by Nora Cobb
There were friendships, love, a caring attitude, all that I had experienced throughout my life in various ways, that had made me a better person in the end.
Turned out the top one percent weren’t any different than the bottom one percent and I had allowed myself to be vulnerable to them.
And they had taken advantage of it.
I hated that I had shown them the card that they had pounced on, and now I was left holding the bag with no more answers than I had when I first set foot in the academy.
But what I did have was heartbreak because of their lies.
It was fine. They could think that they had destroyed me.
I was going to prove them wrong.
***
I plodded through the rest of the week and when Friday came, I found myself watching as Johanna packed for her journey home. Her mother had summoned her for some sort of ritzy party she was being forced to attend, which meant I would be alone to fend for myself. “You can come, you know,” Johanna replied as she folded a pair of leggings before throwing them in the suitcase. “I would love for you to see my home.”
“No thanks,” I answered, tucking my chin on my hand. “I really just need a chill weekend.”
She looked at me, her eyes full of concern. “The kings are gone too, if that makes you feel any better. I heard they left this morning on some wild trip.”
“Good,” I answered, glad that I could wander the halls without having to worry about running into Arthur or any of the other kings. My heart was still hurting over my confrontation with him and I really didn’t know how I was going to get through the rest of his semester, much less the rest of the year, ignoring him.
I also was not interested in having another run-in with Royce or heaven forbid, Max. I lost my concentration whenever they were around and they all made me feel, well, odd around their gorgeous forms.
Johanna closed her suitcase, setting it down on the floor. “Are you sure you will be okay?”
“I will be fine,” I said, giving her a false smile. “Go on, enjoy yourself. I’ll see you when you come back.”
She rolled her eyes. “Okay, Anna. Help yourself to my closet. I’ll bring you back something from home.”
I kept my smile until she was gone from our room, falling back on the bed with a heavy sigh. My life was a mess, my birthright apparently a hot commodity, but no one was willing to tell me exactly what it meant.
And my so-called boyfriend, well, he was trying to get me pregnant so that he could one up his friends.
Yeah, it sucked to be me.
But something that Arthur had said to me made me want to approach the headmistress once more. He was pretty adamant that she could tell me what I needed to know about my birthright.
I could learn the truth and that could be huge for the rest of my life. I could finally figure out who I truly was and why I was so important to people who really shouldn’t even know who I was, much less care. It would be the same reason why I was at this academy and what I was meant to be for my future.
A future that held so much uncertainty.
Biting my lower lip, I stared at the ceiling. As much as I hated to think about it, I was going to have to talk to the headmistress.
I just hoped she didn’t kick me out because of it. I didn’t know what she would tell me and what she wouldn’t but I couldn’t just idly sit back and wait for her to do so. This was my life, my future, and I needed to know.
I needed to feel like I finally belonged somewhere. No one understood the feeling of just being in life, not knowing what the purpose was of being on this earth. Sure I could be my own person, but to know that someone had created me out of love or even hate, that I was the product of some emotion, was what I needed to know.
I needed to know that someone cared.
Not that I expected the headmistress to get all caring on me.
Ugh, how did this become my life?
Chapter 13
The next afternoon, I wandered toward the headmistress’ office, my feet feeling like lead with each step. I didn’t want to even talk to the headmistress, to put myself back on her radar, but if she was truly the key to whom my parents were, then I didn’t have much of a choice. Finding out who I was has become the most important thing in my life right now and if the rumors were true, then I had an entire life waiting for me.
I just had to find out what that life entailed and she was the one person who might be inclined to give me the clues.
As I thought, there was a light on in the offices, squashing any attempt for me to put this off for another day. This was far more than me just sucking it up. This woman could get me kicked out of the academy. Even though I hadn’t wanted to be here in the beginning, I now wanted to finish what I had started. Everyone told me that I belonged here, and I was about to prove to it to the haters.
And perhaps pick up a royal title in the process.
I tried the handle first, finding it turned easily under my touch.
Great. Another roadblock removed.
It was like fate for me to confront her today.
Do they still cut people’s heads off? I mean, it felt like I was in another century with the kings and all of these royals in my presence.
Pushing open the door, I walked through the front office, spying the headmistress seated behind her massive desk, a pair of reading glasses perched on her nose as she was taking in the paper in front of her.
My palms started to sweat, but I forced myself to keep moving, knocking lightly on her door. “Headmistress Isauros?”
