"You don\'t look so good," Reynard muttered. "Do you want some water?"

I gulped and gave a long exhale to calm my nerves.

"I\'m alright." I fanned myself with my hand. "Sorry about that."

Reynard didn\'t wait to beat around the bush. "So you saw a dream? What about?"

"Um..." My mouth became dry again. Eventually, I decided to omit the part about the murder since I didn\'t want to needlessly confuse him when he was already dealing with so much. "You ran away from the palace."

Reynard frowned. "You saw a dream where I ran away from the palace? That\'s it?"

I shook my head and stood up. Dang bro, I needed to stand up for this.

"Alright so," I said loudly so I had his attention. He sat up straight like a student heeding his teacher\'s words. "I had a dream."

"You already mentioned that," he interrupted.

I glared at him and he smiled innocently. I decided to start all over again. "So I had a dream. And it was a really strange one at that. The setting was the interior of the Imperial palace, and some of the places I didn\'t even know existed until I saw them in my dream. I confirmed the locations only afterwards." Reynard didn\'t comment, so I carried on. "And I saw a boy about 5 or 6 years of age and extremely similar to you. Everything, with the slightly darker shade of skin and the specific shade of purple to your sea-green eyes. I had no doubt it was you."

Reynard raised his hand before talking. "And what was seemingly a 6 year old me doing in your dream?"

I bit my lower lip as I remembered the nightmare. "You were running. Running away from the palace."

"And where did I go?" Reynard whispered.

"To the city."

For a while after that, Reynard remained silent as he wondered about things known best to himself. It seemed as if he was thinking about what I had said, which was a surprise since I had expected him to blow me off and mock me for my claims. To think that he was actually considering the possibilities was a feat in itself.

"Can you take a look at this?" he said eventually and put his hand in his pocket, shuffling around for something.

I watched curiously as he pulled out small rips of paper and put them gently on my bed as if they were his most prized possession.

"What\'s this?" I asked.

He smiled fondly as he turned the rips of paper over until all of them had some part of writing on it, and then began arranging them as if they were a puzzle.

"My deceased mother wrote his note," he said softly as he worked on forming the original message. "And I found it in her drawer after she died, ripped to shreds. By the looks of it, she meant it for my eyes to read."

I narrowed my eyes, trying to read as the message started to form:

\'My sweet boy

I hope you get what was rightfully yours to begin with. Fight for it, and let it not slip away from your hands. I love you.\'

And that was it, sweet and short.

"That\'s nice," I muttered. Loving words from a loving mother, something I can not relate to, since my mother had not a single ounce of love inside her for us. We were a dead weight for her, a burden. Honestly, I have to admit that her sudden death was a relief to all.

"I know it\'s nice," Reynard replied, as he looked at the paper with a sad look in his eyes. "But whatever does it mean?"

I blinked. "What it means? I reckon it\'s pretty simple." I read the message once again. "I hope you get what was truly yours to begin with… Hmm..."

Reynard cocked an eyebrow at me. "Simple, was it? Let\'s see now. Something that was truly mine to begin with… A thing I don\'t have possession of right now… Whatever could it be?"

I put all my mind to it, and then it clicked.

"What if she means the throne?" I gasped. "The throne was rightfully yours to begin with if you really were the prince! And if you actually are a royal, she\'d know it because she was there when you first found your family. I bet you spilled everything then."

Reynard frowned. "Wait. Wait, though it does make sense, there\'s no way I can believe it."

I sighed, frustrated. "How old was your sister when she met you?"

"She told me she was around 14."

I nodded. "Then she probably remembers everything you said then. Go home and ask her about it. All your suspicions would be settled then, I\'m sure."

Reynard laughed softly. "That\'s the problem. I\'ve already asked her and she refused to tell me."

"No way."

He laughed again at my reaction. "Yes way. She said she\'ll tell me all in good time."

"SO YOU REALLY ARE A ROYAL! THAT CONFIRMS IT!" I cried. "YOU\'RE MY FREAKING BROTHER!"

I have no idea why I was so happy, but I could tell that I was just ecstatic. There had never been a day I had looked upon Reynard with anything but sibling-like fondness since he was a great source of support for me. He almost reminded me of Jieum back in Korea, who had been there for me just like he did. I thought of Jieum as a sister, too, and to meet someone so similar to her in a fictional world made me feel so much more at home than I really was.

"I\'m not a prince!" Reynard said, standing up. Then a hopeful expression came over his face. "Do you mean the Emperor is my real father?"

"No, not him!" I exclaimed in my haste and excitement. "He\'s not-" and then I paused. He\'s not anybody\'s father. He\'s a murderer and a fraud and my urge to revenge this princess\' parents was growing by the minute. Even though I hadn\'t really ever known the actual Emperor and Empress, I can not forgive Barion for murdering the poor souls for nothing but power. What a wretched creature.

"Listen carefully to me, Reynard," I hissed and grabbed his arms. "That man on the throne, he\'s a fraud. A fake. He killed the real Emperor and Empress so he could eventually get his hands on my power. He wanted to kill you, too, but unfortunately for him, you ran away."

"Wait!" he exclaimed, breaking free from my grasp, an expression of pure shock and disbelief on his face. "The Emperor is not really your father?"

"He isn\'t!" I raked my hands through my scalp, frustrated. "He killed them! I know he did."

Reynard scoffed as he stared out the window, thinking about something.

"Honestly, I always thought there was something fishy about him. It was as if the affection he gave you was conditional. Remember when you once asked me about the Empress?"

I nodded. I had done something of the sort when I resided back at the palace.

"I told you I\'ll tell you everything in good time. Honestly, I knew nothing about it except the fact that she died under suspicious circumstances and there was no funeral of any kind. Isn\'t that strange?"

I nodded.

"And I had also advised you to stay away from the Emperor," Reynard reminded me, "to which you had asked why. I\'d always had a bad feeling about him. There was always this strange lust for power in his eyes..."

I clicked my fingers. "That\'s exactly what I think! So we agree he\'s the murderer?"

"If you saw it in your dream, then perhaps. I mean, how big of a coincidence can it all be? Unlikely, I reckon. What do we do now?"

I bit my nails. What do we do, really? It\'s not like we can throw the Emperor off his throne when I\'m supposed to be dead in everyone\'s eyes. It\'ll cause national turmoil if I step up to blame him for his sins. If not for that, there\'s no way we can win against him.

I glanced at Reynard who was lost in his own thoughts. Could he do it in my stead? No. I shook my head. He\'d be executed for blasphemy at once. I mean, would people be willing to believe one commoner who claimed to be a prince against the man who already had the throne in his grasp? I think not.

Defeated, I sighed and collapsed on my bed.

"What do we do…? It\'s not like we can call him out upfront."

Reynard bit his lips, his eyes on the floor. Then his face glowed up all of a sudden as if he had remembered something. I leaned in, curious to hear the idea he had just gotten.

"Listen here, listen here," he murmured as he came up close to me. "Have we forgotten that we have ties to the palace?"

I frowned. "Who?"

"That Red-head Lady!"

I gasped. "How can I forget!" Then I frowned. "Wait, how is she going to help us?"

"What if," Reynard began slowly, thinking over his own words, "what if we convince her to kill the Emperor?"

I gaped. Wait. Wait a minute. Do we want to kill him? I mean, yes, I want revenge for the princess but really, does it mean we have to kill him in the end.

I sighed. "I see. So it really is our only option."

Reynard nodded and squeezed my arm. "It\'s either him or us, Princess."

"I know." Either he dies....or we do.