I ran until my legs started hurting so much they felt like they would snap.
I didn’t know where I was going anymore.
My feet just moved on their own, hitting the hard ground in the dark.
The only thing I knew for sure was that I had to get far away from the palace.
Josephine was dead.
The words kept repeating in my head, over and over, like a broken record.
But no matter how many times my brain played it, my heart refused to accept it.
I looked down at my chest.
I was holding the teddy bear so tightly that my knuckles were white.
The soft fur was completely wet.
It was covered in her blood.
Her blood.
Her baby’s blood.
Every time I blinked, I didn’t see the dark trees or the empty path.
I saw her face.
I saw the way her lips trembled when I handed her the bear.
“You remembered my favorite color.”
My chest tightened so hard I could barely pull air into my lungs.
Of course I remembered.
I remembered everything about her.
I remembered when we were small, and Father would get angry at me for breaking a vase or skipping my lessons.
He would raise his voice, his eyes hard and cold.
But before he could do anything, Josephine would run into the room.
She would step right between us.
She knew she was his favorite.
Everyone in the house loved her.
It was impossible to stay mad at Josephine.
She would look up at him with those big blue eyes, plead with her soft voice, and Father would instantly calm down.
She protected me, even when I was the one who caused the mess.
I remembered Victoria.
The three of us used to sneak out to the market.
Victoria always led us to the wrong places.
One afternoon, she took us down a narrow street filled with drinking men.
They started laughing and walking toward us.
I was terrified.
I ran and hid behind a wooden cart, crying while the men pointed and laughed.
Josephine was shaking.
She was just as scared as I was, but she froze.
She didn’t know how to run or fight.
Seeing her tremble did something to me.
I forced myself to stop crying.
I picked up a heavy piece of wood from the ground, stepped in front of her, and screamed at the men until they backed away.
That was how we survived.
Josephine was the soft one, the kind one.
I was the tough one.
We balanced each other perfectly.
I wiped my nose with the back of my hand, tasting salt and sweat.
My mind drifted to the large cherry tree behind our old house.
Josephine loved cherries so much.
We would climb the thick branches, and she would sit at the top, eating them until her fingers were stained pink.
She used to weave the green leaves together to make a crown for her head.
“When I eat enough cherries, I will become the queen,” she would say, dancing around the base of the tree.
I used to laugh at her.
But she never stopped dreaming.
And she did become the queen.
But she never got the happy ending she wanted.
The palace killed her.
We all knew the stories.
Kings and queens lived there, but the bloodline always stopped.
No children were ever born to them.
The queens either grew old in sadness or disappeared.
But never had a king stabbed his own pregnant wife.
Why Josephine?
What did she do to Caspian?
My sister loved him so much.
She had told me how kind he was, how he protected her and made her feel safe.
Josephine did not trust easily.
But she trusted Caspian.
And he destroyed her.
I stopped running.
My chest heaved up and down as I looked back over my shoulder.
Far in the distance, I could see the orange glow of the burning palace against the dark sky.
I made a promise right there.
I would kill him.
I didn’t care about justice.
Justice was a lie.
If justice was real, my father would have listened to me when Victoria said I murdered my own mother.
If justice was real, I wouldn’t have been locked away in a psychiatric hospital.
I remembered sitting at my mother’s funeral, so tired from crying that my eyes simply closed.
When I woke up, I was strapped to a bed in the institution.
They said I was sick.
Nobody asked for my side of the story.
They just threw me away.
I squeezed the bloody teddy bear.
Caspian would pay.
I turned around and forced my tired legs to run toward my father’s house..
Maybe I could finally look him in the eyes and make him see that he threw away the wrong daughter and ruined our lives.
But when I reached the tall iron gate, my feet stopped moving.
Bodies were everywhere.
Servants I had known since I was a child.
Guards who used to stand by the doors.
They were all lying flat on the ground.
None of them were moving.
My heart started beating so fast I felt dizzy.
I slowly stepped through the open gate.
The smell of fresh blood was so strong it made my stomach turn.
I looked at the wet patches soaking into the sand.
My mind suddenly flashed back to the market today.
The old woman who bumped into me.
The single cherry that fell to the ground.
She called it a bad omen.
I had laughed at her and picked it up anyway.
Now, looking at the dead bodies, a cold chill ran down my back.
Maybe I brought the curse with me.
If I had stayed in the hospital, maybe none of this would have happened.
I walked into the main hall.
Cynthia was lying near the stairs.
Kai and Williams were dead beside her.
I dropped to my knees next to Cynthia.
She used to sneak me extra bread from the kitchen when Father sent me to my room without food.
“Cynthia?” I whispered, touching her shoulder.
She didn’t move.
It was cold.
I carefully brushed her hair back and closed her staring eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
I stood up and ran down the hallway.
Near the back door, I saw Sandra.
She was leaning against the wall, taking shallow, uneven breaths.
A large kitchen knife was buried deep in her chest.
Blood was spilling down her uniform.
I rushed to her and dropped to the floor.
“Sandra!”
Her eyes slowly opened.
She stared at my face for a long time.
“Lady Jessica,I thought… they said you died.”
“What?” I froze.
She blinked slowly.
“Or is it Josephine?”
“No, it’s not Josephine.” I swallowed hard, my throat hurting.
“It’s Jessica.”
Her eyes widened a little.
“Jessica? But… your father. He told everyone you died. He said you were gone.”
I felt like someone punched me in the chest.
“He really told people I was dead?” I had heard it from Josephine earlier but i thought it was just my fathers way of bluffing
She coughed, “Help him.”
“Who?”
“Your father he….he.. Inside.”
I stood up quickly, looking down the dark hall.
Then I looked back at Sandra.
“I’ll come back for you. I can save you.”
She shook her head weakly.
“No. You can’t. The people who could have given me a comfortable life are already dead.”
“Sandra, please don’t talk like that.”
Before I could grab her hands, she wrapped her fingers around the handle of the knife.
“Don’t!” I screamed.
She pulled it out.
A thick rush of blood poured from her chest, spilling onto the floor.
Her head fell to the side, and her body went completely limp.
I caught her shoulders, tears finally spilling over my eyelashes.
“No… please.”
But she was gone.
My whole home had turned into a graveyard in one night.
I couldn’t even cry properly.
I felt completely empty inside.
I let her down gently and ran toward my father’s room.
“Father!” I yelled, my voice bouncing off the empty walls.
“Lord Orion vale!”
I pushed his heavy wooden door open and stopped dead in my tracks.
He was sitting in his large leather chair.
A long metal sword was pushed straight through his stomach, pinning him to the back of the chair.
His clothes were soaked in blood.
Drops fell from his chin onto his lap.
“Father…” I fell to my knees in front of him.
His eyes fluttered open.
He looked at me, his mouth opening in absolute shock.
“Josephine ?” He called but I Ignored, I couldn’t believe after all these years he still can’t differentiate between us too..
my eyes wavered “Josephine i am glad you’re safe, now I can rest freely”