Chapter 151

“This is the first time, no?” I ask to fill the quiet.

“It is, your highness.” Emma can understand that I refer to it being the first time I’ve set foot in my father’s palace.

With Jack’s infuriating presence gone, the somber glamour of the palace threatens to choke me once again. Emma and I’s footsteps alight the silent hall, only broken by the somber figures of guards intermittently posted throughout the central palace. I have never stepped into my father’s wing, but the path seems mapped out in my mind as I navigate my way to my father’s office with ease. After all, the layout is the same as my own wing, although I’m not sure if the similarity is comforting or annoying.

When I’d lived in the Rose Palace, the distance and pink touches had allowed me to differentiate between the two. Now, it’s like I’m beginning to overlap with the very man who seems to have the most meager of attachments to my existence.

I see the emperor every day when I have my lessons and yet I’ve never seen the 3/4ths of the central palace he occupies. We are roommates, roommates with an unspoken agreement not to violate each other’s space. When Halle and I were roommates our freshman year, we had the same mentality until one day she stumbled home drunk from a party and I took care of her. It spawned a sudden friendship that burned bright and burned out just as spectacularly with my ex-fiance balls deep in her.

So I suppose, with that experience in my past, I’m a bit wary to break this roommate status with my father.

“I’m going to break a leg with all this walking,” I sigh as we round the corner of yet another of this immaculate palace.

.....

“Exercise is good for you, your highness,” Emma says, her tone even and unwavering as usual. I wonder if Sage will be all in a tizzy at my last-minute decision to bring Emma along rather than her. Even if this throws off my plan a bit, I want the support of someone I trust around me right now, rather than a spy or a distant attendant.

“I’m surprised you know that. Isn’t this the generation that thought leeches were the cure to all illnesses?” I mutter under my breath, although Emma catches the tail end of my words.

“I’m not sure what a leech is.”

I chuckle to myself. “They’re bloodsucking little beasts that occasionally can be human.” My mouth curves into a grimace as I recall one short-lived ex-boyfriend of mine who’d eat up everything in my fridge and mooch off my school dining points. “Be careful with all your money lest a human one finds a way to latch on to you.”

I think I catch Emma shudder out of the corner of my eye, but when I turn to face her she already has her poker face back on.

“What has Nina been up to lately?” I ask as another guard passes out of earshot.

“Nothing.”

I nod to myself. “Good.”

I wouldn’t spare Nina if she were to go behind my back again. I don’t require loyal attendants, just ones who won’t stab me in the back at the last second. Besides, her presence is a daily reminder of how willing the empress is to infiltrate those who are closest to me in order to harm me. Even a double shot of espresso loses to seeing her face every morning when it comes to waking me up fully.

Speaking of loyal attendants, the one who is by my father’s side every waking moment of the day stands before me. Harold is tall and thin, but still appears sturdy enough to dissuade the unwise from starting a fight with him. He has a stern but charming face, well suited for following my father’s every order. Standing before the doors to the study, he seems to puff out his chest even more at my arrival, performing a stiff and neat bow at my presence.

“Greetings, your highness,” Harold says. Behind me are oval windows, that I latently realize overlook the very garden I’d been lounging in minutes earlier. I can only pray that Jack’s presence was innocuous enough to be overlooked.

“Harold,” I reply in kind, with a faint hint of respect in my tone. Only a fool would speak to the man closest to the emperor with disrespect, myself included. I am, after all, a subject first and a daughter second. A very distant and estranged daughter.

“Is my father in today?” I ask.

“He is, your highness.”

Talking to Harold is like pulling teeth. I grit my own but continue speaking with my gentle, humble smile that I show to parishioners whenever I’m at the Grand Temple of the Holy Church.

“Please let him know that I would like an audience with him.”

There is surprisingly little resistance from Harold, whose attitude is known to display the emperor’s will. “One moment, your highness.”

He knocks on the door twice, to inform Emperor Helio that he is coming in, and disappears behind one of the doors. There is a clink in metal, one of the guards in full armored regalia shifting his step to face me. His eyes are invisible within the shadowed holes carved into his helmet but I can imagine them glaring at me from beneath his shiny tin can. I nod respectfully towards him, wiping off my sweaty palms on my skirt as I ponder whose identity lies beneath the suit.

Is it Robbie, Emma’s semi-secret tutor? Or Sir Gregory? Or another?

The door opens, putting my inquisitive thoughts out of their misery as I’m faced with a much greater foe. He sits behind a desk, glasses with a thin frame perched on the tall nose he passed onto me. That long black hair of his falls down his shoulders and partially onto the desk itself. But they go unnoticed, so immersed is my father in his work.

“Take a seat,” he orders in a soft voice. The duality between the bloodthirsty conqueror who ravages his enemies’ lands to dust and the bookish administrative ruler going through court papers is truly astounding.

Emma remains outside, so it really is just me and him in a room right now, for the first time ever. I rub at my neck bandage unconsciously, but even that slight movement draws my father’s eyes towards me.

“H-Hello, Father,” I greet, my voice hitching in surprise.

