DALILAH ISABELA LUDWICK CASPIEN (born Nicholai), my twin sister, who I thought was the only one I never wished to harm. The only one I thought I cared about in my whole life. Who I helped and killed to protect.
I used everyone and did everything in my power to make her the 3rd Imperial Prince Christopher's fiancee, so no one would dare to harm her and she would have a lot of power. She's the one who was born with the magic that made her able to brainwash and manipulate others' minds, between us two. The Saintess, guarded by the Goddess herself.Then how could she do this to me?I gazed at her blankly and she laughed at my face. Finally showing her true colors."I don't know how such a naive and stupid person could be my twin sister! Seriously, it's pitiful. Do you even imagine since when I've had my magical strings in your little mind, dear Natasha?" tears appeared in my empty eyes and I let them fall. "Since we were about to turn fourteen!" she said with a snakish smile that only I could see.As if doing that to me was something to be proud of. Making everything hurt more than before. If that was even possible."You were such a beautiful child... way more beautiful than me! With your long and wavy glossy hair inherited from our father when my own was simply straight. So more clever and selfless than me. It was disgusting, honestly. You loved and cared for me way more than I did for you, poor thing."'Then why? Why did you do all of that to me?' I wanted to ask her, but I couldn't after becoming tongueless for all the lies I'd told."But you always had a deadly flaw, Natasha... You weren't born with any kind of magic power, but I was! And as you already know, sis, magic in our world is like the air you breathe so you can live. It's beyond necessary. The ones who don't have it will never grow in life and will die like good-for-nothing. And that's your case here, darling. Having such a pitiful death as being executed in public. It's a disgrace that you're my sister, the daughter of the late-late Grand Duke Nicholai."She couldn't be more wrong about the magic.The thing is, I was born with magic! Not only one but two types of it. I remember it as if it was yesterday. Telepathy and ice magic. I was born to be as powerful as Dalilah, or even more than her, and someone stole it from me when I was a little kid.But they'd never believed me when I told them the truth, and I couldn't remember who did it either, which didn't help me at all. Everyone acts as if they've never seen me using ice magic when I was very little, pretending as if their memories of it had been erased, which is absurd! Always saying, repeatedly, that I didn't have magic at all, that this thought of me, was just a mechanism that I had created as a way to accept my unlucky situation and to digest the fact that my twin sister had magical powers and I didn't.Bullshit!"That's why you never had anything you could call yours. No matter how beautiful, skilled and smart you were, you would never have what I had. That's why everyone always favored me, but you didn't care about this, right, Natasha?" the resentment in her voice was undeniable.And I did care about it actually, I just didn't show it. It wouldn't change anything if I had shown, would it?"But this wasn't enough for me. I couldn't let the opportunity pass, so I manipulated your mind and I made you selfish, evil, and arrogant. So I could make everyone deeply hate you," she has completely lost her mind. "Not only that, of course. The goal was to make everyone hate you and to get you killed in the end, but why stop there when you could be so useful to me? And indeed, the fact that I smartly used you is what made it possible for me to be where I am now."How could I be such a fool? Sir Thorin Meelany, the one who thought me how to use a sword and fight with it, always told me not to be fooled and not to trust people even if they were family. I should have heard him. But, no! I had a weak mind and that made me an easy target for Dalilah."I made you steal, lie, betray, and kill," yeah, you made me break all of my principles forcibly, no need to keep reminding me of that. "You were so clueless before... Naive enough to think that I would never try to harm you. What a joke!" Dalilah laughed once again, dryly.That hurt, because she's right.Although I don't remember myself being good like she's saying anymore. 'Good' and 'Natasha' don't seem to fit in the same sentence anymore, in my mind. Maybe she shattered my naive self 'till it was impossible to recover, with her manipulations.I DON'T REMEMBER ANYTHING but how much I always loved her. Even if she always was the one with the credits and everything, I loved her! I still do. Then why did she do all of this to me? Why...?Maybe I did something bad to her and she made me forget about it by controlling my mind."You were so naive, Natasha," yeah, you've already stated that. "To the point that you didn't use the magic jewel which could avoid your mind from being washed and manipulated," that's because I didn't know about its existence before it was too late!If at least, I could go back in time, the first thing I would do would be to get some jewels that were imbued with magic that could protect me against any kind of mind magic.That could protect me from her!"Oh, Natasha," she touched my hair, "poor child... It was obvious that you would never be favored by others like I was, as well as obvious that I would have a good marriage with one of the Imperial or Royal Princes, not you," lies!Why doesn't she sto
I STILL CAN NOT BELIEVE this is happening.Yeah, it's obvious that she betrayed my trust, used and abused me, and manipulated and brainwashed me as well. But my mind's still trying to get the meaning of this. My heart and mind are conflicted.I'm her sister, her twin after all!I'm not lying when I say that I love her. It's not like there's a [stop loving] button I can push and whip the feeling I have for her. That's why it hurts so bad.That doesn't mean I'm not angry. That doesn't make me stop wanting to kill her. Cuz I am furious. I want to scream and beat the shit out of her. But my love for her is still here.She always had people's attention and love, while I didn't. She was loved by our parents in a way I never was, but I was happy to see her being loved, especially because I knew how much it hurts to not have my parents' affection. I was already bad when I was a kid, but she wanted to see it? What's wrong with her?Did she hit her head when she was born or something like
