I was never known to be cunning, but I was known to keep secrets. It made lying to the scorpions around me easy, even when I used to lie to anyone I would be guilt ridden. Now it was a skill that I would have to use to make sure I'm able to wiggle out of this prison alive. Even though I had only been conscious for six days since the secondary round of posion, it felt as natural as breathing. I had noticed that Emma had a routine that matched with the sun in the sky. When the sun was just rising, she would barrell in to wake me up and drop off a pathetic breakfast of a cold gloopy paste and leave. She wouldn't check in on me once every two hours to make sure I was practicing my mana until the sun was high in the sky for midday. At midday, she would give me my medicinal tea with a stale piece of bread. Then she would leave me alone with a jug of water until the sun dipped below the trees when she would bring me a usually over salted bowl of broth with a few chunks of meat. It was like this everyday, with one piece of fruit every other day to make sure I had enough vitamins to get sick with scurvy-- something that I had read in her journal had happened before when she noticed her toenails were darkening. It explained why she was so malnourished, getting most her nutrients from a strange tea to make her feel better and a single piece of fruit. To me it was a miracle she was able to function, and work so diligently. I decided to honor her in my own way, and for my own survival as well. I found one of her half full journals and decided to write down all the information I knew about The Red Vow in it. I couldn't risk Emma discovering my notes as she often flipped through the pages, but luckily for me I had one thing from my world that she didn't have. When I was younger, my brother used to steal my diary and read it aloud to his friends and I was mocked for it. I stumbled across the Templar cipher, where every letter was switched with a specific triangle, lines or dots to hid the words. I didn't have the balls to even attempt to code my knowledge during the morning when Emma swooped in hourly. Usually I could hear her coming, but if I am immersed enough she was like a ninja rather than a rhino. So, I decided to spend my mornings trying to understand my body and how to use mana, and my nights to code. It had only been three days since my last meeting with Agatha, giving me only about ten more day to come up with a way to save Ophelia Spigen and plan my escape route. Although Mercy's body remembered how to use mana, trying to control it was difficult. My mana was like a candle in my chest flickering in the wind. If I fanned the flame too much, the fire would rage and overheat me. If I didn't use it properly, the candle would be blown out completely. I had tried to use Empath by speaking to Emma and pushing the mana to my lips. I hadn't done it correctly and like a rubber band and cause my lips to go numb and cold like I had stuck then in snow. I was unsure if it was because I was using the mana improperly, or if the ability doesn't work on certain people I was unsure. Usually it was the only ability I had been able to use successfully like it was second nature. I just instinctively knew how to push my mana out or manipulate it to cast the emotion I wanted to. I hadn't been able to purify anyone's aura yet since I had been sequestered away with a possibly immune woman. My other magic though was like relearning how to walk. My body knew what I was supposed to do, but I was unable to perform. When I did try to cast a spell, like an invisibility spell that I saw in one of Mercy's journals the same thing happened but my whole body went numb. It was the first time I was huddled under my blanket shaking uncontrollably.
"God this is ridiculous." I mumbled as I shook like a leaf under the scratchy material. I had tried to bend the light particles around me. A few blue orbs had floated around me for only a moment as the light bended before my body snapped back into a frozen wasteland. My teeth chattered and my nose was actually running as my body temperature plummeted. I was like that for ten minutes, chattering and shivering with tears poking my eyes. I felt like I was in a ice prison, but the next moment the fire started in my chest again and bloomed through my veins. It was a nice feeling, but I still hated it. It meant failure. This spell was the linchpin in my current plan, and if I couldn't carry it out ot meant being trapped. It was desperation at this moment, needing success to assure me I would be able to be able to escape when it called for it.
"Okay Victoria, you can do this." I bit my lip and tried to push the power out again, only to have the fleeting cold return. I wanted to scream, but I managed to just throw the grimoire on my lap against the beaten down wall. I didn't have the energy to throw a tantrum, just managed to fall onto my back on my hard bed and covered my face with my hands.
"I might kill someone." I hissed weakly into the air, puffing out cold air into the dusty room. Everything was just so stressful and frustrating. Powers that wouldn't work, ciphers, imprisonment, and shitty food. I was getting so drained just opening my eyes everyday. I was depressed, and desperate to get out. I was an animal trapped in a cage with only books and blankets to comfort me, while just beyond that door my supposed 'family' was living a life of luxury and abundance. I couldn't help the small smile that graced my lips. It wasn't happiness, but a bitter amusement. I could argue that my old life was more or less the same, until I moved out and went to nursing school. Whatever God put me in this body was really spitting in my face with my reincarnation. I heard the stomps and I cracked my eyes open enough to see that the sun was missing from my window meaning it was about midday. The door burst open, the rusty hinges swung with Emma bursting through the door, tea in hand. She walked over to the cracked nightstand, placed the rusted tray on the table and almost stomped out the door. I didn't even move from the bed, just turned to her stone faced. I didn't have the energy to flash a sweet smile, and she wasn't even looking at me.