“Hello,” he says. He puts down his pen and takes off his glasses. “Is there a reason you’ve come?”

Straight to the chase, without a hint of small talk. Despite his softer appearance, he is as blunt as ever.

“I would like to ask for permission to go to Elsbeth Laroche’s tea party this coming week,” I ask, then I abruptly hold my breath and wait for him to speak.

“Then go ahead, ask,” he says, pinning me to the seat in confusion.

“Huh?”

“Ask for permission,” my father repeats. It takes a few seconds for his attempt at a joke to sink in, which falls flat due to his inability to display an amicable facial expression.

“Can I please leave the palace and go to Elsbeth Laroche’s tea party?”

A pause hangs in the air between us. “You may.” He picks up his pen and writes some more.

“Thank you, Father,” I say respectfully, eager to leave now that my mission has been a success. I scoot off the annoyingly tall chair, the floor seeming ever so far from the ground even though I’m going to turn 12 very soon.

“Your mother,” he says, causing me to unconsciously bristle at the mention of Empress Katya, “She already asked me for permission for you to begin attending social events.”

“She did? Oh, I mean, thank you, Father.” I gasp, my sheer willpower keeping my jaw from falling to the floor and allowing me to curtsey normally. The same Empress Katya who wants to pretend that I don’t exist and eliminate me from the picture asked the emperor for permission for me to leave the imperial palace?

Immediately after the shock, I frown. Royal courtesy dictates that I’ll be required to visit her and show my gratitude. The thought of setting foot in the Sunrise Palace that holds so many bad memories for me sends a chill up my spine. Did she do it on purpose so I’d be forced to meet her face to face on her turf?

But today’s surprises don’t stop there. The emperor looks up again. “You need not thank her out of courtesy. It was ultimately my decision,” he tells me. My father looks me right in the eye as he says that. My mind flashes back to the hug I gave him at the warfront, one of the rare times of physical contact between us. I imagine his stern, unmoving face in the darkness of his tent as I’d wrapped my arms around him and feel a dull pain in my chest.

“Thank you for your consideration, Father,” I curtsey again in a formal manner and move towards the doors, all too eager to get out of his hair.

“Of course,” he says curtly. I don’t know if I’m just seeing things, or if I truly see a hint of displeasure flash across his face.

I’m halfway to the door when I hear his voice again.

“You’re neck, has it been healing?” It would be a lie if I said I wasn’t surprised to hear him inquire about my neck injury.

“Y-Yes it has. Very well, thank you,” I respond, my eyes probably as round as saucers.

“That’s good,” he nods to himself. “Your healing abilities are very effective. Keep practicing.”

Emperor Helio finally sounds more like his usual self, the one that had gleefully watched me heal the prisoners of war. “I will, Father.”

“Your apartments...” he says, loosely referring to my rooms in the west wing of the central palace. He shakes his head and starts over. “See to it that anything you purchase is charged to the central palace.”

I listen diligently outwardly while the wheels turn inside my head. Is this his reward for healing him? That would also be in line with his typical behavior. I don’t know what kind of upbringing my father had, for him to be so intent on repaying any and every debt that comes his way.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“That won’t be necessary, Father,” I say out of politeness. It’s not far from the truth. I’m often hurting for cash for my many operations, but not to the point that I can’t pay for the things I buy with my monthly allowance and my outside income.

“They’ll be charged to me nonetheless,” he replies. I can hear the wall in his voice, he won’t budge.

I stifle a sigh and drop another curtsey. “Thank you for your kindness, Father.”

But the prim and proper bow that I’ve trained to perfection seems to irritate him further for reasons unknown.

“Father?...” I bravely ask, confused by the now obvious displeasure on his face.

It melts away at the sound of my voice, revealing the same mask I’ve grown accustomed to.

“Take care, Winter,” Emperor Helio says in a tone of finality, signaling the end of the conversation. He picks up his pen, but doesn’t dip it in ink to write, instead twirling it in his fingers in a funny habit I too possess.

“Do not work for too long, lest you hurt your eyes, Father. And do take a break for some tea before long,” I answer politely, repeating the things I once told my mother in the past in much more formal language.

It comes out stiff and clumsy, I’m going through the motions after all, but once they’re out a funny expression overcomes my father’s face.

He must be mad, I think to myself. So like any proper kid, I split right away, knocking twice on the door and slipping out at the first crack that Harold creates. My footsteps back to my wing are decidedly faster than they were on the way there. We are a good distance from the study when I finally open my mouth.

“You must be wondering how it went,” I say.

“A little, your highness,” Emma replies, although she probably wasn’t.

“It went... hmmm. I suppose it was a success. But it was strange. Like accidentally stepping in quicksand,” I think of the deep, unreadable stare on my father’s face, with intentions I could not decipher. “Let’s not do that often.”

“As you wish, your highness.”

“And the empress, she has fingerprints all over this too. Perhaps Kora’s conversation with my father hadn’t been as innocent as to inquire about his wellbeing,” I mutter the second half to myself, my spidey senses telling me that there was much to be uncovered concerning the quiet and clever maid Empress Katya diligently kept by her side.