She Sings at Dawn

II. Antique Secrets

"I didn't know she kept a journal," Sigvard says.

"Multiple," I correct. "It's her second one."

"Why's it in here?" Sigvard flips to the next page in the leather-bound book. It's a detailed table of contents with entry page numbers and dates. He rifles through four pages like this until he reaches the last recorded entry.

"It's from five years ago," I note after scanning the dates. "See? The last entry was on the last day of 1571."

"Three months before she was sent to prison."

"Three months before she died."

Sigvard snaps his eyes to me. "We shouldn't be in here."

"Well, we are." I shove the silver book into his hands. "If you're so worried, put this back on the shelf." I sit on the couch, opening the journal across my lap.

"Aylo, this book is in a room we shouldn't be in. Therefore, maybe we shouldn't read it."

"Aren't you curious? I've always wondered about what happened to Odeia. She never seemed like a crazy, vengeful person to me."

"I know." Sigvard drops onto the seat beside me. "It's just—" He lets out a sigh. Reluctantly, his hand stretches to the journal. "Let me see it, too."

I move the book so it's between us. The pages are stiff to turn, as if this is the first time anyone attempted to read them. Decorative letters lace the first entry, with a tiny date in the upper left-hand corner and page numbers on the right. The heading consumes half the page but consists of a single word: One. I leaf through the book to find the next chapter.

"Hey! I wanted to read that!" Sigvard exclaims.

A smirk twists onto my face. "Even though it's from a room we shouldn't be in?"

"Well, since we're already in trouble, we might as well find out what's in it."

"We can. I just wanted to see the other chapters." I pause on the second chapter. The page is identical to the first, except it says "two" in the heading.

"Why?"

I shrug. "I don't know. What if 'one' doesn't refer to a number?" Sigvard's straight-set eyebrows and hawk nose scrunch in confusion. I heave a tiny sigh. "I wanted to know if 'one' was the chapter number or if it was some sort of title, indicating what's in the chapter."

"Why?"

"I don't know!" Irritated, I flip back to the first chapter.

We both stare at the page. Sigvard turns page after page, flipping three times faster than I can read. I don't stop him. I'm more entranced by the perfect curls of Odeia's penmanship. My writing still holds a degree of variation between letters. Then again, I hadn't grown up as a princess. She spent twenty years of her life surrounded by royal tutors. My family and I only came to the castle seven years ago.

"I didn't realize she was so... philosophical," Sigvard whispers.

"Huh?" I snap out of my thoughts, realizing that I hadn't been reading. He's at the beginning of the third chapter. How long was I zoned out for?

"Look at this." He points to a line at the bottom.

Suffering is but a state of the psyche, and thus, one ultimately brings suffering upon oneself.

I skim the rest of the page, realizing that the whole thing is musings about the causes of suffering.

"That's kind of weird," I say. Sadness shifts inside me as a thought crosses my mind. "Is that what the royal court meant? She murdered our mother because she was suffering from the loss of her own mother?"