Chapter 8: History Lesson

     I opened my eyes; I could see shadows over top of me. I blinked a few times, I could now make out a face, Harriette’s. I shifted, my body felt stiff. “I’m still here?”

“Are you alright?” Harriette asked sincerely as then picked me up, giving me hug. “I’m sorry we had to unbutton your dress a bit; he needed a clear shot to cast the spell.”

“Given what happened with my last heart attack, I think I’m doing pretty great.” I uttered, my mouth felt dry, like I had been snoring all night.

“This has happened before?!” Aldous yelled. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?” He didn’t seem mad that I made a scene, more that he was worried about me, why?

“It’s definitely not happing again.” Camillus stated. “Your parents must have really offended an extremely powerful sorcerer for you to have that kind of curse.”

“Curse? Not happening again?” I was confused. Oh, they must have thought that my heart condition was some sort of magical curse.

“Ah you’re still out it. Yep, I completely removed the curse. You won’t have to worry about your heart doing that again. If you would have told us sooner, we could have prevented this.” Camillus replied.

“I thought that kid was a wizard, but he also knows witchcraft?” I could here one of the lords ask another.

“Apparently, and he is quite adept if he can remove a birth curse.” Another replied.

Camillus turned to the gossiping lords. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Actually, it is.” Ignatius spoke up. “It took me fifty years to master curse removals like that. I’m jealous to be truthful.” He shoved some vegetables into mouth when he finished speaking.

Harriette walked me out of the room, and when the door closed, she carried me the rest of the way to my room. She laid me on my bed; I couldn’t help but feel like a child. “I’m sorry I caused such a ruckus.” I apologized to her.

“There is no need to be sorry, you couldn’t help it. Now we can rest assured that you won’t be leaving this world prematurely.” She pulled the blanket over top of me.

“Or at least not by my own body betraying me.” I giggled.

“True that.” Harriette also giggled. “Get some rest, I want your help designing my input for the school curriculum.”

“I look forward to doing so.” I smiled. “Goodnight, Harriette.”

“Goodnight, Amice.” Harriette left me to get some sleep.

The next day we conspired. I designed worksheets like what I used to do back in kindergarten. We mostly covered language and mathematics for early grades. Although my knowledge was great in history, it would be best if we reviewed some of the books. We had heard that Aldous, Ignatius and Narcissus had been in Aldous’ personal study sifting through the texts. Harriette and I decided to join them. Harriette knocked on the door twice, “May we come-“ The door burst open.

“Yes, we need your help.” Aldous grabbed her wrist and pulled her inside. Books were thrown around the room, I had never seen Ignatius and Narcissus so disheveled in both of my lives. “There are so many gaps,” Aldous then picked up a book. “This one even had pages ripped out, not hastily, but ever so carefully removed.” The threw the book down. “Like, we are trying to find out what happened to the elves, we can only find some brief passages.” He shoved a book in Harriette’s face. “Almost of them just say is how great humans are and their many magnificent feats.”

“Should I go?” I asked. Harriette and I exchanged a look.

Harriette nodded. “We did that for a reason. The truth always comes out, it is for the best if we don’t delay it’s reveal.”

I gave a quick nod and ran off. “What are you talking about?” I could hear Narcissus ask Harriette.

I slipped into a secret passageway. I didn’t bother closing the door, this one was isolated, and I could already tell that Ignatius was hot on my trail. I led him to a small panic room filled with old books. “These are the tomes you seek. The past that has forced to be hidden away and forgotten.” I turned to him. “Now help me carry these back.”

When we returned with arms full of books, Aldous was in shock. “Wha-what is all this?”

Harriette was the one to answer. “King Gotthilf took it upon himself to cleanse the secret archive of the royal family, to quote unquote ‘protect future generations.’”

“He was actually trying to cover up the evil actions the royal family committed in the past.” I professed. “We were ordered to destroy these documents, so no one could find out about the questionable decisions he made in his previous lives.”

“Then why are the not ash?” Aldous asked quietly.

Harriette’s shoulders sunk as I continued. “We knew that that was wrong, that you can’t just choose what part of history happened. We knew that these hard parts would come in handy in future, even if it gives us negative emotions reading them. So, we hid them instead.” I confessed.

“That explains why the library seemed so empty, it had also been purged.” Ignatius realized.

“That is correct, even when these books were on the shelves, very few were permitted to read them, the ones that were kept in here were for the king’s eyes only.” Harriette explained. “I hated disobeying, but I knew with every fiber of my being it was wrong.”

“So, I did most of the work.” I jokingly said. Harriette hit me over the back of my head. “Ow, I guess I deserve that.” I set down the books I brought and then handed one to Aldous. “This, this is the one that depicts what happened to the elves. Take it with a grain of salt, though. It is written with extreme bias.”

Aldous sat down, as did everyone else in the room. He read it out loud. I already knew the contents of that book, I too had been curious, part of me wished I hadn’t, that part wanted to stay in that easy fantasy where we all lived happily in peace after the credits.

Aldous took a deep breath, then he continued. “Using the sacred swords inherited from the late Prince Ronald and Princess Freya, King Rochus the first and Prince Gotthilf, sealed off the remaining elven villages, trapping the disease to die off with the elves’ noble sacrifice.” Aldous closed the book. “I can see why he wanted to hide this.”

“It’s not over.” I stated as I motioned for him to keep reading.

“But the elves are dead.” Aldous shot back at me.

