“What doesn’t?”
“Any of it.” I shrugged. “Who we are, what we do. Since it all winds up a pile of rocks and moss anyway.”
“Just the opposite, