"Pathetic," she repeated. The word didn't sound angry, but it sounded like a Queen reading a verdict to her vassal.
She set the teacup down on the saucer. There was no clatter, as her movements were perfect, like she had drilled them into her bones and muscles over years of etiquette lessons that I didn't remember.
I watched her hand retreat from the cup. It was a graceful but calculated movement, as it was the exact same way my mother placed her cup when she was displeased. The tilt of the chin, the narrowing of the eyes, and the terrifying calm, as if I was looking at a miniature or the smaller one of my mother.
"Sit," she said, her voice commanding and cold. "If we are to share this body, we must agree on how to use. Because right now? You are breaking it."
I pulled the chair out, the legs scraping loudly against the floor. I sat down, wiping the blood from my lip with the back of my hand.
I stared at her, the eyes… burned with a cold intensity I had never possessed. "Who… are you?" I whispered, my voice trembling…
She looked at me, tilting her head slightly.
"I am the one who should be sitting there," she said. "I am Aurelia Aurelius. Not this… weeping, shivering thing…"
She looked at the blood staining the napkin in my hand with utter disgust.
"Look at you. Crying over spilt wine. Is this how you use the name? Is this how you carry the weight of Aurelius House? Let the court see a single drop of blood?"
"I am sick," I countered. I held up the crimson-soaked napkin, shaking it at her. "My body is failing. The pain is unbearable. Tell me, if you were in my place… What would you do? Would you scream?"
She stared at me. Her expression did not flicker. There was no pity in her eyes, just a cold, hard will.
"If I were in pain?" she asked softly. "I would hold it."
She took a step closer, her presence looming over me like a shadow.
"And the blood?" She smiled, but it was the smile of a sharp knife. "I would swallow it. I would let it burn my throat. I would choke on my own life before I let a single drop fall where the court could see it."
She gestured to the napkin in my hand with a look of full disgust.
"That," she pointed, "is the difference between us. You bleed for the world to see. I bleed in the dark."
I gripped the back of the empty chair, like I was trying to steady myself against her words. How did such a fourteen-year-old girl say that with that composure and smile?
"I… I am trying to survive. I am trying to save us."
"Save us?" She let out a short and dry laugh. "Is that what you call this? You are coughing up blood in court. You are surrounded by enemies. You have alienated the Royals. Is that what you call saving us? Don't make me laugh! Let us see if your 'choices' hold up to scrutiny."
"The Orphanage," she said, her eyes narrowing. "You found a nest of rats. Traffickers. Criminals. Yet, you waited. You lingered. You tried to play the saviour, waiting for 'Mother and Father' to fix it because you lacked the stomach to do it yourself."
"I waited because I needed authority! I couldn't just storm in!"
"YOU ARE THE DUCHESS'S DAUGHTER, IMBECILE!" She slammed her hand on the table. Her voice rose, filled with frustration. "You are the authority! If I had seen that, I would not have waited for Father. I would have just sent Adel; it was enough. Or better yet," Suddenly, the mischievous smile showed on her lips. "Ignored it until it became politically useful to expose it…"
"So you chose to let the orphanage operate, make traffic and kidnap children, for how long? Years?" I asked, as I looked down.
"If it buys me the Head of a rival?" She tilted her head, with her expression unbothered by it. "Then yes, a year. Two years. Maybe stretch Five Years. Until the moment the exposure yields the highest profit."
She leaned back, smoothing the fabric of her nightgown.
"You see victims in here. I see leverage. You rushed in because your heart bled for them. I would have waited until I could use their suffering to destroy the Alliena family completely. You tried to save the 'children'. I would have saved the 'advantage'. And look at the result; your way left them dead in a pit of ash. My way? Perhaps some would die, but the rest would be alive, and our enemies would be in chains, or maybe dead."
"H…H…How…many?" I whispered in a low tone.
She stared into my eyes…
"How many children will die for your plan?" I murmured. I turned my gaze to her eyes, but now, I held my gaze still.
"How many?" She repeated the question, her voice showing no emotion, as if I had asked the price of tea. "As many as the scale requires to tip in our favour. Ten? Twenty? A hundred? A thousand? It does not matter. If their deaths secure the safety of this House for a generation, then it is a bargain I would make."
"You speak of children, living, breathing souls, as if they are currency to be spent."