She glanced up and her mouth pursed into a razor thin line. “Miss Komita. Why am I not surprised?”
Yeah, this was going to be the greatest meeting ever. “Do you have a minute?”
She sighed heavily, making a grand show of putting her paper aside. “If you must.”
I stepped inside the office, finding it surprisingly sparse given the lavishness of the rest of the academy. “I’ve been told you could have some information for me.”
She leaned back in her chair, not offering me a seat in the other chairs in her office. “Which king told you?”
“What?” I asked, surprised.
The headmistress let out a harsh laugh. “Oh come on, Miss Komita. I know one of them, if not all of them, has been giving you bits of information. Let me guess, they refused to tell you everything? How did that make you feel? Did it anger you? It must have. For you to be here, begging for answers before me.”
“I just want to know who I am,” I countered, keeping my tone neutral. If she really had the answers, the last thing I wanted to do was piss her off. “Is that too much to ask?”
The older woman crossed her arms over her chest, a defensive move that wasn’t likely to end well for me. “What if I don’t want to tell you? Will you fuck another king until he gives you that information?”
“I thought I already had,” I shot back. “Didn’t you believe the stories?” Did she forget she confronted me herself?
A sly smile came across her lips. “I would venture to say that sometimes the information could be incorrect, though I hear you have your own knight wrapped around your American finger as of late. You must be giving him quite a good reason to keep him interested.”
That was the closest I was going to get by way of apology from her. Fine. At least she acknowledged that. “What is going on between Arthur and me isn’t up for discussion.”
She arched an elegant brow. “My, my. See who has grown a backbone now! Here I thought they would crush you under their heel yet you have apparently proven me wrong.”
I straightened my shoulders. “I’m tougher than I look, ma’am.”
“You might be,” she conceded. “But that does not mean that I am inclined to help you. I could banish you from this academy and you will never learn your parents’ true identity.”
“Why?” I blurted out, tired of her games. “Why will you not help me? I’ve never done anything to you.”
The headmistres
s rose out of her chair, bracing her hands on her desk, her expression murderous.
“That is where you are wrong, Miss Komita. Your very existence offends me. I have no obligation to help you. It’s bad enough that you walk around this academy like you belong here, mixing royalty when you aren’t even fit to wash the plates they eat off.”
Her words cut through me, but the hurt didn’t come as I thought it would. Did she not realize I had dealt with far worse shit than her petty words? As much as I wanted to tell her that, I knew I couldn’t. This woman, for whatever reason, was deciding to have an all-out war with me and I needed to know why. “Am I wasting my time by being here?” I asked softly.
The headmistress sighed, hanging her head in response. “You aren’t going to stop, are you?”
“No,” I replied. I had come this far, giving up a future that I thought I was destined for, for a future that was completely uncertain. “Not until I get some answers.”
But I could nearly taste the end in sight, knowing that if I kept pressing, I could find out who my parents were. Who I was supposed to be.
“Fine. You want answers? Ask away.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“I do.”
She wasn’t looking at me but at her own hands. The way she said those words told me that she wasn’t happy to admit it. A thousand questions rose in my mind all at once, but I held back on asking them. I wasn’t dealing with someone I could pester until she told me what I wanted to know.
“I should have smothered you when I had the chance.” She continued. “You were going to cause nothing but trouble and if I had known that you would end up here…”
She didn’t finish her sentence, but the shock factor was there nevertheless. She knew me as a baby? Then Arthur hadn’t been lying after all. The headmistress knew who I was, who my parents were, and likely why I was at this damn academy to begin with. The realization had me on my toes, waiting for her to continue. After years of wondering, of hoping, my true identity was right within my grasp. I held my breath then as the woman before me pushed away from the desk, turning her back on me.
“Your mother was smarter than I realized,” she started, her voice like she was talking through water, there was so much emotion in her words. I wondered if she was reliving an unpleasant memory, but didn’t dare ask.
“You are the product of everything I have done wrong and what I longed to have, all rolled up and packaged like a present I can’t touch.”
The breath left my lungs. Was I related to this woman? Oh God, I hoped not. Her hate clearly ran deep for me and whatever I had done to her, or my mother had done, was only fueling her fire even more. “What do you mean?” I forced out, needing to know.
After all, the worst that could happen was that I would die in this office today.
