Taking her place

Swear

"With one condition though," I say as he begins to look at me nervously before he lets out a long breath.

"So, what exactly are you planning to do?" Mike asks as he looks at me and then at the boy who sits next to me while he eats his cake in silence.

"We are to meet his highness soon. We haven't received the date, but it seems he wants to congratulate Lenna for her accomplishments. It's well known how much his highness hates loud people." I rub my temples as I sigh loudly. "All I have to do is show up and cause a little commotion."

"But you aren't the loud type..."

"Well, aren't you smart?" I joke as he laughs nervously.

"So, you are just going to provoke someone too cause it..." I smile this time as he swallows hard. "I see there’s nothing for me to worry about."

I turn to look at Kuro whose mouth is covered in frosting. "You should really be careful not to spill," I say as I wipe some of the frosting from his cheek and put it on my mouth. The sweetness of the frosting spreads around my tongue like a plague and I immediately take another sip from my coffee to get rid of the sweetness. 'I really can't do sweetness.'

"If your clothes get stained it would be a real shame." I end my sentence as I notice that Mike is staring at me.

"What?"

"You aren't a people's person, why are you suddenly into a kid?" He asks as he stares at the boy who glares at him in return. "Especially this kid, no offense but he looks mean. He's constantly glaring at me." He says as he looks away nervously.

"I have my reasons, but how about I let you in on a little secret since we've been friends for quite a long time," I say as I put the cup down into the table on the center. "This kid is special, he's not exactly someone you want hating you," I whisper to him as he flinches.

'Trust me, even I wouldn't want this tyrant to look at me with those kinds of feelings towards me.'

"Putting all of this aside. Is there anything new that you might want to tell me?" I ask as Mike looks at me with a serious expression.

He looks over his shoulder before he leans closer to the edge of his seat. "The kingdoms of Vespers and Eventide are still in a bad relationship but lately there’s been talk about an actual war that's being planned." He tries to say this as low as he can. "It seems our kingdom wants nothing to do with the battle but there’s been word that other kingdoms plan to join themselves in the war to create a sole power that can finally take down this kingdoms' knights."

"What's their purpose? The Royal house of the Zircon palace has nothing for them to want so desperately." I look at the boy sitting next to me as he begins to rub his eyes and yawns. I take his plate and put it on the center table and grab the boy as I lay him across the couch. "If you are tired just sleep. Well, leave in a bit." I say as he puts his head down on the couch but struggles to keep his eyes open. "Close your eyes."

"No," he says as he grabs my hand and rubs his eyes more intensely. "If I close them when I open them again you won’t be here anymore."

He catches me off guard as I remember the him from my memories, he would often fall asleep anywhere. It did not matter where he was as long as he was alone but the boy in front of me is way too different, there’s no way I was imagining it. 

'What caused the change? Did something else change about his circumstances due to my sister and me changing our current presents?'

"What makes you think I’ll leave you?" I ask as he looks at me with tearful eyes.

"She told me that I should sleep and when I woke up she was gone. Everyone was gone, they left me in the middle of the darkness alone and it was so cold."

"I'm afraid you are confusing me for the wrong person," I say as I touch his cheek gently getting rid of his tears. "I would never leave someone behind, and I never will. So just sleep." As soon as I say this he stares at me for about a minute before he decides to close his eyes.

"Who do you think left him there?" Mike asks as he leans on his couch.

I stare at the boy as I try to recall any other person who I might have heard of as my past self that could have been close to him and I sigh softly.

There is only one woman who was near him who possibly didn't hate him, a maid.

Her name was Juliet, the him in my memories often talked about her as if she were his sister. She was abandoned and found by him but it’s possible that with how I managed to change the future something else might have changed, for instance, the person who found her could have been someone else this time.

"Who knows, but whoever is capable of leaving a child inside of a forest filled with monsters must be a monster themselves. I'm not the biggest fan of people in general but even I wouldn't do such a cruel thing."

"Going back to that conversation," I say as I try to think of something else.

"They say that the Royal family may be hiding something valuable within the castle's walls. People believe that the jewels that the family wears are jewels that grow from underneath the castle. The theory that everyone is holding on to is that they want to hold those riches for themselves."

He looks at the floor as if he is thinking deeply of something and I look at the floor as well, trying to prepare myself for the worst. "But..." I look at him as his eyes look at me with pain reflecting them. "That's not what you believe is it?"

