The Taste of Knowledge

Chapter 198

The sun, a rare and precious commodity within the Valerius estate, streamed into the small breakfast room of the East Wing, painting stripes of warm gold across the polished mahogany table.

It had been several weeks since Freya’s carriage had rumbled away, leaving an aching void in its wake. Lady Iris Valerius picked at a piece of toast, her appetite, as it often was these days, negligible. Lord Alaric sat opposite, nursing a cup of tea, the lines of worry etched around his crimson eyes seeming deeper in the bright morning light.

“It feels… terribly quiet, doesn’t it, Alaric?” Iris murmured, her voice a soft sigh that barely disturbed the stillness. “The rooms feel… hollow. I miss her chatter, her laughter. I even miss the sound of her harp, however hesitant the notes sometimes were.”

Alaric reached across the table, his fingers briefly covering hers, acknowledging her sentiment. “I know, my love. I miss her terribly too. But this is for her own good, her education, her future.”

Iris withdrew her hand, her gaze drifting to the sunbeams dancing on the far wall. “Her future,” she repeated, the words laced with a familiar bitterness. “A future overshadowed by… by everything here. Oh, Alaric, sometimes the guilt is… suffocating.” She looked at him then, her violet-crimson eyes filled with a pain that never seemed to lessen, compelled to voice the thought that haunted her. “To think she knew, Alaric. All that time. She knew Amelia wasn’t truly her sister.”

Alaric sighed, the memory still raw. “I still find it difficult to comprehend. When she told us, just before she left… I was utterly floored.  He shook his head, a wry, pained smile touching his lips. “And do you remember her answer, Iris? So calm, so simple. ‘I just… noticed. Throughout the years.’”

“Noticed ,” Iris echoed, a tremor in her voice. The word itself seemed to underscore their failure. “A child, noticing the cracks in the world we built to protect her. Noticing the fear in our eyes, the tension in our voices whenever her name was even skirted around. She saw it all, Alaric. And she said nothing. For years. 

“And it was that hidden knowledge she carried for so long, which ultimately led to her risky decision before she left” Iris continued, her voice laced with a pained understanding.“

“We tried to stop her, didn’t we?” Alaric said, more to himself than to Iris, recalling their desperate attempts. “When she said she intended to tell Amelia before she departed… we pleaded with her not to. We painted pictures of Amelia’s potential wrath.”

“She was insistent,” Iris said, her voice heavy with remembered anxiety. “She had her own reasoning, however flawed it seemed to us. She said it was the best way, the only way. That she couldn’t leave with such a monumental falsehood hanging between them. That it felt… dishonest.”

Alaric leaned back in his chair, his gaze distant. “I believe, Iris, that for Freya, despite the charade, a genuine affection, a truly complex bond, had formed with Amelia – or at least, with the Amelia she perceived, the one she helped create through her own innocent belief.” 

He paused, choosing his words carefully, trying to articulate the depth of Freya’s likely motivation. “Leaving for such an extended period, perhaps for years, the thought of that unspoken truth becoming a permanent barrier… it must have been unbearable for her. She wanted Amelia to know her, truly, at least in that one crucial aspect, before distance and time made such a revelation feel… trivial, or even cowardly.”

“But the risk, Alaric! The monumental risk!” Iris’s voice rose slightly, her composure fraying. Her fear for Freya, even in retrospect, was palpable. “She saw Amelia’s ‘gentle’ persona, yes, but how could she not also sense the coiled serpent beneath? To believe their bond was strong enough to withstand such a truth… it was a child’s naive hope, wasn’t it? To think Amelia would appreciate her candor, perhaps even be… touched by it?”

“Perhaps it was,” Alaric conceded, his own features tightening. “We certainly saw Amelia’s true reaction, didn’t we? Betrayal. Fury. The feeling of being… used, deceived. Of being ‘played,’ as she put it.” He shuddered.“  Iris suddenly interjected, her voice trembling at the recollection. “I was so afraid, Alaric. For Freya, in that moment of her telling Amelia.”

“Amelia won’t kill us, Iris,” Alaric said, his voice dropping, trying to inject a reassurance he himself clung to, a grim comfort in their perilous reality. “She is monstrous in many ways, but she is true to the pact. Our lineage, our presence here, is still of use to her. Her… continued existence depends on it, in some measure.”

Iris pressed her fingers to her temples. “I know, I know. The pact. Always the pact.” She looked at her husband, a new thought dawning in her eyes, a different interpretation of Freya’s actions. “But perhaps… perhaps Freya was not entirely naive, Alaric. Perhaps there was a strategy to her timing, however risky.”

