Cost of the Crown (UNREVISED VERSION)

Scarlet

"Feliz!" Someone called for her from afar.

Feliz stopped watering her plants to look at the person calling her. She was running towards Feliz in disarray.

"Ms. Belle!" Feliz smiled at the librarian. "What seems to be the problem?"

"Your... Father... He is bedridden..." Belle hyperventilated.

Feliz dropped her watering can then she held the librarian by the shoulders. "Please do tell that this is but a joke."

Belle shook her head in dismay, "I do wish it is Feliz, I do wish it is."

"Where is my father?" Feliz cried. "Can I see him, please?"

"He's with the medic... Near the castle." Belle replied. "I'll take you there."

Belle and Feliz rode a carriage to the medic and it took a while. Feliz's father wasn't holding up that long and he was trying to stay alive while he still could.

"Mr. Henry... How are you holding?" The medic asked.

"I'll be fine... Just to see my niece one last time..." Henry replied.

The medic nodded before leaving the dying man in his room. Henry was thinking of how to tell everything to the princess in such a short amount of time.

Feliz was shaking as she anxiously sat in the carriage. When the carriage was slowly decreasing speed, Feliz opened the door then jumped out of the carriage before running into the medic's place.

"Where is my father?!" Feliz cried to the medic by the door.

"Feliz, ca-" Belle was cut off by another statement by Feliz.

"Can I see him please!" The weeping young lady pleaded.

The medic led them to Henry's little room where the man was bedridden and about to die.

"Father..." Feliz said while walking towards Henry.

"You're a nice kid... I've seen it before. Your determination will lead you to something good." Henry smiled.

"What? What do you mean?" Feliz asked.

"Violet. That's what I meant. When I'm gone, go work in the castle to answer the questions that have been troubling you. I'm sorry for lying to you for five years." Henry said as coughed.

"Lied?" Feliz asked.

"I'm sorry... I'm not your father... Nor is your mother Livette..." He admitted.

"If not you, then who?" Feliz asked.

"My dear niece... Stay the person your parents taught you to be. Stay the sister your brother rai... sed..." Henry said before closing his eyes forever.

Feliz was too gloomy to even let her questions overrule her. Her confusion was drowned into her sadness and desperation for family. She held on her "father's" hand until Belle tapped her shoulder.

"Feliz... I'm sorry..." Belle apologized wholeheartedly.

"Thank you..." Feliz replied without looking at the woman with her.

"Let's go... Your mother must be waiting." Belle told Feliz.

Feliz raised the sheet over Henry's dead body. It was the most peaceful death she has witnessed after the bloodshed of the war five years ago.

They went back to Feliz's home with a gloomy attitude. Her everlasting smile, that could radiate motivating energy, faded for the first time, in years.

When she opened the door with Belle following her, it was a gruesome scene that tainted her thoughts once more. The young lady fell on her knees and there, Belle also saw how horrifying the scene was.

"Feliz... Let's go..." Belle told Feliz as the librarian closed the door slowly.

"She's just hanging there with the word traitor etched in every corner... How...? She was alive when I left her..." Feliz cried even more. "Stupid... I shouldn't have left."

"It's not your fault for loving your father and your mother..." Belle sympathized.

"I'm not their daughter... I'm their niece... And my uncle has asked me to work at the castle to find out the truth..." Feliz remembered. "I think I know who I might be."

"Why not I accompany you?" Belle asked. "I worked there years ago."

Feliz and Belle headed for the castle to talk to the king about employment. Belle used to be the castle librarian who saw how the king was raised. Now, she's Feliz's guardian.

Cedric was in the throneroom, reading scrolls and letters from other kingdoms. Much to his surprise, he hasn't seen a letter from Madara. He wasn't looking like it, but he truly missed his sister.

"Cedric... It's August 31..." Cassandra smiled at the king.

"Five years... She could have been 15 today..." Cedric replied as he held back his tears. He was still taunted by his sister's last smile. For him, that smile showed his incompetence to save her.

"Ced, don't be too hard on yourself. She was executed and it was out of your hands..." Cassandra comforted him.

"But it was my fault that she was kidnapped... I left her without anyone because I trusted her abilities. It was unfair of me to ask too much of her." Cedric dropped the letter he was holding.

Cassandra was there beside him, giving him a hug. "The only wrong you did was, you trusted. It's-"

"It costed my sister's life." Cedric weeped.

The sun was setting when the herald suddenly made an announcement. "The king is presented before two women who asks of him."

Feliz and Belle walked closer to the throne. Cassandra wiped Cedric's tears before leaving him to his business.

"What business do you have?" The king asked the two women.

"We wish to be employed by his highness." Feliz curtseyed.

"Ms. Belle? It seems you're back." Cedric smiled.

"It seems I found my way back, my king." Belle giggled.

"Ms. Belle, you may take care of the library again. Honestly, ever since you left, no one has been inside that room but the maids who clean it." Cedric chuckled. "As for your friend..."

Cedric noticed a striking resemblance. "She looks like Paris..."

"Your friend could serve Cassandra." Cedric continued.

"How odd... Only my sister has red eyes such as hers... It only exists to one person in the world and those are the descendants of Queen Victorina of the great war... Unless I too, am hallucinating... Clearly, I haven't gone over my sister's death."

In the north, Hans and Eric spent their five years in peace and harmony.

"How are you and your lover?" Eric asked as he opened the door to their house.

"Marionwei? She's fine... I asked her father about her hand in marriage and he agreed." Hans smiled as his face turned bright pink.

"Heh, invite me to the ceremony soon, after all, we're 17, one year more and you can finally get married." Eric teased.

"Engagement first, Eric. How come you never found yourself a lover?" Hans asked, putting down the newspaper he was holding.

"Oh shut up, I just have no interest in women. So go wipe off that smirk, I'd serve the kingdom before I would think about having children." Eric chuckled.

"Fine... If I get married, go and find yourself a lover in the ceremony." Hans replied.

"Agreed." Eric left his friend in the living room to go eat in the kitchen.

"I wonder... I wish she'd accept my love."