Chapter Twenty Three
1058 Words
"That's a flower, right?" I asked the Crown Prince after I pointed out to him the bracelet that my father was wearing in that photograph. "The shape of that bracelet on my father's wrist..."
Prince Kao nodded. "I think so. And I also think that its shape is very oddly familiar."
"What do you mean?"
"Do you remember what Mitaur told us about that flower that she was talking about?"
"The one that your mother brought to her? The Phoenix Petals?"
"That's right. That's the one," he answered. "The one that was said to be the main ingredient of that potion that saved me, but killed my mother."
"Oh, that! Is that how that flower looks?"
Prince Kao nodded. "I think so. A flower-shaped like a bird engulfed in flames? That bracelet is shaped just like that."
"Oh wow. So you could tell how flames look like? And most impressively, you can tell how something looks like when it is engulfed in flames?" I was so amazed that the Crown Prince can really that. It just means that he is a well-educated person. A well-informed prince.
"I have read so much texts about fire, Rainha. Some of them have illustrations with them."
"Oh yeah, I forgot about the Palace's libraries," I said scratching my head. I forgot about that. I forgot that if there was a place where you could find the texts about Aure and how it looked like a hundred years ago, it would be the palace itself. It has four libraries, and each of them was stacked with books and newsletters and a lot more that could possibly span for centuries... So it should not be a surprise that the Crown Prince was well-informed about these things. He was a voracious reader. And he loved knowledge. Of course, he would know how flames could look like, even if it was just on a bracelet.
"There is no doubt about that," he added. "Your father is wearing a bracelet in the shape of that flower--- the Phoenix Petals."
"But why does he have that?"
"That's easy to answer," he then said. "The Phoenix Petal bracelet must have come from your mother just as what I have theorized before."
I was not able to respond to that because I wanted to give my mother the benefit of the doubt. Even if all the pieces of evidence that we came across with suggests that she was definitely the source of that flower which was the root cause of the Queen's death, I still wanted to think that she was innocent just because she was dead. She could no longer defend herself from any accusation, right? So I should just at least give her the benefit of the doubt as I feel like it was my duty to do so as her daughter.
"Come on, Rainha. Let's search the whole house. Maybe we could find other things that will lead us to answers that we wanted to find in the first place..."
"Okay," I just said, not really thinking straight. I don't know, I don't really feel too excited about what we were doing. Maybe because I was scared of what else we will find here in this old house. I was even half-hearted about looking for things that may become a source of valuable information because of my fear of finding out that my mother was indeed guilty... And this was something that I felt for the first time. This was rare, since I was always excited about doing whatever it was that Prince Kao asked me to do. But right now, I just find it a little bit harder to move around the house where my whole family used to live.
I went to the kitchen cabinet and searched on the dusty kitchenware there... It was a good spot for me because I was sure that I will not find anything there that might lead us to my mother's past. I was just there staring at the chinaware, while the Crown Prince was busily checking every nook and corner of this house.
"This is where your parents lived with your brother, right?" the Crown Prince asked me. "And your Aunt Milca was already living somewhere else?"
"That's what I know," I told him. "I think I remember Aunt Milca saying that she left Kajos when she was eighteen and went to Aurville to work. My father used to be a Royal Guard, so he was not always here too. This house used to be empty up until my father met my mother and they got married here in Kajos."
"And they lived here with your brother... right?"
"Yes. But when that incident happened, when my mother decided to go back to the Outside where she came from. That would be the last time that my mother was here... And you know the rest of the story..."
"Yes." I was glad that he said yes because I think I don't have enough energy right now to recount every detail of that ordeal--- of that chain of events that I also have heard from my Aunt and from other people. "But still, your mother lived here. She might have left something important here, and maybe that was what those unidentified men were here for."
"I did not think of that," I admitted to him. It was possible though. That those creepers were searching for something that my mother might have been keeping here.
"I hope we find it, whatever it is," he said more to himself, and then he went to the tapestry and search for things behind it that may have been hidden there purposely. And I was actually not surprised that the Crown Prince did found something there because it was a common practice everywhere in Aure in using the tapestry in hiding things.
And right now, the Crown Prince was holding a small black wooden box in his hands--- something that I know was important to whoever hid it there behind the tapestry. "Now this is what I call an interesting twist," he said with a huge smile on his face and then he opened it immediately. It was there that I saw the bracelet in real life. It was pure gold and I wanted it to be mine that bad.
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