“A strategy?” Alaric echoed, intrigued by this shift in Iris’s perspective.

“Yes,” Iris affirmed, leaning forward. “Consider her past behavior, her unwavering determination.” “Freya is a young woman now, not a child. She must have realized that the ‘sister’ charade couldn’t last forever, especially if she was to return from the capital as an accomplished adult. Telling Amelia before

leaving… it was a gamble, yes, but perhaps she thought it was a necessary one. She planted a seed of truth, a painful one, certainly. But now…”She paused, gathering her thoughts, the comparison forming clearly in her mind. “Do you remember how she was as a child? With those wildflowers? Leaving them at Amelia’s threshold, day after day, week after week, even when there was no acknowledgment, no encouragement? She persisted, didn’t she? Until Amelia… well, until Amelia began to react, however strangely, however much she kept it to herself. Until she… opened up, in her own way, to Freya’s presence.”

Alaric nodded slowly. “I see what you mean. Freya believes in… persistence. In the slow erosion of barriers through unwavering sincerity.”

“Exactly!” Iris exclaimed, a flicker of something like pained admiration in her eyes. “Perhaps this is what Freya is trying again. She chose to tell Amelia the truth, the truth that she knew, instead of continuing to pretend she didn't. She wanted to be honest, perhaps for our sakes as much as for Amelia’s. To clear the air, in her own dramatic, terrifying way. And now, with these letters she promised to send… perhaps she hopes that by the time she returns, Amelia will have had years to process it. That the distance, the reflection, might lead to a more genuine relationship, free of that foundational lie. A desperate hope, perhaps, but Freya has always been one for desperate hopes.”

“She miscalculated Amelia’s immediate reaction, though,” Alaric said grimly, the memory of Amelia’s fury still vivid. “Severely. The fury… it was a terrible thing to witness.”

“Yes,” Iris agreed, a shiver running through her. “But Freya has always seen a sadness in Amelia. Perhaps she still believes that, deep down, underneath the anger, Amelia might yearn for a genuine connection, one not built on deceit.” 

Her gaze softened. “Oh, Alaric, it’s our fault, isn’t it? That initial lie we told her, about Amelia being her sister… it spun so far out of control. We forced her into this, inadvertently. She saw my sadness, my fear, and she… she tried to fix it. In the only way a child could think to – by playing along, by trying to make Amelia kinder, by trying to make me happy. We involved our innocent child in our pretense, and she carried that burden, that secret, for so long. How did we not see it? How did we miss the signs?”

Alaric reached for her hand again, his grip firm this time. “We were trying to protect her, Iris. In this accursed house, with its ancient shadows and unspeakable obligations, every decision feels like a choice between evils. We made a mistake, yes. A terrible one. But Freya… she is stronger than we knew. More perceptive.”

He recalled that chilling first dinner, so many years ago: Amelia’s strange, raw sustenance, her absolute avoidance of sunlight. And her words then, directed at Freya, declaring she possessed ‘A potent lineage’ and ‘true bloodline,’ destined for a ‘future to continue that duty.’ Even later, during the gallery incident when Freya had let the sun into Amelia's hallway, Amelia had remarked how Freya carried the Valerius blood ‘strongly.’ Freya had been a child, yes, but she had always been observant, her mind a quiet pool reflecting far more than they often realized.

He had planned to unveil the terrible truth of Amelia’s vampirism and their family’s dark covenant after her education was complete, bracing himself for her inevitable horror. 

Now, however, considering her recent, stunning admission, Alaric found himself questioning if Freya hadn’t already connected those unsettling dots, if her ‘noticing’ had extended far beyond the simple lie of sisterhood, perhaps even to the chilling implications of Amelia’s pronouncements about her blood and her ‘duty’ – right into the very heart of Amelia’s monstrous nature.

Just then, a polite, almost timid knock sounded at the breakfast room door, interrupting Alaric’s unsettling reflections. Elsie, the young housemaid, entered, her eyes downcast, a silver salver held carefully in her hands.

“M’lord, m’lady,” she murmured, curtsying. “A packet has arrived from the capital. For Miss Freya’s delivery, as instructed.”

On the salver lay two neatly folded letters, sealed with wax. One, Alaric knew, would be for them. The other, bearing only the name “Sister Amelia” in Freya’s elegant new script, seemed to radiate a faint, almost palpable tension.