“Ever wonder why Gotthilf didn’t use the sacred swords against you? Why only Prince Ronald and Princess Freya have been the only ones to use them since?” I asked those questions to pique his interest, and it worked.

He reopened the book and continued to read. “Some of the elves refused to die, they called upon the moon goddess, who spared them. She transported what elves that remained to a new dimension filled with shadows.” Narcissus eyes grew wide as he listened to Aldous. “The moon goddess gave them a new home and cured them of the disease by turning them into monsters of the night. She required something in return; she had to bestow a curse for the blessings. Thus, the women of a bloodline were cursed with the rage of the wolf, this bloodline became the ruling family of the dark dimension.” Aldous looked up from the book to check on Narcissus. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Narcissus replied as he stared at his hands on the table. “I think, this makes me feel better about some things. If that makes sense?”

“It does.” Aldous nodded, he read on. “The moon goddess went to the other gods, telling them of what the King and Prince had done. Thus, the gods took away and hid the sacred swords, so only those guided by the spirit of heroes could find them and use them.” He closed the book and joyfully exclaimed. “Well at least we won’t have to worry about the sacred swords.”

“My people are descended from elves.” Narcissus muttered. “My family took on that curse, so our people could be saved.”

“What exactly does that curse entail?” Harriette questioned him.

He turned away from her. “It’s none of your business.” He huffed.

“Are all these books like this?” Aldous then asked, taking the heat off Narcissus.

“Pretty much.” Harriette replied. She picked one up. “Anything else is mostly evidence of when Prince Ronald and Princess Freya would aid or ally themselves with monsters.”

“Huh, they did that?” Aldous was surprised.

Harriette nodded. “Yes, on occasion.”

Ignatius raised his hand. “I have a question, why wouldn’t the humans just help the elves find a cure? Why isolate their allies until they all drop dead?”

“Your guess is as good as any.” Harriette shrugged. “This was a very long time ago; they probably couldn’t find a cure. I’m hoping that they at least tried.”

Aldous flipped to the front of the book. “Um, did I miss something, uh. They might have tried a little bit.” He looked to Harriette and have a smile of ‘sorry.’

Harriette then slammed her face on the table. “Ugh. This must have been why King Gotthilf wanted this destroyed.”

“Well, what’s done is done.” Aldous reclosed the book. “It happened along time ago, and we definitely won’t do that nowadays.” He then clapped his hands together. “Alright, school, learning, what do we need teach children?”

“Life is nothing but endless pain.” Narcissus stated.

“Yes, but how do we do that while making them think they are gaining life skills.” I added to his dark joke.

“N-no.” Aldous ran his hand over his hair. “Okay, what parts of history won’t make their mentals states end up like Camillus’? We want honesty without the trauma.” The room went silent. “Maybe I should send for my mom to come help, I mean she is the wisest person I know.” Everyone agreed. “I’ll right, I’ll compose a letter, you guys, mentally prepare.”

“I’ll prepare a room for her.” I gave a bow and left. Ignatius and Narcissus also left, taking some books with them to their rooms to pour over. I was surprised Harriette stayed, she still never told me whether or not she would court Aldous.

Later on in the day, as I was going about my work, Ignatius and Narcissus stopped me in the hall. Ignatius was the one who confronted me. “Why are you still a maid if you are so smart, was it really because of that heart curse? Something is strange about you, your way too smart. Too crafty.”

“Something even stranger, I was talking with Camillus, there are no records of you prior to thirteen years ago. Who are you and where do you come from?” Narcissus softly growled.

I told them I lie; I had partially planned one since Ignatius was growing suspicious of me. “I don’t know, okay!” I dropped by broom, covering my eyes with my hands so I could rapidly blink to form tears. “Thirteen years ago, Harriette was on a patrol where she found me at the edge of Forfeit Forest. I have no memory of my childhood, the king let me stay here as a maid since we couldn’t find my family. He had assumed I was from a noble house since I could read, but no one was missing from anyone’s families, since I’m so weak and have no MP, we came to the conclusion that my parents paid with a witch to wipe my memories and cursed my heart just in case I didn’t die in the forest.” I brought my hands down to my chest and made the most pitiful face I could. “I don’t bloody know! So, leave me alone!”

“Weak?” Ignatius echoed. “I still think you’re hiding something, Amice. Why were you so curious to read those forbidden books, didn’t you think it was dangerous?”

“No one would miss me if I was gone. Well, Harriette would, be she promised that if she ever had to execute me for my, curiosity, she would make it as painless as possible.” I answered, choaking on tears. I was actually making myself sad.

Narcissus touched Ignatius shoulder. “Things don’t really make sense here; let it go Ignatius.”

“I can tell she is lying! Look at that ugly face. Those aren’t real tears.” He picked me up and put my level with Narcissus.

“Wow, your rude and crazy.” Narcissus then turned around and walked away.

“No! Wait! Ugh!” Ignatius put me down, he pointed to his eyes then at me, “I’m watching you!” He then went after Narcissus. “Wait!”

At least I was able to convince Narcissus that I was just some sad tale with nothing to me. Unfortunately, Ignatius was still on my trail. I need to be careful, one wrong move, and I’m going straight to the dungeon. I’ll have time to prepare before Aldous’ mother arrives, when she does, I must be on my best behavior. His mother is the most powerful sorceress in all of history, she also raised six kids, so I doubt I can pull a fast one on her. In the games, she always would know things about your adventure that she shouldn’t know. She might just be the only person I’m more scared of then Aldous. I have about three weeks, plenty of time to hide any secrets that crazy old coot could find.