Part 5: Prince Gilbert

Clara takes a deep breath, trying her best to stop herself from shaking.

She opens the door to her brother's room and closes the door but then doesn't see him anywhere.

"Brother?" She softly calls him.

"Took you a while to get in." Her brother's voice surprised her, making her flinch.

Coldwater dropped on her, making her soaked. The bucket dropped on her head, making her drop to the ground.

"Clean it up, okay?" Her brother said.

Clara looked up to see her trickster, bullying brother, Prince Gilbert.

Prince Gilbert is a nineteen-year-old who is in charge of making the war tactics. He's the one who makes the plans and plots the assassinations of rivals and noblemen with power around the continent.

The prince picks her up and drags her across the room, making her fall on her knees.

"Now, face the wall. You know what you've done today."

Clara just knows that she's in for a beating.

Prince Gilbert takes his anger on himself to Clara. Anytime that Gilbert does something wrong to himself, to others, and failing on missions, he'll make Clara punish for his failures. The prince clearly doesn't love her at all and doesn't care about her well-being after torturing her.

"And in addition to that, Clara. I've been watching you for a while now and The head of the royal guard has taken a liking to you." He spat his words like they were venom. "Or in fact, he loves you."

The prince pushed her to the ground, making her land flat on the ground. "NO ONE CAN LOVE YOU BUT ME!"

Prince Gilbert takes out a whip and starts to whip her back and her legs, making her clothes torn apart, making her skin vulnerable to the strikes.

After a long hour of whipping, her brother dumped cold water on her again.

Clara made out alive out of his brother's room, full of whip wounds and her clothes soaked, filled with holes, and barely keeping her warm. At this rate, she could develop hypothermia from the cold.

Clara's mind went for a second but she continued to take the three baskets of laundry and go down to the maids quarters to where he washes her royal brothers' clothes.

"She's barely clothed and barely alive." One of the maids say to the other.

The other maid hummed in agreement. "The third prince must have been more harsh on her."

Clara was now used to the maids just watching her from afar, not helping her, and keeping their distance.

Just like what the third prince said, he killed five maids who were close to her and or showed her kindness and helped her.

The first maid was Jioni Ranko, a deligent girl with a good soul. She helped the young princess with her chores once when she was ten and the day after that led to her excetution led by prince Gilbert.

The second maid was Derdran Kovi, a middle aged lady who helped the young princess when she was doing the laundry since she was punished for disobeying the king's orders one day. Prince Gilbert saw this and killed the middle-aged lady on the spot after the princess left by stabbing the middle-aged lady with a dull knife.

The third maid was Sandra Dhan, a cold and strict adult woman but possess good values. One day, she found the princess after being beaten up by the first prince and helped her treat her cuts and wounds. The princess was twelve at this time and still didn't know how to treat herself yet. Prince Gilbert saw her teach the young princess her first treatment and after that, he lures the maid out to the forest and let out his pet wolves to hunt and kill her.