I DON'T HAVE MORE TIME, so, please, I know I shouldn't ask this after every life my hands ended... but I can't help it. So, I'm asking for a second chance. One more chance and I'll do it differently. I swear I will.Let me do it right, just give me another chance. I'm begging you, Mikla! Or whoever has the power to grant me this last wish-I'm so scared of death... And I know I shouldn't be when I became so familiar with her, but I fucking am. I don't find my death attractive at all. It scares me more than anything.As I saw Dalilah going back to Christopher's side, I finally let the tears fall, falling them and getting mixed with the blood on my face.When I turned to meet the cold and shining ruby-red eyes of the executioner under his pitch-black helmet, I saw the ax dangerously close to my precious neck. He held it higher. And when he was about to behead me, I swear that I sensed him smiling at me.Not only that, but by the look in his eyes, he seemed amused by what he was goi
AS EXPECTED, NO ONE CAME IN. I thought someone would come, once I screamed when I woke up here, but I was wrong. Although it's not a surprise, because there were just a handful amount of people on my side. Valerian, of course, is who cares the most for me. After him, there's Asher and Sir Thorin Meelany, my disciple-brother and my swordsmanship master, respectively. Then comes Katherine, my nanny, and personal maid, who takes care of me as if she was my mother. Lastly, the head butler Leon and the kitchen's head chef, Yoostaf.Oh, there's also my naive father, Grand Duke Gilbert, though he's a complicated matter. He does care for me, but not as much as he does for my siblings, besides, he's always manipulated by my mother, Grand Duchess Cleo, because she keeps using his love for her to let her do anything she wants to. And even knowing that I'm not his favorite neither close to that, just the fact that he loved me at least a little bit was always enough for me.Stupid, isn't it? But
WHEN I WAS ABOUT TO OPEN THE DOORS I stopped and took a few steps back, waiting. And when I recognized the aura of the person coming in, I hugged her the moment she set her foot inside. Catching her by surprise."Are you alright, Your Royal Highness?" Damn, why is she still using those honorifics with me at this point? "Did you have a nightmare?""Ah, Kate, I did… The worst and longest nightmare of my whole existence," and living like that was indeed a damn nightmare. "I thought I would never wake up," and that almost happened, seeing how I died back there.For Mikla's sake, it gives me goosebumps just thinking about what I felt when the ruby-red-eyed executioner was beheading me. I took three steps away from Kate and passed my hands on my neck, swallowing hard.Fuck… I don't want to go through that again! Not again. And for me not to have my beautiful head separated from my precious neck, I can't let myself get caught when I kill the important people who did that to me. Because I
I RESTED MY HANDS ON HER SHOULDERS, "Come on, I'm not pranking you, Kate. I mean every word I've said."It's embarrassing that she thought I was joking about this, about not believing in my twin anymore. Damn, I can't even imagine how Val will react, especially after we fought so many times because of it. Although I am, honestly, looking forward to his reaction.Will he get happy?Or won't he believe in me like Kate doesn't?"What?" She touched my forehead with both of her hands, twice. "But you don't have a fever!""Ha ha ha, you are so funny, oh my Goddess," I exclaimed sarcastically, and Kate rolled her eyes. "Believe in me, Kate! I'm telling the truth."Sigh. "It's just that you've protected her so many times to the point where you've even quarreled with Prince Valerian when he tried bringing that up… Even I tried talking to you about it before," I was dumb to not listen to any of them.If I had trusted their words back there, maybe things wouldn't have turned upside down a
WHEN I WAS ABOUT TO GO DOWN THE STAIRS, I met Sir Leon, the head butler, who to my luck is also on my side. Realizing that he seemed to want to say something to me, I stopped midway and waited for him to reach me. When he did, he bowed respectfully and kissed the back of my gloved hand."Your Royal Highness," then his dark-green eyes met my golden eyes again. It's been so long since I last saw him because after my parents' death he went to the Mage's Tower and never came back. So I had forgotten how grateful he looked with those eyes, olive skin, and his shoulder-length wavy black hair. "Did you have a good night of sleep, Princess?" Oh, and his kind voice too.I greeted him back. "Yes, Sir Leon," it was a lie, of course. But he doesn't need to know that. And I don't want to start explaining any of that again. "You seem to want to speak with me about something," he nodded. "What's the matter?""Her Ladyship, Viscountess Chelsea Meelany," Sir Thorin's older sister, who's me and my s
"WHAT? DID THEY STARVE YOU FOR A WHOLE MONTH? How dare they do this to my daughter?" Dad yelled, shocked, and got up.Fuck. Look at what I have done. I need to control my mouth or I'm going to get in trouble."No, dad. Don't worry. No one dared to starve me. None of them have such an obvious death wish," he sat down again, still confused. "I was just thinking out loud. I didn't starve, I just felt like that because I woke up so hungry." He sighed.Val stared at me as if he didn't believe a word I said and knew I was lying. "For Mikla's sake, Tasha, don't scare me like that! I can't even imagine what I would do if anyone dared to harm or starve any of my children," I sided-looked at my mother, and she gazed back at me arrogantly, but I could see how she gulped at my father's words.And again, Val noticed that too. Although he didn't say a word about it. "What kind of dream did you have that made you wake up so hungry, Tasha?" Ha, you don't want to know that."I starved for about a