Fake Princess
CHAPTER 8
He was told that one day he would be summoned to the palace, at the request of his guardian. He's safer if he doesn't know.
“ What has Your Majesty ever met him? What is His Majesty visiting him?”
The king closed his eyes.
“ No. Melani & Omar, they've met him a lot of times. Once every few years, one of them had to visit the orphanage, under the guise of magic, to renew the spell and erase his memory.
But we haven't met our daughter since birth.”
Our daughter, my inner. He called her Diana.
I felt tired, more tired than I'd ever felt in my entire life, so it was hard to keep my head up, and even harder to ask the next question. “ Who am I? If I'm not Diana, who am I?”
“ Melani found you. He was divining for a day, looking for the right baby. Your father was a weaver in town. We called him, told him our plan. She gave you to us voluntarily, and then Omar changed your father's memory, making him assume the baby was dead.”
As I was gasping in shock, he said with a bit of Emphasis, “ That's safer. Fewer and fewer people know it...”.
“ And my mom?” My question is short and slow. “ Did he also hand me over?”
The king shook his head. “ He didn't mention his wife.”
I clutched my dress skirt. It's too heavy, too heavy to understand.
“ Is my father alive?”
Again, the king's face looked sad.
The light from the window kept pressing down on me, as bright and sharp as a diamond. I was alone, my mind as I stared around the hall. All this, all my life, it's just a dream. And it's over.
“ What's my name?” my many.
For the first time the queen moved, raising her head to look at me.
“ Amelia,” she said, her voice slow.
“ The man said your name is Amelia.”
“ Amelia,” my whisper. I waited until the word seemed to have meaning, to fill an empty place as the golden light disappeared.
But the name simply faded, filling nothing, lost within the high-ceilinged hall of Thorvaldor.
I was standing in front of the window of a room that was no longer mine. Under me, two queen ladies-in-waiting walked through one of the main parks, their three children running around and fro along the trail. One of the ladies stopped to talk to a young man wearing a green robe typical of an inexperienced witch, perhaps a noble student came to visit his parents. I know the weather outside is still comfortable.
If I pressed my hand against the window, I could feel its warmth through the glass. However, inside I felt cold, so cold that I felt like my body could break if it moved too fast.
They held a council meeting, which was attended by all the high-ranking counsellors and nobles who were in the palace. I stood beside the king as I explained the true prophecy to the people gathered in the hall.
I stretched out my arms to reveal the lost birthmark, and heard myself say that I was not the princess in the voices of those who gasped in shock. After that I was allowed to leave. I heard the king say, as I left the room, that Diana would arrive this afternoon.
It was painful, & it took me a little over an hour to gather the council members & nobles in the hall to announce this secret, I did not expect to feel any heartache. My chest felt tight, like being crushed by a boulder and my eyes were burning as a result of holding back the tears that were not shed. Surely nothing else could make me feel worse, more lost and alone, than I feel now. However, it was even more painful to stand in front of the crowd and hear the man I thought my father took back my name.