I leaned forward.
"You say I see victims, and you see leverage. But if our survival requires us to stand on a pile of charred corpses, then what exactly are we saving? A title? A name? If being an Aurelius means becoming a monster who watches children burn for 'political advantage', then I would rather let the House fall."
"You speak of high morals," she said coolly. "But morals do not stop blades. Morals do not stop poison. Your compassion is beautiful. It is also suicidal. You want to save the world? You cannot save anyone if you are dead."
"I would risk the House to save its soul,"I replied.
"How noble," she scoffed. "Noble… and dangerous."
She took a sip of tea, her gaze never leaving mine, sharp as an eagle watching its prey. It was unnerving how much she resembled mother. She didn't just drink tea, as if she weaponised the silence between sips.
"The Crown Prince," she said. "You forced a public apology just for you to call him by name," she repeated.
Then, she went quiet.
A slow, terrifyingly genuine smile curled on her lips. I wasn't a smile of kindness; it was the smile of a wolf spotting a limping deer.
"I admitted," she said, her voice dropping to a tone of eerie satisfaction. "I did not think he was so… starved."
She looked at me, her eyes gleaming with a new, sharp interest. She stood up and walked around the table, her fingers trailing over her empty chair.
"He humiliated his own mother. He debased the Crown. He pasted his shame on every board in the Kingdom. And for what? For a name? For a scrap of intimacy?"
She laughed, a low and cold sound.
"He is weak. He is pathetically, wonderfully weak. You see a boy who neglected you. I see a King who is begging to be put on a leash."
"He isn't a dog," I countered. "He is the Crown Prince. He did it because he wanted to fix the betrothal."
"No, he did it because he is desperate for approval," she corrected sharply. "He is a man who has everything but wants the one thing he cannot buy… Us"
She leaned in, her face was in front of mine, her eyes burning into mine.
"You made a mistake making it public, yes. You angered the Queen. But you accidentally revealed the most valuable secret in the court: the Crown Prince is malleable. If you push him, he bends. If you withdraw, he chases."
Her voice turned to ice.
"Look at him as an asset. If a Public Apology is the price he pays for a name… imagine what he would pay for a smile? Imagine what he would sacrifice just for a hand on his shoulder, a word of praise in his ear."
She straightened up.
"You have accidental leverage. You own the man who will lead the Kingdom."
"I… I don't want to own him," I whispered. "I just wanted him to acknowledge me."
"No…the truth is, you want to own him…I know deep down, you want possession of the Crown Prince." She waved her hand dismissively. "Now you have the leverage. Use it. Do not let him up from his knees. Keep him there. Because a King on his knees cannot order your execution."
I looked at her. I looked at the satisfaction in her eyes. She thought she was giving me a gift. She thought she was handing me a sword to cut my enemies.
But I knew what she was really handing me. It was a shovel to dig my own grave.
"A King on his knees cannot order my execution," I repeated softly, tasting the bitterness of the truth. "If I keep him on his knees… if I use his guilt as a chain… then I am truly alone." I looked down at my hands, imagining the invisible leash she wanted me to hold. "I wanted him to see me. You want me to break him."
"I want you to survive, you imbecile!" she snapped. "Do you think love will stop the blade? Do you think a 'partnership' will save you when the Queen and the Third Prince move against you? Wake up, imbecile! Your mind is reading a romance of your life, but you are living in a tragedy."
The harsh reality of her words hit me like a slap in the face. She was right…
"No," I admitted, a cold heaviness settling in my chest. "Love won't save me. You are right."
I looked up at her, and I felt something inside breaking. It was the part of me that still hoped for a happy ending. The part of me that thought I could fix the book without running the characters.
"I will do it," I whispered. "I will not let him up. I will use his guilt. I will turn his affection into a shield and his desperation into a weapon."
I took a breath, and it felt like inhaling shards of glass.
"However, I will not call it a victory. It is a funeral for me. I am burying the possibility of happiness to buy the certainty of survival."
The Original Aurelia stared at me. For a moment, the arrogance dropped. She saw the pain I was accepting. She saw the soul I was selling.
"Happiness is for children," she said, though her voice was quieter now, almost mournful. "Survival is for us."
She stepped back, her form dissolving into the shadows.
"You have the leverage now. Do not be afraid to dirty your hands with it."
The world snapped back.