The Real but Sickly

I was born frail and sickly, with barely enough strength to draw breath. I could hardly take two steps without coughing up three mouthfuls of blood. When I was seven, a beggar tried to snatch a spoiled bread roll from my hand. I collapsed, convulsing and foaming at the mouth. He was so frightened that he fled the capital that very night. When I was ten, a thug tried to shake me down for protection money. I spat black blood in his face. The authorities mistook him for a murderer and locked him up for a decade. Everyone kept their distance, afraid I would collapse, and they would be blamed. Then they discovered I was the missing daughter of Marquis Elmwood. The moment I returned to the estate, Georgina Elmwood, the girl who had taken my place, let loose the family's vicious hound. She wanted to scare me into knowing my place. Its barking startled me so badly that I spat blood and toppled onto the stone steps, no longer breathing. Marquis Roland Elmwood and his wife, Lady Elicia, were frantic. They brought out the estate's only treasured elixir and barely kept me alive. But my eldest brother, Adrian Elmwood, pointed a finger in my face and cursed at me. He said I had played dead to frighten the adopted daughter. His shouting left my ears ringing and my head spinning. I could feel the blood reversing its flow inside of me, and my eyes rolled back, my pulse stopping on the spot. My furious parents nearly sent him to an early grave. Seeing this, Georgina threatened to hang herself in the estate's Stargazing Tower that very night. To prove how much he loved her, my second brother, Lucian Elmwood, dragged me up the tower so she could take her anger out on me. My illness flared up at once. My legs buckled, and I fell straight over the edge. My parents had been searching everywhere for me. As they approached the tower, I rolled to their feet, covered in blood. They froze immediately, then screamed in anguish.