"...I was drunk and the timing of your sister..."
She gritted her teeth.
The feeling of this betrayal by her family felt mightier more than yesterday's.
How could her family do this to her?
When she spoke though, her voice was controlled and firm. "I see that. I see it all. But I am not about to cry over split milk."
Lytio froze for a split second before his eyebrows furrowed in confusion and he straightened up, his hands falling to his sides.
"Your parents have discussed with mine on the 'incident'."
'Incident? Of course, that was how they would refer to it.' Belladonna thought but she instead, she asked, "and...?"
"Bell, I want you to know that I love you very much."
"I am sure that wasn't what they concluded on."
Lytio clenched and unclenched his fists before digging it into his pockets.
"I have to marry Aniya. It is for the best. For my reputation and your sister's. Also to prevent any more unfortunate incidents."
"Of course. Do exactly what they want."
"I don't have a choice. Don't you see how hard this is for me?" He stepped forward again, wanting to reach out for her but he stopped himself. "What if she gets chosen and later discovers that she is carrying my child? The Dragon King will fed her and your whole family to his dragon in anger. Besides, that would be my own child, I want to be father enough to protect him or her." He said, his eyes fixed to the ground because he just couldn't look up at her.
"Hmmm, your child."
"Well, you've never allow us to be together in that way, you don't stand that risk." She didn't react and he felt the urge to press further, suddenly angry. "You are losing me, Bell. Aren't you going to do anything?!"
"Like what? Cry? Scream for you to marry me? Come on, Lytio, we are not children."
She was 21 and he was 23, that sounded old enough for Belladonna.
He took in a deep breath and looked up at her. "I understand that you are mad at me but it wasn't my fault. We can say it was partly your fault."
"My fault?"
"Yes, maybe if you've allowed us to be intimate all those times I tried to initiate it, maybe by now you..." His voice trailed off, the words now heavy in his mouth. "I'm sorry."
He waited for a while for her to speak but soon he realized that she had nothing more to say to him.
"Bell?" He urged but she remained silent.
So he turned to the window and went back the way he came.
After a while, she started hearing noises from the sitting room.
She went outside her room to check what was going on. Just like yesterday, the moment they saw her, they kept quiet.
Belladonna smiled suggestively. "Am I missing something? It seems to be a big happy news."
"Bell, child, you still stink and you look hideous." Isa glared at her, then went off to her room, a large box in her hands.
Jasper followed right after her, so that Aniya was the only one left.
"Any, will you tell me?"
"I-I am..." She started in her usual small innocent voice. "I won't be.... qualified again for the P-Possible Potentials as..." she paused then rushed over her next words. "from tomorrow."
"Oh, finally." Belladonna's blank eyes lit with a shadow of happiness and she clapped. "That is what I have been praying for."
Aniya pinched her fingernails against one another, looking from the ground to Belladonna's face. "I am getting married tomorrow."
"Ah!" Belladonna smiled broadly, her voice filled with fake excitement and giggles. "We will be getting married on the same day, the Temple will be so filled with guests. Who are you getting married to?"
Silence. Long deafening silence.
Then Aniya ran towards her, wrapping her arms around her. Since Aniya was shorter than Belladonna, she couldn't reach for her shoulders, instead she wept against her sister's chest, sniffing in the aloe vera soapy scent that had now stuck to her.
Belladonna didn't hug her back. She just stood still, her smile had now disappeared.
"I feel like a horrible person, Sister Bell. I'm so sorry. Mother made me do it. She said-- if I wanted to be alive, I had to do it." She choked out between tears.
"Do you know that I have been working tiredlessly to get you off the Possible Potential's list? To make you unqualified without hurting anybody?" She whispered calmly, too calmly.
"I do." Aniya nodded against her chest.
"Then why did you stab me in the back?"
Aniya's hands tightened around her. "I didn't want to. I feel so horrible." She wept, rambling on and on about how terrible she felt.
