The Princess

Chapter There

The garden was the only place in the mansion that still felt like mine.

The roses climbed high along the stone walls, crimson blossoms heavy with dew, their fragrance thick and intoxicating in the early light. Ivy curled through the iron arches, and the gravel path crunched softly beneath my slippers as I walked, each step carrying me further from the suffocating silence of the house.

I breathed in deeply, letting the morning air cool the heat still lingering on my skin. Inside, the brothers’ eyes followed me, hungry, accusing, possessive. Out here, the roses looked at me with nothing but indifference.

Still, the memories clung.

I had lived in the Sakamaki household for as long as I could remember. To me, it had always been home—though not always kind.

Beatrix had been the first to make me feel welcome. She, with her golden hair and tired but gentle smile, had looked at me not as an outsider but as a child in need of love. I remembered how she brushed my crimson hair with slow, careful strokes, humming soft lullabies when the nights grew too cold and the mansion’s shadows too heavy. She never called me “stepdaughter.” She simply called me April.

Christa, too, had shown me kindness. Though her frailty often kept her hidden away, she had once taken my hand in her trembling fingers, her eyes glassy but warm. “You are not an intruder, April,” she had whispered. “You are family. Never doubt that.” Her words had settled deep inside me, a fragile shield against the cruelty that sometimes followed.

But Cordelia…

I shuddered, my steps faltering as her name twisted through my thoughts. Cordelia, with her beauty sharp as broken glass and her smile dripping venom. She had hated me from the moment I could walk.

“You don’t belong here,” she would sneer, her voice low enough that the others wouldn’t hear. “Karlheinz may dote on you, but you’ll never be mine. You’ll never be one of us.”

The memory of cold fingers around my throat burned in me still. I had been no more than six when she tried to drown me in the reflecting pool, her jeweled hands pressing me beneath the water as my lungs screamed. If not for Kanato’s shrill cry that drew a servant’s attention, I might have never risen again.

Another time, she lured me toward the grand staircase, her silken voice promising a sweet hidden treasure. The push was sudden, cruel. I remembered tumbling, my knees and arms scraped raw against marble, my vision blurred with tears. And Cordelia’s laughter, sharp and merciless, echoing long after Beatrix’s arms had gathered me from the floor.

Even now, in the sanctuary of the garden, my chest tightened.

Karlheinz had punished her for those attempts, though not in ways I understood. He never raised his voice, never struck her—but the punishments came in silence, in cold absence. And Cordelia’s rage only grew, always circling back to me.

Karlheinz…

I tilted my face toward the morning light, blinking against the brightness. Even thinking his name felt like touching something holy and forbidden.

He had been my savior, the one who brought me into this house when I was still too young to understand why my real father could not keep me. He had given me a family, brothers, safety. And yet—he was a ghost. Always gone, always distant. His smiles were rare, but when they came, they were for me. And for a moment, I could almost believe I was the reason his heart had not turned to stone entirely.

But he was never there when Cordelia tried to break me. Never there to shield me when her claws sank in.

And so I had grown up in the space between—loved by some, loathed by others, adored by a father who rarely stayed long enough to protect me.

My brothers…

Each of them had been a world unto themselves. Shu, who let me sit quietly beside him in the music room, his golden eyes watching as I sang, never saying much but never pushing me away. Reiji, strict and sharp, teaching me proper etiquette, correcting every mistake, his words harsh but his hands steady when he guided mine. Ayato, wild and relentless, dragging me into games and competitions, demanding my praise when he won. Kanato, fragile and frightening, who sometimes clung to me as though I were the only one keeping him from shattering. Laito, teasing, whispering cruel pet names with a smile that made my heart tremble with something I dared not name. Subaru, who pretended not to care but always hovered near, ready to break walls and bones alike if anyone dared to harm me.

I loved them. In ways I shouldn’t.

And last night, for the first time, I felt how much they loved me back. Not as a sister. Not as family. But as something else.

I closed my eyes, the scent of roses heavy in my lungs, the weight of memory pressing down.

“I don’t know who I am anymore,” I whispered into the garden air.

But the roses gave no answer.

Only the echo of the storm still inside me.