I Woke Up as the Villainess Fated to Die, and Now the Emperor Can't Forget Me novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Diary

I sat back down by the fire with the green book on my knees.

Edie stood behind my chair.

She didn't go away, and I didn't ask her to.

The first entries were years old.

The handwriting was rounder there, and the spelling was worse.

"Father didn't come to my name day. Again."

"Mother's portrait was moved to the cold gallery today. I asked why. Father said it was in his way."

"The other girls at school call me the hawk because I scratch. Good. Let them."

I turned the pages faster.

The Vivi in this book wasn't the Vivi in Forbidden Rose.

She was cruel, all right.

She called girls ugly to their faces and slapped a page for spilling wine on her shoe.

But on every other page she was alone.

She ate alone.

She went to balls alone and came home and wrote down every word anyone had said to her.

"Nobody has ever sat beside me on purpose," she wrote, two summers ago.

Then the entries jumped to this summer.

The handwriting got tighter.

"The Selection begins. Father says if I'm not Empress by autumn, I'm no daughter of his."

"The Emperor looked at me once at the opening ball. Only once. Then he looked at the baron's girl in her pink rag of a dress."

"I hate her."

Three pages later, the tone changed.

"Rose Delmar came to my rooms tonight. Alone. She was crying."

I held my breath.

"She says she doesn't want the crown. She says her father will marry her to an old man in the south if she isn't chosen, and she would rather be sent home in disgrace than either. She says I'm the only lady here strong enough to understand."

"She held my hand. Nobody has held my hand since Mother."

The next entry was a week later.

"Rose has a plan. She'll faint at the Midsummer Banquet in front of the whole court, and the physicians will say she's too delicate to be Empress, and she'll be sent home. She has a draught that will make her sleep. She says it's harmless. She says her own hands shake too much in front of people and they'll see. She asked me to pour it."

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