"I wonder why Nicholas is acting differently from the memories I saw of him—well, technically, the memories Dominic has of him," Dominic asked himself, feeling panicked and disoriented. "I wonder if the memories I have are true or false since I can't trust the way they were arranged. At least I was able to piece together all my past memories as Lucian."
Dominic sighed as he thought to himself, "But the only reason I knew how to arrange my memories of Lucian was because I lived through them myself. That's not the same for Dominic, so I'm not sure if my memories are right or at least arranged properly. From what I can remember, Dominic was badly bullied both mentally and physically, for his obesity, lack of talent, failure in his academics, and poor performance in palace lessons. He wasn't even able to enroll in the academy last year due to his laziness, inexperience in etiquette, academics, and magical prowess."
Dominic hissed in annoyance as he continued, "The guy just wasted his opportunities. If I had the opportunities he did, Natalie wouldn't have been able to do what she did, or at least I would have defended myself and Aunt Marie from her. Speaking of them, I wonder how they're doing right now. I need to find a way to survive here and get to them somehow. Even though I'm annoyed by the previous Dominic's laziness and stupidity, I can't say I don't understand how he felt because I know what it means to be bullied. I was bullied for being abandoned by my mom—"
He was interrupted by his own laugh, which came out as though he had gone hysterical. "—It's funny how the mom I've been waiting for all these years put me in this mess. I need to be able to recall everything because that's the only way I'll be able to survive in this place as Dominic. I now have a time limit of only one year, and I can't just directly ask someone, or they would suspect me. The only person I can trust for now, from what I've seen in both my memories and real life, is Daphne. Unlike Nicholas, who is my half-brother, she's my full sister, but I shouldn't be too sure of her yet."
This is a world I'm unsure of, and there's no one I can fully rely on—especially not the royal family. From what I've seen in my memories, the Emperor has always been cold to Dominic because he was born during the week of mourning for the unfortunate death of the second Empress of his reign, "Empress Madilyn Novae," and Dominic was therefore labeled a bad omen.
She was the only love the Emperor truly had because his union with the first Empress was a forced marriage. The first Empress was called "Andrea Reynolds," not "Andrea Novae," even after getting married because she refused to change her name. Her maiden family, the Reynolds, was the only duchy in the Empire of Lumina to remain independent, without ties or obligations to the royal family, since they didn't need their help in the Empererical War.
Half a century ago, Lumina was just a kingdom among other duchies that formed a large empire called Emperea. War was suddenly unleashed in the empire due to personal differences and conflicts, ending with Lumina capturing all it's other kingdoms and smaller duchies with the exception of the Reynolds Duchy. Unlike other duchies that foolishly fought battles beyond their capabilities, the Reynolds remained neutral, participating in the war only minimally. Due to their skilled warriors and military power, they overcame several duchies. Since they didn't actively participate in the war and only defended and attacked when necessary, they were overflowing with resources and controlled almost half of the landmass, population, and resources of the original Emperea.
They were regarded as the royal duchy and were treated with much more respect and esteem. The power they specialized in was darkness and shadow magic, which is why everyone from that family is considered dangerous and feared by commoners outside their duchy. Contrary to these beliefs, the Empress was kind to her husband, everyone in the royal family, the nobles, and even the commoners. However, her character was still believed to be a farce, but she didn't mind and remained a diligent and respectful wife. Most importantly, she was not arrogant in the least and maintained humility while on the throne.
She was proud of her family name and couldn't let go of it. She would have even been the successor of her family if the alliance with the Royal family wasn't needed, but unfortunately, her pride in her family's name wasn't well-founded because the Emperor was also proud of the "Novae" name. The nobles continued to detest her family despite her kind and decent character, so it was a unanimous decision between the nobles and the Emperor to bring in a second Empress to challenge Andrea's authority.
Although it was criticized by the common people, there was nothing they could do about it, and the second Empress was brought in. That's when things started going south for the Empire. Madilyn entered the palace and immediately won the heart of the Emperor by being submissive, obedient, and dutiful to him, even forgetting about her own family. This made the Emperor, who already disliked Andrea, completely shun her and focus more on Madilyn.
Soon, Madilyn got pregnant with Nicholas, the current Crown Prince, but she didn't care about him and solely focused on the Emperor. The only people who stepped up to raise Nicholas carefully were Andrea who was assisted by the palace maids. The Emperor didn't care about him but provided for him and made him his rightful heir, making him forget about Andrea upon already having an heir. The Emperor completely shunned Andrea which made her slowly fall into depression out of loneliness in the Royal Court until she luckily conceived Daphne and started seeing the world in a good light once again.
But the Emperor began shunning his wife and even his daughter, claiming that she was only a girl and had no use to him apart from being married off to another Empire. It was said that the first Empress and the Emperor had struck a deal for the eldest daughter to also be eligible to inherit the throne because the Emperor suddenly placed her on the same level as Nicholas. But even this placement wasn't enough to change the stereotype about girls, and people still disrespected her from time to time.The deal was not fully known to anyone apart from the Emperor and the first Empress, so obviously Dominic didn't know and his memories didn't have details about the deal either. Dominic only learned about the deal from the rumors of the palace servants coincidentally.
Most of Dominic's knowledge was only gathered from the few lessons he paid attention to and kept in his memories, or from rumors spread by people who lived in the palace, since he didn't even have access to the outside world as a useless and forsaken prince."
Lucian, who was still struggling to piece back Dominic's scattered and fragmented memories in his head, was soon disturbed by a knock on the door. He was jolted back to reality and looked at the door before asking, "Who is it?"
The person answered, "It's me."
Dominic realized who the person was immediately and was shocked by the person's sudden reappearance.