"It contained a potion from the empress," Miseok professed, "A potion produced to kill you."
"E-Empress? Kill me?" Hera asked in confusion. Her head started pounding. "Do you mean my mother wanted to kill me?"
Miseok shook her head vigorously. "No! Alya—her majesty would never!"
"Then, explain it to me!" Tears started to pool in the corners of Hera's eyes.
The nanny pursed her lips as she looked down, hesitant. "Your highness…"
"If you want to help me, you will tell me, Miseok," the princess told her gravely. "Please."
Miseok took a deep breath. It broke her and Hera the first time she said this aloud. She swore to herself she would never say it again, but she also promised to her. And eternally, she would always matter more to Miseok than anyone else, even herself.
"Eighteen years ago, there was a prophecy," she started, holding the princess' hands. "It spoke of the first princess borne in the Hrysos' bloodline. She is destined to have great power that she would never master alone. And she only has two possible fates: she would die at a young age or she would destroy the whole kingdom."
"And that princess is…"
Hera felt Miseok squeeze her hand to comfort her before she nodded.
Well, this sucks, Hera laughed mirthlessly. Out of all the worlds out there, I just had to be transmigrated to a world where I'm either going to die or kill.
"The prophecy foretold your illness, your highness. You were born with an overwhelming amount of mana or life force in your body. An average person only has enough to stay alive for at most a century, and those who have more end up being mages, alchemists, and swordmasters. But in your case, you have enough mana for a whole continent," Miseok explained, her gaze growing softer and sadder by the second. "It was overflowing, and you had a hard time stabilizing it. Unstable mana of that amount is bound to explode with the power equivalent to its life force. Therefore, if you failed to stabilize it, you will be wiping out an entire continent—our continent.
"The empress helped you control it by teaching you magic, but your power far exceeded your skills and in the end, your mana exploded. And the empress…"
Tears started rolling down her cheeks. Miseok was quick to wipe them off.
"What happened to my mother? Did I…" hidden emotions kept pouring out of her eyes from her throbbing chest. When she came to in this world, she had an immediate thought when she remembered that she was abandoned: Hera killed her mother by being born. She had only assumed it was due to a difficult childbirth, but she was starting to think it wasn't the case.
Miseok shed a tear as she wrapped her hands around both the princess', squeezing them tight. She looked down and rested her forehead on their clasped hands, then her shoulders shook as a sob escaped from her quivering lips.
I did. Miseok's silence was enough for an answer. I killed my mother.
"No, do not answer that." She choked back her sobs. She felt like she had no right to mourn, and for that, her heart weighed heavy with unsaid apologies and unshed tears. "But I shall know this one thing: why did she… m-my mother… before she, um… was killed," a lump formed in her throat but she mustered through it. "Why did she create the potion if she didn't want to k-kill me?"
Miseok answered without raising her head while her shoulders shook more violently. "She had to make a very difficult decision, and as an empress and a mother, she had to be prepared either way. The potion was one of her preparations. It had the ability to tame your mana if ingested in small amounts by eating at your life force. That is why I vowed to never use it again after your last mana explosion that cost her empress' life."
"But if I don't use it, you will die, Miseok. Everyone else will die… like my mother," Hera said, looking down.
She was never the one to do the sacrifice play. She had never wanted to be the hero, in her previous life or in this one. But after having possessed someone else's life whose mother had sacrificed herself, she felt like she owed it to Hera and to everyone else to die; to remove herself from here. After all, she is not of this world. She is an outsider who does not get to choose whose life she shall take but her own.
The last time will not be the last. Soon, her mana will overflow once again and she will put everyone's life in danger. She shall make sure that does not happen again even at the expense of her own life.
"Miseok, look at me." Her nanny raised her tear-stained face to look at her. "I want you to let me ingest the potion."
Miseok's eyes widened as she gasped. "I will not do that, your highness! I can never—I—"
"Nanny, it's okay." Hera touched her nanny's cheek. "I'm not telling you to kill me. I'm telling you to help me stabilize my mana."
"By lessening your life force!" Miseok retracted her hands and stood up. "However you put it, you are telling me to kill you, and I shall not stand for it! Never!"
"You misunderstand me," she corrected Miseok. "I was merely telling you to make me ingest the potion little by little, only enough for me to get by in a day without exploding until I find a way to stabilize it for good." She tried to smile to assure her nanny.
"Your highness—"
"You said I have enough life force for a continent," she cut her off. "That's a long time, Miseok. Ingesting drops of the potion every day would not even graze my mana. I will not die that quickly. After all, my mother died for this." Miseok's face softened at the mention of her mother. "The least I can do is not kill everyone else while I try to fix myself, don't you think?"
Miseok took a moment. But ultimately, she broke the silence.
"One drop in a week," her nanny told her resolutely.
"That's not nearly enough—"
"That is enough, your highness." Miseok's voice was firm to Hera for the first time. "This is not some object you can just give away, your highness. This is your lifespan."
"Okay, I understand." Hera gave her a weak smile. "I shall do what you wish, nanny."
Miseok straightened the creases on her perfectly-ironed uniform as she dusted the ends of her skirt. She cleared her throat and dried her tears in a swift wipe.
"Well, then." She had reverted back to her old self in seconds that Hera couldn't help but admire. "I shall prepare your bath, and you shall prepare yourself. I believe the emperor is going to visit."