Chapter 28: Diary of Spiro Altan Konstantin: Entry 1 (3)

I said I was an orphan. That I had no name. I spoke of a dean, an orphanage, a fat uncle, and a trader because those were safer truths borrowed from the lives of children no one cared about.

Not all of it was false in shape. Children are sold every day in this empire. Some are abandoned and handed away. Others are priced even cheaper than livestock.

I merely wore one of their stories over mine.

A dead boy knows the value of a shroud.

The Grand Duke listened but I do not know if he believed me.

Perhaps he did. Maybe he did not.

His eyes are too sharp for comfort.

Still, he did not expose me. He did not question me until I broke. He did not demand the name I buried.

Instead, he gave me another.

Spiro Altan Konstantin.

The hope of life at the red dawn.

It was a beautiful name.

Too beautiful for someone who had crawled out of death with lies still wet on his tongue.

The purple-eyed man, Abinatha, seemed pleased with it. He circled me like I was something interesting he had found in an old chest. That was when I learned he was a Jinn and the Grand Duke’s sworn brother.

At that point, I decided that fainting again might be reasonable.

Unfortunately, I remained awake.

I called the Grand Duke father for the first time not long after.

The word came awkwardly and carefully. Like stepping onto ice that might crack beneath me.

He accepted it, nonetheless. Just like that. Without so much of a burden.

He told me to address him formally outside because of etiquette, but he did not reject the word. He did not flinch or look away secretly disgusted.

Father.

I have written it several times now, and it still feels dangerous.

After we reached the Capital, he took me to his estate. Elysian Estate is grand enough that I feared breathing too heavily inside it. Everything looked expensive and breakable. More than the things at the Boleoti Mansion.

I stared at the furniture, wondering whether I would be punished if I touched anything. That happened to often in Boleoti. But he merely said, "Everything in this estate belongs to House Konstantin. And you are Spiro Altan Konstantin. Do not look at the furniture as if it will bite you."

I said, "I wasn’t."

He said, "You were."

I had no answer for that. I couldn’t even deny it a second time.

He told me expensive things existed to be used by those who owned them.

I almost believed him. I wanted to believe him.

That is the most frightening part.

It would be easier if he were cruel.

It would be easier if he treated me as a tool, as an accident, as an obligation born from a blood seal gone wrong.

I know how to survive cruelty. I know how to lower my head, grovel, hide my thoughts, and wait until the knife can be turned. I’ve done it my whole life.

But I do not know how to survive kindness.

Later, he took me shopping.

I was measured for clothes. The aunties at the boutique gave me sweets I have never tasted before. I only ate one because I was not sure whether I was allowed to eat more. Such good things were never meant for me.

When I told Father that, he said eating too much before dinner was unwise.

I thought that meant I had done well.

But then he patted my head and said one more would not hurt.

I do not understand him.

No. I think that is not true.

I understand him a little, and that is the problem.

He says he is selfish. That he does not do things without benefit.

He says many things in that calm, beautiful, polite voice of his, and perhaps he believes them.

But when I asked if I needed to work for food, he looked annoyed. Not at me but at the idea.

When I walked too carefully through the estate, he corrected me.

When I sat too stiffly, he watched earnestly.

When Sir William mentioned training supplies, Father crouched to meet my eyes and said, "You are not being trained so you can become useful. You are being trained so you can grow healthy and protect yourself. There is a difference."

There is a difference.

Is there really?

I have been thinking about that sentence for hours.

In my first life, I had to be useful to survive.

As Leonard, I was valuable only if I could endure, learn, scheme, or keep quiet.

As Spiro, I am told to eat, to sleep, and to be a child.

How does one do that? How does act like a child?

Abinatha says Father is strange.

I agree.

But I think it was not just Father. Everyone in this house is strange.

Sir William gave me this notebook and did not ask what I would write.

The maids knock before entering my room and the knights pretend not to stare at me, though some of them are terrible at it.

Abinatha floats when he forgets to walk and calls himself my uncle with far too much enthusiasm.

And Father checks on me at night. He thinks I am asleep when he does.

But I am not always asleep.

Last night, I heard the door open quietly.

I kept my breathing steady, the way I learned in Boleoti Manor.

Father came close and fixed the blanket over my shoulder.

For a moment, he said nothing.

Then I heard Abinatha’s voice from the doorway.

"Aren’t you going to read it?"

My heart nearly stopped. I forgot that the notebook was left on the table.

To my surprise Father answered, "No."

"Why?"

"Because it is his."

I did not move or dare to breathe too deeply.

Abinatha said humans were strange. Father replied that paper tends to contain things people are not ready to say aloud.

I almost opened my eyes at this.

But I did not.

Then, without meaning to, I think I murmured something.

Father.

The room became very still.

A moment later, his voice answered quietly.

"I am here."

I do not remember how I managed to fall sleep after that.

This morning, the scandal paper wrote about him, about uncle Abinatha, and about me.

I asked him if I caused trouble.

Father said no.

He said my existence was not trouble.

I almost believed him again.

This is really getting dangerous.

Everything here is dangerous.

Kindness is dangerous and so were werm rooms and hot, delicious meals.

Even my name is dangerous.

But father is the most dangerous of all.

I already lost one.

No.

I lost him before I even knew he was gone.

The demons took my first father and made me hate him for what they did with his hands.

They took him, my mother, my home, my name. Even my death.

Now I have another name, another house, and another father.

I told myself that I accepted the name Spiro Altan Konstantin because it gives me protection. Because being the Grand Duke’s son places me closer to power. Because power is necessary if I want to destroy the demons that ruined everything.

That is the practical reason. The sensible one.

The one I can write without feeling like my chest is being squeezed.

But there is another reason.

When Father looks at me, I feel seen.

Not as Leonard Boleoti, or a slave. Not as an orphan or an inconvenience wrapped in old injuries and suspicious circumstances.

As Spiro.

I do not know yet whether I deserve that name.

But I should be happy.

I am happy.

That is the problem.

Happiness is dangerous when the future holds nothing but despair.

But I know what is coming. Or at least, I know pieces of it.

The demons are moving. They were already moving in my first life. They touched noble houses, perhaps even the palace, perhaps places I never learned of before I died.

But they feared Konstantin enough to name them troublesome. That means this house is important.

That means Father is important.

I hesitated before writing that.

Father.

Skandar Aleksandr Konstantin is not my first father.

He cannot replace the man whose face I still remember before the demon stole it.

But he has become something I did not expect.

Someone I do not want to lose.

That makes everything worse.

And better.

When he patted my head, I wanted to cry.

When he told me I only needed to eat, sleep, and be a child, I wanted to laugh because I had never been allowed to be one.

When he said I was his son, not a burden, not a rescued slave, not an inconvenience, something inside me ached so badly I almost hated him for it.

I do not hate him. I cannot hate him.

Leonard Boleoti died with revenge in his heart.

Spiro Altan Konstantin opened his eyes with a family beside him.

I do not know what that makes me.

A liar, certainly.

Probably a coward.

A son?

I am not sure.

For now, I will keep writing.

I will remember everything.

I will watch and grow stronger.

And when the demons finally crawl out from behind their stolen faces, I will be ready.

Because I no longer want revenge only for the dead.

I want protection for the living.

And that, I think, is far more terrifying.