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Sometimes you wondered if your father ever wanted you. It’s not like you ever had the means to ask. Asra said he wasn’t there before the plague, and you most certainly didn’t see him around after.
You would have remained none the wiser if Nadia hadn’t decided to clean out that damn old wing in the Palace.
You credited your lost birth documents to the chaos of the plague, but it seems like you hadn’t had them from the start.
“Or you had a fake one,” Nadia surmised. “I’ve seen the Courtiers pull far more audacious stunts in my years.”
At first, the news stayed within the Countess’s salon. Nadia helped you slip the paperwork into their proper places without garnering any notice. Then, she called for the attendants to draw you a large, large bath with an even larger assortment of treats to help smooth over the initial shock.
“Maybe it’s a mistake.”
“I’ve checked over and over.” Nadia sighs with a hand in your hair. “This is real, dear.”
The baths were certainly nice, but in time the water grew cold and your heart grew colder. You decided you’d much rather spend time seething in Portia’s garden, stabbing wildly at the dirt.
“Was I not good enough for him? Not refined enough?”
“Oh, sweetie, don’t let that overgrown brat make you question anything about yourself!” Portia smacks your back, handing you something shiny and sharp. “Just imagine his face on that patch of weeds!”
The visual certainly helped, but now, the weeds simply made you cry, and a part of you started to wish that they weren’t really weeds at all.
You burrowed beneath Asra’s shawl without waiting for admittance.
The magician was slow to speak, quick to listen, quick to mind how wide the eyes bulged at the news, and even quicker to wrap you in a hug.
“What am I supposed to do now? Am I supposed to talk to him? What is he going to tell me? What if there’s a reason he gave me up? What does this say about me… my bloodline!”
“Shh…” Asra held you, stalling your hurried thoughts with a kiss to your hair. “Blood and bone are only a part of us, and truly it is such a small part. What about your spirit and soul, dear heart?”
As the inevitable decision of what to do loomed over you, the paths before you blurred. The news that should have brought you resolution and clarity simply compelled you to bury your head in the ground.
“I just want to disappear,” you moaned.
“Tell me about it,” Muriel mumbled, ruffling your hair.
You spent many moons buried within Inanna’s fur, roaming the woods mindlessly, and sleeping by the fire. Muriel didn’t talk, but when does he ever? He understood your condition and understood that it was a condition that he wasn’t meant to fix. Instead, Muriel ensured that your body was kept healthy and safe until you plucked back up from the earth like a spring daisy.
“I think I’m ready.”
That’s how you greeted Julian, who raised a brow at you warily but nonetheless gestured you inside with a firm hand against your back.
“I knew that I could only talk to you once I was ready to do something. You’re not the type to leave someone undone.”
“Ah, yes,” he chuckled, “a doctor who can help anyone but himself. A six-foot oxymoron at your service, darling.”
Well after the clinic closed, you both spoke beneath the warm candle light in his office. He listened to you with a steadfast, earnest gaze. He’s a scientist with a heart, helping you logic through the mire that once seemed too nebulous to explore alone.
The path led you here. Outside Valerius’s mansion. Your father.
“Sounds awful off the tongue.”
“What? Would you rather call him ‘daddy’?”
Lucio grinned beside you, clearly unaffected by your grimace.
“I regret bringing you.”
“You won’t regret it when Valerius tries to run.”
And run, he did. Swung open the door so violently that he throttled straight into Lucio waiting for him on the other side.
“I suggest you turn around.”
You learned that - indeed, you were not planned. Indeed, your birth records were forged. Indeed, he wasn’t there for your birth. And indeed, his morbid curiosity in you was because you looked so much like your mother.
In the least, Valerius loved your mother and wished he never stopped.
“I had plans to be Consul, and a family could not be a part of that, but look at where that got me.”
The wine Valerius offered you had remained untouched. Until now. His mouth slacked as you drained every pretty penny in a span of seconds.
“Are you saying,” you spat, “that you only wish you hadn’t left us because your original plan failed?”
“No,” Valerius responded with equal grit, matching your stare. “I’m saying that my plan was a mess from the start.”
Valerius was undeniably a reveler of fineries and an indulger of spirits. In his youth, these temporalities seemed eternal, the gratification everlasting.
“But wine spoils faster now, and the decor never seems to be without dust.”
He took a long, slow slug of wine, unceremoniously plonking the hollow chalice next to yours. Valerius regretted giving you up, regretted giving your mother up.
“Because I truly had riches at my fingertips and traded it all for the keys to a rundown throne.”
You heard Lucio tsk bitterly from the other side of the door, and that was enough to break the tension with a smile.
***
Sometimes you wondered if your father ever wanted you.
But, you’ve come to realize that the answer to your question has been staring at you in the face since birth. Valerius painted his longing and loathing on the very streets you walked on, gilded them into the gates of your own city.
Now, after all was said and done, the streets of Vesuvia do seem a bit cleaner, the canals are certainly a bit clearer, and the pothole outside the shop is finally fixed.