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Marie looks stunned. “You won’t... reject her presence due to illness?”

Her confusion is valid. Due to Augustus and I being extremely familiar with each other, such an excuse would be as flimsy and ineffective as a straw house. However, for others whom I am less acquainted with, they would be forced to respect my request or risk being rumored to disturb the ill princess during her rest. There’s an easy way out of this confrontation, but instead, I’m choosing to run into it head first.

I chuckle, casting a soft smile in the direction of my nursemaid. “Didn’t I say that I was leaving running away in the past? Besides, there must be a reason for her to come and visit. There is always a reason with my mother.”

I mutter the last line under my breath as my attendants are already opening up my bedroom doors to allow for a single person to file in, her steps hardly making a sound.

“Winter.”

“Mother.” I bow my head respectfully towards her but don’t move to leave the bed.

.....

A placid smile spreads across the empress’ lips and she settles down in the seat that Augustus had vacated minutes before. Who would’ve I would be met with such a surprising guest so soon?

“Marie, can you please give us a moment?” I request. I don’t look away from the woman before me and only hear the door click shut with a finality that sends my senses into an adrenaline-fueled overdrive.

There are now a few faint lines on her face as she begins to approach the tail end of her thirties. It makes her look more human, more real. But her startlingly blank eyes undo the effect. Eyes are the window to the soul, they say. Looking at the shimmering emeralds regarding me with the same calm of a jaguar sizing up its prey, I would say that Empress Katya has none.

“You knew about Sage,” she says. It’s not a question. Thin hands that have never seen a day of labor fold on her lap, a winking ruby ring nearly the size of a marble showing my reflection. I look a little stressed.

“Perhaps,” I reply in a voice far calmer than I feel. I take a deep breath to release the gathering tension in my reclined body and none too soon before the conversation proceeds in a direction I couldn’t have expected in a million years.

“I was thinking of tying the two of you to the same ship and convicting you of murder, but you would expect that and so would your father. He’s already taken steps to prevent such,” she sighs in a half confession, half admission of sorts.

This sort of Katya is new to me, but I don’t let my surprise show on my face. I can’t equate this sudden open honesty with the woman who had rendered my right hand useless, beat me, and nearly got convicted of poisoning almost exactly 6 years ago, to the day. In fact, it’s so perplexing that it startles a half chuckles out of my mouth that sounds a bit more like a cough.

“Why are you telling me this?” I raise a brow, wariness weighing down my words.

“You remind me of myself. even more than Julia or Julian do,” she admits.

The corner of my lip quivers, whether I want to laugh or shout, I’m not sure. “You have taught me a lot, Mother,” I respond weakly. This isn’t a lie, I have been forced to learn how to survive in this place courtesy of her many interferences.

“I have,” she agrees. We sit together for a moment in silence. I don’t think we have ever done that before. The wind blows in through an open window, my sole salvation under the stifling heat of my blanket that’s part of my act. It teases a loose strand of blonde hair and gives the empress a carefree look, suddenly allowing me a glimpse of a past Katya.

“You are nothing like your birth mother,” Katya says, a surprising twist to the cliche “you remind me of your [dead] mother/father” line that is overused in movies and books.

“You knew her?” I have little curiosity about the woman who brought the former Winter into this world, but I must pretend.

“Very well. Extremely well. I handpicked her myself, with some help.”

“Lord Bromely,” I state, fitting another jigsaw piece into the puzzle. Of course my father wouldn’t somehow bed a random military slave. He had to bed the one planted by the empress and Lord Bromely. There are conspiracies within conspiracies involving my birth.

She nods slowly. I don’t know what to make of her admission and decide to play back the same shocking cards I was dealt.

“Why tell me this? As much as I may remind you of yourself, I am not your child. I am just your unfaithful husband’s bastard daughter who stole away the promised child prophecy you wanted for your own daughter. You want me dead. You won’t stop until I am dead.” I tear away the bandaid, revealing the fresh wounds that sit between. Wounds that fester and worsen by the day, by the hour. They’re certainly infected by now.

But whether the infection was by myself or the woman before me, only the coming years will tell – if I live to see them. For now, the two of us digest my words, although she shows little reaction to them. Meanwhile, beneath the heavy covers, my hands are clenched in tight fists.

Well, one of them does. The fingers on my useless right hand can do little more than curl up and pretend, much like my bravado at the moment.

“At present, your continued existence is of interest to the Duvernay family,” she eventually reassures me. “You shall be called upon soon. There is someone you must heal,” she adds.

The role of a courier is one that the empress may have never expected for herself in a thousand years. That is the beauty of power and having something that everyone else wants, in this case, my abilities.

I nod to myself, recalling that one of the conditions that Katya’s older brother, Bishop Duvernay, had presented was for me to save someone of their choosing. It seemed like a foolish condition in my opinion, as I save thousands when I perform the role of the promised child on certain religious holidays. They could easily slip the person they desire into the long line and I wouldn’t notice a thing. But when your enemies make an error, you’d be a fool to go ahead and correct them.

“Continued existence...” I drawl. “So no retaliation about the deceased Lord Bromely?”

The next part of the conversation proceeds like rapid gunfire.

“None.”