A harsh deep laugh escaped her throat, but she didn’t turn around. “You weren’t supposed to be here. I never wanted to come face-to-face with you and see those damn eyes again. Yet here you are, like a ghost that won’t fucking go away.” She then sighed. “What does it matter anyway? You were going to find out the truth eventually.”
I watched as she turned around. Her face was like stone, and her eyes two bottomless wells. “You, Miss Komita, are the child of my late husband.”
Her husband’s child? No, it couldn’t be.
“My husband was the great Alexei Kameno,” she continued. “The last male descendant of House Komnenoi and the only living person who could trace a direct lineage to a legacy far greater than that of anyone here.”
My breath stuttered in my throat then. House Komnenoi? That name sounds familiar. Where? Where have I read it before?
And then it clicked in my head. The Alexiad!
But if her husband was the only living person who could trace a direct lineage. Then he wasn’t just from a prestigious family, but the most prestigious family.
Which meant …
Katarina’s eyes narrowed when she saw that I was slowly piecing it all together.
“Get the fuck out.” She snarled. “I won’t ask you again.”
Without wasting another moment, I did as she asked, closing the door behind me just as something shattered against it. The sound scared the shit out of me and I nearly broke into a run, worried that she might try to kill me now that I knew the truth, the black mark in her life.
I was her stepdaughter.
I didn’t stop until I was safely in my room, far away from the headmistress’ office, with the door locked tightly. I couldn’t believe what I had just learned, that I truly was someone’s child, someone of great importance.
Now I had more questions than answers.
First question: who is my mother? Whoever she is, it was obvious that Katarina hates her, but whether it was out of jealousy or something else, I wasn’t sure.
Two, I knew nothing about my family. Do I have brothers or sisters out there who may not even know that I exist?
But the only concrete truth I knew was that my father was dead. The realization hung like a weight around my neck, a weight that I hadn’t expected. I had hoped to come face-to-face with him one day, for him to share in the happiness of finally finding his daughter, and we would spend hours catching up.
That was never going to happen.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I took a few breaths to ease the pain, mourning for a man I didn’t know. Was he harsh like Katarina or had he been gentle?
Did he love my mother or was I the result of a night of passion that had gone horribly wrong? If he was anything like the kings, then he likely had his pick of women outside of his marriage.
Which would certainly explain Katarina’s anger toward me. But I felt like there was more to the story, more that she had been hiding from me.
One thing was for sure. I wasn’t about to ask her again.
I dropped my arms and sat on my bed, wishing that Johanna was here so that I could tell her what I had learned. There was so much more I needed to know, the headmistress’ shocking revelation only giving me more questions to try and solve.
It was only after I calmed myself before I started thinking about the significance of his family connection. House Komnenoi.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
I quickly found my copy of The Alexiad, and opened it. When I saw the name of the author, everything suddenly fell into place like a bolt of lightning:
Anna Komnena.
With trembling hands, I flipped to the first page and re-read the lines that I had translated in my first days at Weissmore:
“The Emperor Alexios, who was also my father, had been of great service to the Roman Empire even before he reached the throne…”
“Oh my God.” I whispered again as I wiped my hand over my face.
I truly belonged here. The blood of a Roman emperor ran in my veins, even if I was an illegitimate daughter born out of wedlock. I still had a right to be here.
Did my father set this up? Would other family members wait for the right moment to reveal themselves? Did they already know?
This wasn’t a fluke. The kings told me so, and Katarina just confirmed. I was supposed to be here.
My stomach twisted as I thought about the kings, about what Arthur had all but confirmed the other night. So, they knew I was someone of great importance, a claimant to a title that still remained after two thousand years. No wonder they had concocted their plan.
That was a lot of power for their futures to be tied to, and though I wasn’t well versed on political relationships, I knew that the optics of such an alliance like that would have any leader salivating.
Well, there was only going to be one way to find out. I didn’t want to see Arthur or the other two, but I was going to have to talk with him about what I had found. He had all but stated that he knew something about my past, which meant now that I had a name, I needed more.
A hell of a lot more. I wanted to know everything, to know if my destiny indeed lay in the emperors of Rome, if it did at all.
And from what I had learned about Arthur’s true reasoning for seeking me out, I had my suspicion that it must have some impact.
Leaning back on my bed, I looked up at the ceiling, a familiar sight these days now that I had all this to think about. I was sure everyone wanted me to drop this, to just pretend it didn’t exist and continue to be the poor American orphan that I started out being.