**Third Person POV**
The two women stared into each other's eyes for a long time. Irvette wanted to know how much Emily knew. She needed to know if she knew that George had killed her father or at least tried to. She needed to know if the cold princess was messing with her or if her father was setting her up. It was possible; her father could be setting a trap for her and the moment she stepped foot on dry land, she would be arrested at once or worse still killed on sight. Irvette realised then that what she was scared of was not losing her sisters but losing her own life.
“It's okay, you know. My father has lived a long life; he didn't get to see grandchildren but he saw his grandnieces, that's something,” there was a smile on Emily's face that was neither warm nor kind. It was a smile and yet there was no readable emotion.
“I'm sorry?” quipped Irvette. She was beginning to panic. She tried taking slow breaths but it was getting harder to breathe with every passing second.
“Princess?” someone called out and the both of them answered.
“Uhm… I meant Princess Emily. Sandra needs to see you,” Emily rushed off after that and Irvette was left to confront her own emotions. However, she could not because the next thing that happened was that she passed out.
*****
“Sandra? You wanted to see me?” quipped Emily when she entered the room Sandra had been placed in. She hated the woman lying down on the bed but it was hard to be mad at someone who was dying.
“Yes, I uh… this is where you will dump my body,” she said and Emily looked at her with confusion. That was an odd request coming from someone who was still breathing.
“No, Sandra. You are going to make it home and you are…” it did not matter if she hated this woman. This woman had been in her life since the very beginning of it. She could not just dump her body into a vast ocean especially when there was still life in her.
“I won't make it home. You need to throw me into the water,” returned Sandra.
“I cannot do that, Sandra. I will not do that,” came Emily's response.
“Your father instructed me to do that. Upon my return, I am to jump into the ocean at this point. It's your father's last order for me,” she begged. Emily had a look of shock on her face. How could those be her father's last orders? Why would he want to end Sandra now after all these years? Emily could not believe it; she had thought Sandra had been special to him.
“Read my lips, Sandra. I will not. I will pretend like I did not hear you say that.”
“Please, please. You have to let me do this. You have to help me into the water,” she was crying as she said this. Emily could not understand the floodgate of emotion.
“No, no, no…”
“Listen to me… You have to listen to me. If you do not, he will…. he will…”
“Stop talking Sandra, you do not have much strength left,” replied Emily. They were in the middle of a vast ocean and if Sandra had any more crises there was no one who could help her.
“No, you have to listen to me…”
“Princess?” someone called her.
“What is it?” she turned in frustration. Did people not realise that she could not be in two places at once?
“The other Princess… she's uh… she passed out on the deck. She has no one on board. I don't…”
“Irvette passed out?” quipped Emily. She could not let that happen. Not until she had a full explanation of what was going on and what was going on with the twins.
“I'll be right back, Sandra, okay? Just don't do anything stupid while I'm gone,” Emily said and rushed out of the room. She ordered Irvette to be put in a room and had the doctor on board examine her.
“Is she good?” questioned Emily when he was done with his examination.
“She is… She is… Uhm…”
“Out with it Allen,” shouted Emily.
“She's pregnant,” the man finally said.
Emily's eyes bulged in surprise. Irvette was pregnant? How could that possibly be? It had been months since she was separated from her husband and… except if the baby was not his?
“She is a princess. Do you understand? A word about this and you lose your heads. And I said heads. If anybody slips us, every one of you will take the fall, understood?” Emily's eyes were very mean and everyone understood quite clearly that she was not called the cold princess for no reason.
Emily left Irvette to look for Sandra and was appalled to find her bed empty.
“Where is she?” Emily screamed but nobody had an answer for her. Emily realised in horror what was going on. She rushed to the deck to get Sandra back but what she saw made her freeze.
Sandra was standing stark naked, walking towards the very edge of the deck. But that was not what held her in place; it was the huge star-shaped birthmark on her right butt cheeks that caught Emily's attention.
“SANDRA, SANDRA NO NO NO. YOU CAN'T DO THIS,” screamed Emily but it was too late. Sandra looked at her and smiled and the next thing she heard was ‘plop’.
Emily was not sure what frightened her more in that moment. The fact that she had just found out that Sandra, who she had hated all her life, who she had dubbed her father's spy was her mother, her birth mother and her sister's birth mother or that her birth mother had just committed suicide by jumping into the ocean.
“Princess? Princess? Are you alright?”
“Why is no one jumping? Why is no one going after her? Why did no one stop her?” demanded Emily weakly.
“Princess, you need to rest. It's been a long day.”