“Who is this person I am to save?”

“You shall know when it is time.” She looks at the pretty, antique clock on the stand beside me then at the door, its delicate tick warning me that our time would soon come to an end. I call back to an earlier topic.

“Why don’t I remind you of my mother?”

“You look nothing like her.”

“But there’s more,” I press.

“There is always more,” she confirms. Something finally flashes in those blank eyes, but it vanishes before I can tell what it is. “She could truly see the big picture. Better than myself even.”

I hear that for the insult it is, my lips pressing into a line.

“Not big enough to escape my father’s chambers.”

“Oh,” she chuckled in that knowing way older people are known to do. “But he knew very well. Your father knew of it all. That’s why he chose her to have you.”

“You jest.” I know she doesn’t. But it’s a knee-jerk reaction as my insides go numb.

“I am the mother of the empire. I do not jest, Winter.” Her casual demeanor irritates me and I bite the inside of my cheek, ready to strike back.

“Mother of the empire,” I repeat, an unkind grin cutting across my lips. “Is that why you were able to set your husband up with another woman without remorse? Such sacrifice, no wonder you are the empress consort today rather than Augustus’ mother. She chose love, you chose power. Has it been worth it?”

Poisonous, deliberate words spill from my mouth in barely a whisper, but they send Empress Katya to her feet with an abruptness that shows me that my words must’ve struck a nerve somehow. I add this to the very short list of topics I know the empress is sensitive about:

Her plans to enthrone Julian.

Her children.

My father.

My mother.

And now, the former empress.

My quiver of arrows that I can use to hurt the woman who has made much of my youth a living hell grows fuller. As for Empress Katya, she smiles wanly, knowing that I saw her slight gaffe. “Do come to the next Ladies’ Court. Your clever mouth is missed.”

This time, I let out a chuckle of my own. “As much of an honor as it would be, I’m afraid I won’t be able to,” I say.

Katya laughs lightly, not having expected an affirmative answer from me anyways. As she leaves, some air hisses out between my teeth as a few of my longstanding worries slip away into nothing. I’ve known the empress long enough to know that she is a woman of her word if you interpret them correctly. I won’t face any retaliation about Lord Bromely’s untimely death.

“Marie! I must toast this moment with something bubbly and lightly alcoholic!” Despite the jarring information I’ve been dealt, I still feel giddy at having hurt the empress, even if it was but a scratch.

But amidst my alcohol-ignited excitement from our conversation, I fail to account for one critical factor in her words, that my existence was in the interest of ‘the Duvernay family’. Not herself. The Duvernay family. It’s a key word choice I should’ve realized considering how even my own interests are quite separate from that of the imperial family.

In the future, I shall pay dearly for mistaking the two different interests as one.

But not today. Today, I celebrate. With champagne actually. The drinking age is nonexistent in this world and era. I hold the glass in my left hand, the thin stem perfect for my small hands. However, moments later, I spit out light pink champagne all across my fine bedspread.

“My god!” I sputter as I cough some more. “Marie, what did they put in this poor champagne?”

I glare accusingly at the glass as Marie chimes in with a barely concealed laugh, “It’s rose infused, your highness, a rare delicacy. It’s a specialty imported from the east. But since you don’t like it, I shall fetch a less exotic one for you to enjoy.”

“Now why would they ruin perfectly good champagne with roses? Are they mad?” I’ve smelled enough roses to last me a lifetime, the smell having long infused itself into the very walls of the Rose Palace.

Just thinking of my old residence puts off my celebratory mood and I set down the gossamer thin glass into a maid’s waiting tray before it’s spirited out of the room like it was never there. A thought occurs to me as I’m briefly alone, one that gives rise to the cynicism that has long been at home in my temperament.

“He fucking knew...” I mutter to myself in disbelief, as the full meaning of what the empress said about the emperor sinks in. I’m sure she’s back at her palace, getting the last laugh as always. Reminding me once again that I am not and will never be her opponent.

Her last shot feels like a punch in the gut and I curl up around the crumbling hole in the center of my chest, right on top of the stained bedcovers. I can feel both my own agony as well as the former Winter’s pain. It’s been a while since I felt her emotions. It serves to remind me that in spite of the myriad of injuries I’ve felt in the years I’ve healed people, nothing hurts more than an emotional wound. Nothing.

“If he chose my mother, then he knew that I existed. Somewhere out there. And he never even looked. Not until I was practically delivered to his doorstep... Why?”

“Did you say something, your highness?” Marie is out of breath, carrying a different bottle of champagne. The shimmering gold packaging of the exquisitely shaped bottle alone is luxurious enough to pay for a year’s rent of Bianca’s shack in the slums.

“Nothing important.” I pull myself together, the threads of emotions that had come undone carefully being woven back together as if nothing had happened. But internally I feel ill, the same illness I’ve been faking all day. A chill settles in my bones, but I resist the urge to burrow under my covers.

“How about another glass?” I ask instead with a smile that my leaden cheeks struggle to hold. “This time you should have one yourself too.”

“What are we celebrating?” Marie casually opens a bottle of champagne so fine that most nobles would delight in enjoying a glass on the rare special occasion.

“The big picture, Marie. The big picture.”