Taking her place

The plan

I shiver as I remember last night’s events.

‘what the hell could that man be planning?’

The shivering gets worse as I begin to wonder if he is planning to somehow get rid of me eventually because I probably know too much.

‘kind of like in the movies when the mafia just takes out a smaller fish.’

“ugh.”

"What's wrong?" Mike asks as he looks at me with my coffee cup in my hands. It is stuck there, between my lips as I was probably going to take a sip but left it there instead, while my mind was elsewhere.

"No, I was just trying to remember something." I put the cup back down. "I have sent the money for your troubles with lily, I hope it was enough if it isn't just let me know."

He looks at me with a slightly raised eyebrow. "I feel like what is worrying you was something else, but I’ll let it go since it doesn't seem that important."

"When do you predict that this will hit?" I ask as he begins to frown again with a long sigh.

"I’ll give it less than half a year." The flowers surrounding us begin to move as they lose their petals due to the wind and I sigh slightly.

"Great," I say with a slight waver. "That's fine, my sister is slowly getting better with both swords at her side, how funny don’t you think? The inheritor to the Artema family has become twice as powerful than the previous generations.”

“well, she does have two legendary swords. The sword of a Hero and the sword of the Artema household.” He leans back on his seat as he stares at the sky. “its power that people could only dream of having.”

 "well, besides her we also have what I have, so I'm confident that we won't lose.”

"You really think having some knowledge on how to use that sword will help you?" He asks as he rubs his forehead. "This is a war we are talking about."

"We also have the knights from the Artema household, we won’t lose. Trust me, even if I didn't have the sword, the probability of us losing would be a fifty to fifty."

Mike looks at the table with an expression of pure defeat as he rubs his neck. "Right…"

A slight hand tremor lingers as my fingertips feel solid from the dried blood that lingers from after the fact.

I stare at the little boy in front of me as his neck shows off a clean cut with his pale face looking up the sky with a twisted expression.

'Who did this?'

I look around as I see a small village surrounded in bodies on the ground.

'I don't remember this...'

The young boy coughs and I look down at him in disbelief as my hand twitches again.

I cannot move.

The only thing I can manage to move is my fingers as I just continue to stare.

There is a moment of silence as I hear the breeze of the trees move from side to side, like violent whips against the skin of a horse.

The sound of a cough suddenly makes it to my ears as I look towards where the sound came from.

I am finally able to move so I begin to walk towards the sound.

The young man on the ground coughs loudly as he tries to breathe but it's weak.

‘he might just die…’

I look at him and the first thing I noticed is that platinum silver hair.

‘what the f**k…’

His face is covered in dirt and his body is covered in blood as he lays on the ground while looking up. “somebody please- save us.” He says weakly as he repeats it over and over with tears falling down his cheeks.

“save what? There’s nothing left to save…”

The sound of footsteps causes me to look behind me as I see the beautiful shine of silver hair coming to my direction as a smile makes it to his handsome face.

It is the Ethan that I know.

“But how?”

“Please!” the hoarse voice tries its best to scream and it makes me look. The young boy with silver hair looks up at me. "Please, help me- i- don't want to die." He tries to scream but its sound is like a whisper.

'Help you from what?'

"What this? I missed one?" Ethan says as he moves towards the boy slowly and steps on his chest so that he cannot move and swiftly lifts his sword up as he points it downwards.

Once he measures it correctly with a fast move, he pushes his sword down and the blade goes through the young boy’s neck as the sound of his voice lingers in the wind.

I flinch as I remember the sensation of how I was killed. The feeling of the blade inside of me. With his pushing me downwards so that I can’t run anywhere, and my breathing becomes haggard.

‘is this really just a dream?’

I jump up as I gasp for air. The soft struggling voice of the boy can still be heard inside of my head as I cough from the lack of oxygen.

I try to get up to get to the door, but I lose the strength on my legs as I fall to the cool floor while I try to level out my breathing.

I feel something touch my hair lightly as I look up terrified to see a beast that is much scarier than the man who killed me.

"What are you-?"

"Are you alright?" He looks down at me with a worried expression as he pulls my arms up. "Can you stand?" He asks as he helps me up only for me to lose the strength in my legs as he helps me up again by pulling me closer to him.

He pulls me towards his chest as he pulls me up by holding on to my waist.

I put my head against his chest as I try to calm myself down. "I'm sorry, I just need some time to get my breathing back on track."

He silently stands there, unmoved as he continues to pull me closer to him. "What are you so afraid of?" He asks after a while.

"I" While leaving my words to linger, I continue to stare at nothing as I stand there silently.

He stares down at me as he touches my hair and then slowly lifts my chin so that I am looking at him. "Whatever it is, there’s no need to be afraid."

I continue to stare at him as I begin to feel the heat from his body along with the sensation of his finger on my chin.

I clear my throat as I try to push him away, but he does not move at all.

Instead, I feel him lift me up as he lays me back on my bed.

"I heard that when a lady has a nightmare, she shouldn't be left alone."

I look at him as he lays down beside me under the covers.

Confused by the whole situation I just stare at him as he pulls me closer to him and embraces me. He closes the gap between us as I begin to realize that our skin is touching.

'He's not wearing a shirt!'

I try to increase the distance between us, but he doesn't let go of me as he puts his nose on my neck.

'He only does that in his other form. Is he doing this without realizing it?'

Tears begin to fall as I feel the heat that radiates from him and I hug him back.

'How ironic, I feel safer inside the arms of this man. These hands have probably killed so many people and yet they make me feel safer than my dreams.'

I pull him closer to me as I realize how much I missed the feeling of having the heat of another human being touch my hands.

I used to do this with my siblings from my past life.

