Fake Princess
CHAPTER 74
“ I saw it, just now, with someone. That guy used a spell, the same spell they used on me, just the opposite. To keep it, not to take it off. She's not the real princess, Devan. She's not Diana.”
Devan's arms dangled heavily beside his body.
“ Start again,” he said, his voice sounded hoarse. “ Start from the beginning.”
And I did. Telling of my encounter with Diana and the feelings that made me seem drawn to her, telling her I could translate the rune letters on the map of King Ardan and what it meant, what it meant, telling me that only someone who really has royal blood can open the door, telling me about my arrival to the palace and seeing the person using the shield cast a spell on Diana. Devan doesn't talk, not as long as I tell him everything. After I finished, Devan stood up without a sound, then walked over to a small table beside his bed, where a jug of water and a cup were. Devan poured water into the cup, handed it to me, and I gulped it down gratefully. After I finished the whole thing, Devan spoke.
“ Amelia,” she said. His voice was too soft, not at all like his normal voice, and I frowned as if he was hitting me.
“ You don't believe me,” I muttered.
“ Me...” Jemari Devan swept her matted hair as she had just woken up, then she exhaled out loud. “ I don't want to believe it. I'm great at games, jokes, insignificant trivialities. And if you're right, this is definitely not trivial. I don't want to believe in a sixteen-year-old girl's conspiracy about the wrong girl being on the throne. I want to think of it as a shadow that you straddle yourself, because you are unhappy.”
“ But I'm not so, at least I'm trying not to be so.” While gripping the sprai, because I was forced to sit in the middle of the story, I stared at the lap. “ I know I'm not a princess, not in the past either. I didn't do it for revenge or anything like that. I'm not making it up, Devan.”
Devan sounded hopeful, as if I was a historian asking a difficult question that he could finally answer. “ I don't know, maybe that means they just put the original princess part into both of us, and that's how I felt back then.”
Devan's forehead wrinkled again, delaying for a while, before finally saying, the lines of hope color his voice again, “ No, wait a minute! I have a plan. I can ask him to come with us, to the wall where King Ardan's door is. If she is the princess, the door will open for her, and if not.”.
“ Then she will know she is not a princess,” I interrupted her remark. “ Then maybe he will go straight to the king and queen, and tell them.”
“ Well, what's wrong?” Devan shook his head at me. “ If she is not a princess, they need to know, right?”
I immediately stood up, both of my hands clenched, and began to pacing back and forth. “ Don't you understand?” indict me. “ Whoever did it, whoever I saw behind that vision shield, strong man, he said, it was so powerful that it almost staged a coup under the noses of the king and queen that no one knew. And it's kind of a game. They've been planning it for years, probably before we were exchanged. And that makes them dangerous. If they saw his plan screwed up, they would do something to stop him. They could have killed the king and the queen. They will obviously try to hurt anyone who reveals themselves, anyone who knows what they are doing.”
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