Finding Fate

 "Before they were your grandparents, they were my parents first."

"You traitor! They're gone, all because of you! How could you?"

"Everything was taken from me; my parents, my life, my home, my future. I was satisfied - until you showed up! You took my future away so I'm going to take everything you've ever loved away from you!" Blood seeped into my eye and blurred my vision as it mingled with tears.

"How? How did I do that? How could I have ruined your life?"

"I would've been satisfied with my title, family, but instead, they made you the priority. They favoured you!"

I let out a startled gasp. What was that?

It felt like a dream but... it felt so real at the same time. I checked the side of my face for blood, but there was nothing except-

Am I... am I crying?

I sniffed and wiped the fresh tears from my eyes. Get a grip, I told myself.

I got out of bed, trying not to wake Luna as I left my room. The palace was eerily quiet during the night. The loud sound of silence.

I passed the portrait of my grandparents and their daughters. My mom must have been only ten in the picture. Hutchins said that Charity was like a little sister to him. He grew up in the palace as an only child so the two sisters quickly became his friends. Hutchins was only a little older than Scarlet.

He spent hours telling me stories about things they used to get up to. Like when they found out that my mom had the Element of Animals. The three of them were playing hide and seek and my mom had gone into the gardens. Upon spotting the birds in the bird bath, she thought how that would've been a great hiding spot amongst the other birds. They found her two hours later, chatting with the birds about the stories she had read.

Hutchins always spoke about them with a fond smile. He was supposed to be my aunt's advisor when she was hailed as Empress.

That never happened.

I glanced down the empty hallway until my gaze rested on the cracked open doors to Harumi's room.

Luna says she doesn't trust her. That she talks to herself and disappears at times. I've never heard or seen her do that. I trust her. At least, for now. She hasn't shown anything for us to be wary of her.

"Taylor?" Harumi's voice whispered behind me. I spun around, startled.

"Oh, it's just you."

"Are you alright? You seem to wander at night a lot," she said, putting a hand on my shoulder.

I shrugged it off,

"Yeah, it's just my body clock playing around. Count on it to make me stay awake during the night and make me sleep through the day."

She giggled and grabbed my hand, tugging me towards her room.

"Come on, you turn eighteen tomorrow. I want to put a list of food together to send to the kitchens. Maybe they'll let us help this time."

I couldn't help but laugh and follow her.

"Rumi, you know I don't cook."

"Surely you can, you even said it yourself, you grew up around restaurants and food!"

"I can cook, very well too, but I genuinely can't." I could hear the cogs ticking in her head.

"Oh, wait, it's because of your powers, right?"