"You should."
Aniya was shocked for a moment. She stepped back, looked up at Belladonna's blank face with her pale and hurt one.
"What do you want me to say? That you were just so naive and none of these was your fault? What is the point of all these? Are you now seeking for redemption? I can't give that to you, little sister."
Belladonna started walking back to her room when her sister's silent voice stopped her.
"I thought you would be happy for me."
"You laid with my husband-to-be."
"I thought you would be happy that your little sister no longer stood the risk of being chosen." Her lips were now trembling, tears running down her cheeks like a river. "Happy that your little sister was now safe."
"While 'I' now stand the risk of being chosen?"
"Isn't that what big sisters do?! They make sacrifices!" Aniya's intense gaze was on Belladonna's back. "If you love me as much as you claim, you will be happy for me."
At that point, Belladonna turned to look at her. "You slept with my man, Aniya. While I was out there, slaving away for you, you were in here rolling in 'my' sheets with 'my' man. Little sisters aren't meant to do that."
Aniya was now messy crying, her nose running with mucus as more and more tears flowed down her cheeks. She had always been like that, crying her way out of things, no matter how big or little.
Belladonna looked away uninterested and started walking back towards her room.
"None of these was my fault! Mother said it was better that I was saved than a daughter that was from a product of rape!"
Belladonna immediately stilled to a spot, her breathing rasp, her head hot.
Within a flash, she rushed through the room and slapped her.
Aniya fell to the ground, her hand on that part of her face, her eyes filled with surprise and shock.
Belladonna had never hurt her before.
She heard Belladonna's door slammed shut and she started sobbing really loudly, crying for her mother.
Belladonna turned the key in the keyhole then slid to her bed, her back resting on the door.
Once again she really wished she could just cry, wish that she could just let it all out but all she could feel was numbness. While she had slapped Aniya earlier, she had felt so much anger but it was all gone now.
Product of rape.
She couldn't believe her mother still called her that.
She knew she was the unwanted child. Her mother had always reminded her of that everyday of her life.
The thing was that, her mother had not always been from Inaymi. In fact, she was from Kaytegun, the second village that made up the great Kingdom of Ignas.
She was an orphan who had to grow up on her own. One night when she was selling things on the street of Kaytegun to make ends meet, she had been raped by a drunk man.
She was only 17 when she discovered that she was pregnant. She tried to find the man but he was a traveller and he had left Kaytegun.
So she decided to leave Kaytegun too in search of him. She started with the smallest and seventh village in Ignas, which was Inaymi.
There she met Jasper, who was two years older, had a little farm and had fallen in love with her. Although she hadn't loved him at that time, she had married him at 18 so that she wouldn't have to bring Belladonna up alone.
Later she fell in love with him and they had Aniya when she was 20.
Their sweet, precious, good willed and forever innocent Aniya.
Isa would always tell Belladonna that her presence constantly reminded her of that night, and although she had never made an attempt to get rid of her as a baby, she just could never love her as a daughter.
Belladonna thought that if she was good enough and loved them enough, they would one day love her but now she knew, that day would never come.
To them, she would always remain a product of rape, the unwanted child, the bad fruit on the family tree.
Belladonna stood up slowly, walked to the only window in her room, her gaze on the small field outside.
She closed her eyes, breathing in the fresh air. She could hear flutes playing distance away.
Drums banging and maybe even a trumpet.
People were getting married.
Suddenly, she heard the key being turned in the keyhole but before she could even react, her mother dashed into the room, yanked her low bun, turning her violently to face her before slapping her hard across the face.
"How dare you?!"
"Mother?"
She held that part of her face, feeling blood seep out of the fresh small cut that one of her mother's long nails had now dragged across her left cheek.
"How dare you hurt my daughter, you poison!"
Belladonna looked up at her mother before her eyes widened in fear and her heart raced at the sight of something in her mother's hands.
Oh, no.