We were poor so we had to sleep in one bed for a long time that when we were older our situation got better. We were no longer worried about making it paycheck to paycheck.

We had our own rooms, our own lives, our own secrets and yet. We would still find the time to hug each other like this, usually, it was during the times when our hearts were injured by the world but after we spent time together, we would always get back up.

It is a simple hug, to help me through the night but it is still warm.

On the contrary, when I lived the life in visions the closest thing to human connection that I had, the warmest touch I had against my hands... Was the blood that dripped down from other people’s throats.

As I think about the nice feeling this warmth gives me, I dive deeper and deeper into the darkness.

I wake up to Kuro laying beside me as he breathes softly into my cheek.

I stare at him as I cross my arms.

'He's such a cute kid, it’s kind of hard to think that he had such a shitty childhood.'

I touch the center of his forehead causing him to frown and I smile softly.

'If he experiences life as a child here will he remember it? I wonder if that will replace to some extent the horrible childhood he already went through.'

'It's annoying.' I think to myself as I continue to stare at the ceiling. 'I'm supposed to stay away from him and yet he's becoming someone important to all of us in this house, as much as I hate to admit it...'

"Blair, they are making suspicious moves around the border."

"How long do you?" I ask surprised as I get up from my chair and stare at Mike with discontent.

After I woke up a maid entered my room to let me know that I had a guest. It was Mike with a very tired expression. His eyes looked red as if he had not been sleeping at all last night. "With the ways, things are moving. The war will take place within this week or so. Depending on how fast they move. I heard that there is an opposition between the royals..." he tightens his fist as he looks at me with a dark expression. "Half of the royals wish to surrender the Artema household. They feel that your mother isn't doing a great job at handling..." he stops talking as he looks at the floor this time.

I sit down on my seat as I tighten my grip on the handles of the chair. "It’s me isn't it?"

He does not answer. He just continues to look down at the floor with some sweat going down his cheek.

I start to laugh; the room stays quiet as Mike tenses up. He freezes, the laughter that comes out of my lips is the same one that would appear whenever I killed someone, and although he does not know it.

He can feel it.

"What are you doing?” I say as I stop laughing and look at him with a serious expression. “Don't stop talking now, you have piqued my interest."

He flinches as he looks at me with these cold hard eyes that say who the hell is this? "What do you want me to say?" He swallows as his hand begins to shiver. Probably from the need to grab his sword and to defend himself from me.

"Start with their names, of course."

His eyes quiver as they stare at me intensely, but he gives me a slight sigh as he looks at the floor.

“I don’t think I have to do that.” He looks at me now and swallows hard. “you already know the answer to that.”

I grin as I slowly get up from my seat as I begin to walk towards a window.

“fine.” I look out of the window as I put my hand on my waist. “so basically, we have lost the support of the royals.”

“its fine, I wasn’t counting on them, to begin with, this just means that if they see anything suspicious, they won’t do anything about it.” I walk back to the chairs as I sit down and stare at Mike who looks at me nervously.

“if anything, though… this could be a perfect time.” I smile widely as he looks at me with a confused expression.

“what are you-“

“get involved, with the conversations about my family. Make sure you support protecting our family. Tell everyone important that your stance is to side with the Artema household. We are an important asset to the kingdom.” He looks as me troubled, “if you can get these important people to hear your parents talking about taking us down that will be a plus.”

“Alright but what exactly are you?”

“once we win you can use that as the excuse to kick them out of power earlier than anticipated. One we sin this war you can question their ability to make smart intellectual decisions.” he looks at me as he gets up.

“then I could petition to get the dukedom at an early time. Without having to get married, I would become Duke on my own terms.” He gasps. “this- this might just work.”

“alright then that settled do you think?” I ask as he begins to leave.

“It seems that I will have to take my leave.” He says as he takes his coat and puts it on. “ill be seeing you around.”

“Do I have to play with the other kids?” Kuro asks as he holds my hand.

He looks up at me as the grip of his hands gets tighter. “they are kind of dumb.”

I stare at him as I realize something.

‘it could be that even though he's got no memory of himself as a grown-up that his maturity is still there. Sadly, I know the feeling.’

“you don’t have to if you don’t want to. You can always read it.” I smile as his expression gets stiff.

“Oh…” he says as he looks at the floor.

‘Does he not like to read?’

“I on the other hand though, love to take adventures.” I smile towards him as he looks up at me with anticipation. “would you like to go on one with me?”

He smiles widely as he squeezes my hand twice with excitement.

We manage to sneak away from the school into a nearby forest. Kuros' eyes grow dark as his senses begin to sharpen. ‘probably because he thinks it might be dangerous.’

I pick him up as I begin to use my magic to make the ground glow.

“Woah!” he screams as he looks at the ground. “it looks so nice!”

Once we have reached a field of flowers I put him down and he looks around a bit disappointed.

“flowers?” he looks down at one as he sighs softly.

The flowers are closed off so they look like gigantic buds.

“these flowers grow everywhere but they only open once in a hundred years. So, seeing them open is a rarity but besides that, no one pays much attention to then. For one year they get talked about and the whole world wants them but for ninety-nine, they sit alone in a field like this one. Alone.” I look at the boy who touches a bud.

“But what people don’t know is that there’s another way to open them.” He looks at me with curious eyes as he waits anxiously. “there’s a type of magic that these flowers really like to eat.” I put my hand on the dirt as I begin to concentrate.

I inject magic from my hand to the soil and the white portion of my symbol begins to light up.

A second passes and the flowers begin to slowly open as they reveal glowing petals from the inside of them.

“Woah!” he touches one. “they look like stars!”

He runs to the center of the flowers and picks one out from the dirt as he looks at it glow from up close.

‘maybe good memories can hopefully become a part of him. Including the other him.’