Armand opened his mouth to say something but did not know how to react to these words. The more he heard, the more his thoughts got confused.
Lina, noting the man"s confusion, took a deep breath and replied, "In the Teser family, one prophecy was pa.s.sed down from generation to generation. According to this prophecy, each life cycle at a certain point in time has a kind of reboot. A child with a pure soul is born and the one whom this child chooses gains power over the world.
But the soul of a child cannot always be pure, he grows up and eventually suffers from the temptations of the outer world, so there was one limitation - the child had to make his choice before the age of ten. If this did not happen, then this ability would lose power, and it was necessary to wait for the birth of the next bearer of the prophecy.
So, I happened to be that child.
When Clara Teser found out about this, she invited my mother and me to live under her care, until I was ten years old. I was not allowed to go outside, and my social circle was limited, Clara took care of me as a second mother and taught me reading, writing and everything she knew.
But she didn"t take into account another moment, that the main danger was not the outside world, but the man who was in the house."
"Mark Teser?" Armand was already beginning to speculate what happened next.
"Yes. This man had strong hypnosis skills, he was much stronger than David"s brother in this regard. When he learned about this prophecy, he decided to take advantage of it in his own interests. Since only girls were born in the Teser family before, he understood that his daughter could not be the ruler of the world, but she could be the wife of such a person.
It was then that he met your father. Their interests and goals coincided so clearly as if they were not two different people, but one person. So they had this plan.
Mark Teser staged my death, all the servants in the house, including my mother, were under his hypnosis and no one tried to figure out what had happened. Clara was too weak, as he had been poisoning her body with drugs for many years.
He knew that she could not see either his future or her own, and this played into his hands. He made Clara unconscious and used her visions to gain power.
So, that"s how I ended up in your house.
Mark put a lot of hypnosis on me, a strange woman became my mother, and my task was to choose one of the sons of Sigmund Taubert, who would be the chosen one, and Mark Teser"s daughter would become his wife.
A man with unlimited power over the world and a woman who is able to see the future of this world. According to your father and Amelia"s grandfather, this would be an ideal union that would usher in a new era of humanity."
The pieces of the puzzle in Armand"s head began uniting into one picture, now it became clear to him why his father was so obsessed with his upbringing and way of thinking. "But really... Wasn"t it Marcus the one you chose?" the man asked, and these words came to him with great difficulty. He knew that this girl"s first love was not him, but his older brother.
"One night your father took me out of the room and brought me to his office, Marcus accidentally overheard his conversation with Clara"s husband and wanted to punish him severely. I knew that if I told the truth, then Marcus would only get in bigger trouble. So when your father asked me who I like, I lied and said that it was you. Sorry."
Armand got out of bed, went to the table and poured himself another gla.s.s of wine, "That is to say, in order to protect Marcus, you lied to my father and said to him that you liked me. Therefore, he so "diligently" dealt with my upbringing, and treated my brother like a defective child - humiliated him, beat him, even deprived him of the opportunity to draw which was the only joy for Marcus, if only he didn"t influence me badly?! The one who is supposedly destined to become the future ruler of the world?! It"s obvious to both of us now that this is clearly not about me!"
Lina sobbed her nose, if not for her, if not for her very existence, then such a tragedy would never have happened to Armand"s family. His mother would not have died trying to protect children from the insane ideas of their father, they would have had an ordinary childhood, and siblings would not have become strangers to each other.
"Sorry, I did not know about this. Mark Teser blocked my memory, and I recalled everything when it was already too late."
"What about the rest? Is everything between us also a lie? All the words you said to me, was that also to protect Marcus?"
"Of course not! Do not compare a naive childhood love with... with...," Lina faltered, suddenly, old memories surfaced in her head with a vivid picture.
"With what?" Armand asked in a stern voice as in interrogation.
The girl cast an annoyed look at the guy, at this moment she really wanted to hit him on the head to refresh his old memory, "That night I showed you my sincerity enough, Armand Taubert! Maybe it wasn"t so important for you if you forgot about it, but for me you were... the first," Lina turned to the side, her cheeks were flushed and the last part she muttered under her nose, barely restraining surging embarra.s.sment.
"That night?" Armand thought, and the man began to realize what particular night it was. Suddenly, he felt a strange heat in his chest, either the wine began to act, or the memories in his head were too detailed for this moment, which clearly did not appeal to such fantasies.
But he could not help but notice that now, standing in the rays of moonlight, Lina was as attractive as she was that night. Their first night together.
An awkward pause hung in the air, and the girl hastened to fill it in order to distract herself from insidious thoughts, "It is true that Marcus himself found me when I woke up. But this is only because he could see the future and knew that I should appear at this moment.
I was like a newborn, knowing nothing about the world. He introduced me to Lucia, the mother of Amelia, and she accepted me into the family. Amelia was just beginning to reveal her abilities, but it was already obvious that she was not an ordinary child."
"But why didn"t you stay with Marcus? And how did he know Amelia"s mother? Even I hear about her for the first time, because when I met Amelia, her parents were no longer alive."
Sadness was reflected in Lina"s eyes, the day when Amelia lost her relatives was hard for both of them, "Lucia and her husband died in a car accident when Amelia was ten years old. But how did Marcus know her mother, you better ask him yourself. In any case, I was not going to stay with him, but even if I wanted to, he would not allow it."