"Blair, I think that they may be after the Artema household. The Artema house has been considered the home of Gods for centuries now. There's a rumor that the ex-husband of your mother is taking part in the war, he knows things about the Artema house that others don't since he once owned it due to his marriage and plans to become the head of the Artema house. Many don't oppose him since they don't consider you and your sister the true owners of your name since you are originally," he pauses as he grips his fists tighter. "of unknown blood." He says as he rubs his hands together nervously. "Your mother has probably blocked those rumors from entering your ears because she wants to protect you, but you need to know... your position, house, and your family are in danger."

"You are a good friend, as the next successor to the Duke house I will make sure to back you up if you are to ever need me," I say as I smile softly.

He looks at me with disbelief before he sighs loudly. "Don't you understand what I'm saying?"

"I do," I say as I slowly get up. "You are warning me about the troublesome people that will be dead within a couple of days. You don't possibly think I will die with something as little as this do you?" I ask as he stands as well and grabs both of my arms.

"I know that when we train you aren't using all of your strength, but you can't possibly believe that you can take an entire army, head-on by yourself!"

"I can," I say as I stare at his worried expression. Once I get a good look at him I notice that he looks so tired and scared.

'Is he afraid that I might die?'

I touch his cheek as he flinches. "There's something about me that no one knows except for the Artema household."

"What-"

"My sister and I aren't of commoner blood you know?" I say as he lets go. "Our parents were killed; we suspect that as soon as everyone knows who we really are, the same man who went after my parents will come for us."

"But that still doesn't mean that you can-"

"My mother’s name used to be Regina, and my father was known as the wolf," I say as he steps back.

"Those are Vespers' most precious protectors, but they said that they disappeared. They never mentioned anyone dying."

"That’s what they want everyone to believe, I haven't been able to investigate more on the details of our supposed disappearance due to my mother keeping track of me and my sister all the time. There is nothing that escapes her eyes but I have a hunch that the Vesper kingdom ordered it themselves to use my family as pawns and to anger the public. The thing that they wanted the most back then was an excuse to take over another kingdom’s land, right?" Mike stares at me with wide eyes. "I can’t say that it’s for sure but, I What you to look into it more. That’s my one condition in this entire ordeal. Just be careful, those assholes over at Vespers aren't kind things."

I turn to grab Kuro as he rubs his face on my neck once I have him in my arms. "If you end up needing any help, you know where to find me," I say as I touch his cheek once more as he sighs softly in relief.

"Guess I have nothing to worry about when it comes to you surviving those people."

I move my hand away from his cheek as I look at my hand. "Yes, if there is anything that we should fear is the person who killed my parents. If he was powerful enough to kill my parents, then he will have a chance at being able to kill anyone, especially my sister and me."

"I’ll look into it, maybe if we can find out who this person is, we'll be prepared if he decides to come."

I look at him as he looks at the floor with a new worry. "If I die."

"What?"

"I want you to take care of Lenna for me."

"You aren't going to die." He says as he steps towards me but I take a step back. This man doesn't know what I know, the sight of Lenna lying down on the cold ground as the dirt in her face slowly rolls down from her cheek, pops into my mind as I look at him with a serious expression.

"I need you to promise me."

"You aren't going to die." He looks at me with a serious expression this time.

"I'm counting on you," I say as I begin to walk out of the room with the boy in my arms. 'Everything just got more complicated.'

"Are you going to die?" Kuro asks me as we sit in the carriage. He is still laying down in my arms since I thought he was still asleep.

I sigh softly.

If the boy were being taken care of by Lenna she would try to hide everything and anything that has to do with death from him but I'm different. Even as the me from my previous life, I had always been the type to avoid taking care of children. Since the me from my past life was a realist and let’s face it, I wasn't about to tell a child that Santa didn't exist and that God was not the being that I would rely on when things got hard for me.

That would be too cruel out of my part, letting a child know that reality is much scarier than the childhood stories that they were told or the beliefs that others would teach them.

It's was easy to know that the world was not just black and white, but that exact concept that kept me questioning life and made me feel alive was not the easiest one in the book to explain to a child.

"I don't know." He hugs me tightly as he nuzzles his nose on my neck. "I might die but that's not something I can easily predict." His arms start to shake as his hug gets tighter. "But I can say one thing," I hug him back as I wrap my arms around him as well. "I will do everything that I can so that I won't."

"You promise?" He asks as he looks at me with tears in his eyes.

I flinch as I look at the boy’s sad expression and the fact that he's not a boy, but a man disappears from my mind. All I see is the kid in front of me that is afraid of losing a friend, possibly one of his only friends.

"I swear on the Abner family name," I say as he looks at me with a confused expression.

"But that's not your family name." He says as he freezes.

