Page 4 of Façade

“It explains many things.”

Though not spoken unkindly and with considerable pain, his words still pierced my heart, causing all the insecurities I’d struggled to contain to bleed out. I slouched in my seat, the weight of my failures making it impossible to even attempt to maintain proper posture.

Despite my constant struggles, my parents had never given me any indication that they were disappointed in me, that they didn’t love me, or that they yearned for me to be different than who I was. Apparently that had also been a part of this twisted façade I now found myself entangled in.

“We…don’t want to hurt you,” Mother shakily managed, devastation wrenching her voice. “But…it is time the truth finally be brought to light. We’re so sorry.”

My cracked heart swelled at her kindness, even though I now realized it was given not because she cared for me the way I’d once believed, but because she extended compassion to all her subjects…which apparently included her fake daughter.

“Who am I?” I managed, my defeated voice no louder than a whisper.

Father—the king—averted his gaze, as if he no longer deemed me worthy of his royal attention. “All we know is you’re an orphan peasant born the same week as our true daughter and abandoned by your real parents.” He spoke in a detached tone, sounding almost bored with the exchange.

Anorphan peasant?That couldn’t be…could it? This new identity didn’t quite fit, considering it was the complete opposite of the reality I’d spent my entire life living. How could I go from not just a woman of title but thefuture queen…to anobody?

When my disbelieving silence extended too long, the king’s gaze flickered towards me once before he hastily looked away. Despite his clear heartbreak at my shock, the loving fatherly figure I knew so well didn’t emerge; instead he remained stiff and regal, the dutiful king I’d seen him forced to be in political matters many times throughout my life rather than a father, as if my true identity now made me entirely beneath his notice.

Even without affording me his attention, he sensed my disbelief and offered a curt nod. “It’s the truth. At a few weeks old you were brought to us after we realized we had need of a decoy.”

“Adecoy?But—why?” It was the word that echoed through my mind over and over for this incomprehensible riddle: why, why,why?

“We learned that the real princess, our true daughter”—I flinched, but he seemed to take no notice, though the queen clenched her hands in her lap, as if resisting the impulse to comfort a mere commoner—“was in danger when the oracle at the monastery received a prophecy.”

“A…prophecy?” I’d never heard word of such a thing.

“It’s Estoria’s most carefully guarded secret, one foretelling an attempt on her life. You have no need to know the details, especially now. But until the danger passed, we hid her away and brought another in to take her place should the worst happen.”

Icy dread seeped over me, encasing my heart. Not only had I been raised in a lie, but I’d been brought in as a sheep to the slaughter, whose sole purpose was to be murdered in the true princess’s stead…all because I was a worthless nobody.

“The time of the prophecy has finally passed,” he continued. “It’s time for the real princess to return so that she can fulfill her duty to Prince Ryland and her people.”

“Meaning you need to rid yourself of me,” I said coldly.

He nodded. “Nw that you’ve fulfilled your purpose, we have no further need for you.”

The silence that followed the condemning words was deafening, suffocating me with their implications. Gone was my kind and cheerful father and my soft-hearted, soothing mother, and gone was my identity. My use was over, meaning my worth had ceased.

I didn’t want to confirm the terror that had wriggled itself into my broken heart at this revelation, but the words escaped anyway, my foolish desperation that my fears were unfounded. “Which means you’ve never loved me…because I’m not your true daughter.”

They remained silent, confirming my suspicions. I didn’t think my heart could break into any more pieces, but the sharp pain shrouding it confirmed that it could; I pressed my hand against it in hopes of containing it, but it was relentless.

Their Majesties watched my torture in silence, but though they said nothing, their expressions told another story—regret from the king, heartbreak from the queen. It gave me some hope that not everything from my life or their previous displays of tenderness towards me had been a complete façade—that despite my role as decoy, they’d come to care for me, even a little.

I clung to that foolish hope, for it was all I had now that everything else had been stripped away. My title, my family, my home, my purpose, my future. It was all gone, leaving me as just Evelyn. But thinking my own name made me realize that I couldn’t truly claim even that much.

“What’s my real name?”

The queen’s knuckles grew white from how tightly she clasped her hands, but she simply shrugged. The king answered for her, his gaze indifferent as it met mine.

“We don’t know if you ever had a name, but if you do, it’s not Evelyn.”

Not Evelyn.

I drew my shoulders into myself at this last of many blows. I wasn’t Evelyn. I wasn’t a princess. I wasn’t a daughter. I was nothing more than anobody. Even though the name Evelyn now only served as a reminder of the lie I’d lived my entire life and the pain of all I’d lost, I couldn’t bear to lose it in addition to everything else.

As much as I didn’t want to accept this reality, deep down it made too much sense to deny. I wasn’t the real princess, which explained why I didn’t have magic and why I’d always been such a disaster. Yet even so, I still longed for all I’d just lost. Despite my struggles with my role, I still thought of myself as not just a princess, but my parents’ daughter.

Who was I without those truths? And what did my once carefully outlined future now contain? My strivings to live up to my role had given me purpose, yet another casualty of my stripped-away identity, leaving me with nothing.

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