin and soaks the rag in the medicine inside.