"It is, that is the name that was given to me before I was adopted by our household. It's a name that I would never allow anyone to taint, so the fact that I am swearing on that name should mean something." I say as he smiles widely.

The breeze is smooth and slightly cool, I continue to move the small knife from one finger to another before a hand reaches out towards it and takes the knife away from me. 

"You are as always, hard to approach" his silver hair is now brown in some areas from the dried blood that splashed on him when he killed his targets and I look away. "You didn't tell me that we would have to deal with something so troublesome," I say as I step on the lifeless body on the ground of a man that was once considered a hero and instead is now another body in this damned place.

"I didn't consider so many people showing up to protect their hero." He says as he stares at the small blade that he took from me. "Just like I didn't consider myself to have to make such a sacrifice."

I look at the piles of bodies in confusion. 'What sacrifice?'

I try to move away from him as soon as I hear metal colliding against more metal, but I am too late.

He's already pulled out his sword and stabbed me in the stomach, my eyes open wide from the pain as I try to say something, but nothing comes out. "Hell..." I manage to say as he pushes me towards the floor and I land on top of the pile of dead bodies.

He looks down at me with a sad expression as he touches my cheek with his bloody hands. "If only you had opened up to the possibility of us being one I would have been able to save you from this." He says as he smiles with a sad expression. "Too bad that since you were so distant it had to end up with me getting rid of you."

My vision goes blurry as I begin to think about the damned irony this event is causing.

I am literally laying on top of the dead bodies of the people that I just killed with my life hanging by a loose thread. I try to use my magic to heal myself, but it doesn't work. 'What the...?'

I peek at the blade that's gone through my stomach and I see something mixed with dried leaves, some sort of liquid from a flower. Judging by a small red petal it's some sort of weird flower that will not let me heal myself and possibly allows me to be able to feel the pain in my body again.

"Ethan- you."

"You seriously can't do this right now." He says as he pulls out the sword from my body as I scream from the pain. 'Damn! I let my guard down!'

"That’s the first time you ever called me by my name..." he says with a shaky voice, as he grabs his sword and puts it above my heart before he stabs me.

Everything goes black as I wake up in my bed with heavy breaths, my entire body is sweating as I look around me vigorously trying to get my mind out of the dream and into my current reality. "Fuck..."

I touch my soft covers as I try to regulate my breathing from the memory that I just re-lived in my dream.

The windows in my room shine a soft white from the moonlight and from the curtains being white, the light is transparent that it allows me to calm down a bit more. I touch my hair as I twitch from the uncomfortable feeling of sweat beneath my fingers and decide to just get up from the bed instead. The bandage that I put in my arm begins to itch from the sweat so I take it off and throw it on the floor, eagerly to get the sweat off my arm.

This whole death talk has brought me more annoying memories, especially the most shameful one that I carry inside me.

The day I died.

I had killed people, tortured them, endured pain equal to someone losing their limbs countless times and the mere stab of a sword killed me. 

How pathetic.

The silk dark blue nightdress that I have on is too thin so I put on a robe of the same material over it and walk outside of the house to get some air. I sigh as I finally get to the back of the house where we have a garden and cross my arms.

"We should invest in a more variety of flowers." I think to myself as I look at the white and red roses growing at opposite ends from each other.

'It would be nice if we had some more colors like pinks and blues.'

I walk towards the water fountain and lay down on top of it as I pull the robe to the side where there is no water and I look up at the sky. The stars shine brightly in this world since cities do not exactly exist yet.

The breeze against my skin is cold due to the water in the fountain and I smile as I touch the water with my hand. The breeze causes the flowers to move and my muscles relax as I listen to them move as the crickets sing to each other from the distance but I soon freeze as I hear something else.

Something is hitting the floor softly but hard enough for me to hear. It sounds like footsteps and they stop right behind me. 'If it was an employee they would have called me by now and asked me to come inside, and if it was my sister or mother they would have already screamed at me for being outside in the middle of the night with almost nothing on.'

I do not move with my hand still inside of the fountain as I think to myself 'if it’s not them, then who?'

"Aren't you cold?" I hear the voice of a man say as I slowly get up with my senses going wild. My mind goes blank for a moment before my blood begins to boil and I want to ignore the voice, I want to go back into my room and forget about the fact that I ever heard it, but I can't. 

"If you are out with such thin clothing, you'll gather unwanted attention." He says as I turn to look at him with a cautious expression. 'f**k, it's him. The boy but in his actual form.'

I swallow hard as I take a step away from the fountain. 'Fuck...'