"Thank you so much!" I called out in a sickly sweet voice even though the words almost burned my throat. She grumbled a bit and slammed the door behind her. I looked to the plain white tea set with bread off to the side.
"I guess I can start coding now." There was no one to speak to, so to make sure I didn't go crazy I was speaking to myself intermittently. I read about psychosis in solitary patients, and I refused to create an imaginary person to help with my loneliness. My training and my reading was usually enough to help me get through the day, but it helped me at least stabilize myself in reality. I sat up, hair a rats nest and body colder than ice. I looked to the window bringing in bare minimum sunlight, and realized how much I longed for fresh air and the sun on my skin.
My old quill and ink scrawled against the pages into gibberish symbols that only I could understand. I wasn't writing out the whole novel verbatim, just information and events I knew were going to happen. The Spigen ball was the first, but there were three other events in the book that I was certain would still occur even if I ruined their initial plan. A internal war between House Swaine and House Riveia, the invasion of a neighboring country Theosia, and the debutante ball. There were multiple reasons why these three events were on my radar even though I would be hidden away. The reason I was concerned about House Swaine and House Riveia was because they are both Cursed Houses. In the Empire, it was said that the Goddess Diana of light and life was tricked into falling in love with the Demon King Rivialle. They created the Juria Empire together, and created seventeen children together that took up the major noble houses of their descendants. However, the god of war Frey grew mad with jealousy, wanting Diana for himself. He trapped Rivialle, and gave curses to the children of theirs that looks like him and blessings to children who looked like Diana. He took the Demon Kings favourtie child Hel, and cursed her oldest child with the dark ability of manipulation of souls as well as bloodlust and misfortune. He cursed her line to have the heir to be an heir of darkness, but forced her to sit on the Imperial throne and lead her siblings. She turned the curse on its head, hiding her ugly infant heir as a Grand Duke, and handing over the throne to her next son who inherited golden hair-- a blessing from Diana. Frey felt bad for his temper but couldn't undo his curses, so instead he blessed people in each house as well as other denizens with abilites from twelve mythic heroes as compensation. The other six cursed siblings and ten blessed siblings were dispersed. Now it's been over a thousand years later, and the houses are still standing. Each ability is passed on in the houses, with some houses only having one heir while some have such strong magic its passed to several. For example, Count Roswell was a descendant of Psyche the Empath. House Swaine was from Urgot the Bezerker, and House Riveia was from Desdemonda the Witch. Some of the houses marry off their relatives to other houses to have a strong bloodline. The current Marquess Swaine wanted to marry off his son to the Count Riveia's daughter. However, the daughter of Count Riveia, Deidra refused the marriage because she was in love with the Viscount Peruka who had no curses, blessings, or abilites. This sparked a war between the houses, which caused several disasters as well as many losses of the front lines during the beginning of a war with Theosia. Tensions on the front lines were already strained, but after several conflicts due to the internal bickering it broke into full blown war. This leads to thousands dead, until the Archduke goes berzerk and basically wipes out both armies. It was a victory, but a very tragic one. It sends the Archducke Jayce to fall into a deep coma where only Agatha's 'love' would wake him up. I almost gagged at the thought of any pure emotion actually coming out of that horrid woman. I blinked, realizing that my hand was sore, and the sun had long set. I was just scratching meaninglessly into my paper, unconsciously snacking on the bread and tea as I wrote diligently.
'I should probably finish up my last thoughts and go to bed' I thought to myself, a little hazy with sleep. I kept sprawling, trying to remember details in my hazy brain. At the debutante ball where Agatha is being flaunted for marriage, she is proposed to by both the Crown Prince and the Archduke. I was still concerned over the possibility she might try to find other ways to manipulate them if my influence was too weak. I was also fearful, because that's where Mercy supposedly poisoned the Crown Prince and killed him. She had meant to poison Agatha but they switched cups. To cover her tracks she poisoned dozens of other cups to be taken at the midnight toast, leading to a massacre. My biggest fear was this, that they would result to mass genocide again to get Agatha on the throne. These issues are what I needed to fix, even with removing myself from the plot spotlight. I touched my dried writing, the dim moonlight barely coming through the trees. I just realized that it was so high in the sky. I then realized something a little more disturbing.
Emma never dropped off my dinner. It may have seem just like a minor inconvenience, perhaps a mistake. In reality it ran off script. Not once had Emma not stuck to her meticulous schedule. Her absence left a heavy weight of worry on my chest. My building plan was pinned on Emma and her almost OCD ways, but if she was breaking habit I feared that I may be trapped here forever.