The Heir of Red and White

Chapter Seventeen: Aiyana

      The scroll sat precariously atop my vanity, nothing more than a piece of parchment barely large enough to grasp with two hands. Despite this, I stared at it from across the room with a furrow permanently etched into my brow. It had been a week since I had ventured into the secret library, and while I had been able to analyze the blueprints immediately after leaving, I hadn't been able to open the scroll.

       Despite my lineage, I had been forbidden from learning about the Old Era, and the citizens of New Rose weren't even allowed to speak of it. Even my mother had been wary of the subject, and although she often disregarded the rules, this had been one she obeyed. When I had asked her about it, the light in her eyes had dimmed and she had simply shaken her head as if even responding would bring about misfortune. Her silence had spoken louder than any warning. And it was that memory that kept me from opening the scroll.

       But as I continued to stare at it as if it could suddenly grow teeth and rip me to shreds, I reminded myself that my mother was gone. I could no longer afford to dwell on her absence. I had to pave my own path toward the throne, and that started with leaving her voice behind and forging my own.

       Ignoring the feeling of foreboding stirring in my gut, I moved toward my vanity and picked up the scroll. The paper was waxy and thick between my fingers, surprisingly well preserved for its age. I untied the gold thread wrapped around the center and sprawled it out on the desk. My gaze washed over the harsh brush strokes of the illustration, surprised that I hadn't been met with text. That surprise was quickly replaced with shock as I interpreted the image.

       A young woman with ebony skin kneeled before a throne with steel chains wrapped around her neck and wrists, her dark brown eyes brimming with tears as she pressed her forehead to the ground. She wore nothing but a dirty, brown slip and her feet were bare and bruised. Her beautifully braided hair was sprawled around her, dripping with blood that ran freely from long, thin wounds on her back. Sitting above her, seated on a large, diamond throne was a vermin man. His eyes, a striking electric blue, gazed down at her with cold indifference, his left hand fisted around a whip streaked with her blood.

      I blinked once. Twice. But the image remained the same.

       The Old Era was a dark and chaotic time...and the vermin were to blame.

       Those words rang through my head as I tried to make sense of the illustration. The Rosario line had reigned for nearly 600 years, and although it was hard to fathom, the vermin might have ruled before us. The thought left a bitter taste on my tongue, but I couldn't deny what was right in front of me.

       Not only did it seem like vermin had ruled, but it was the men who had governed the country, and when my ancestors had taken over, they had created a Queendom that was the exact opposite of the world they had endured. The Elites of my time had subjugated the vermin for centuries, but the vermin had enslaved us before that, and every action taken against them in the last 600 years has been a sick, twisted form of revenge.

       I took a shattering breath and folded up the scroll. In the wrong hands, this information could ruin the country, and I could only have imagined what the White Rosemen would've done with it. If they didn't already know. It was entirely possible that they were aware of the Old Era and their revolution was just their attempt at reclaiming the power they believed was owed to them.

Meaning my mother's death may have been just another form of vengeance...

      I could've spent hours trying to piece together what that information could do to the future and what it meant about the past, but I didn't have the time. The only reason I had been able to take the scroll was because I had been searching for the blueprints to guide me toward the village, and while I stood in my room obsessing over the horrid depiction of the Old Era, my window of opportunity was quickly closing.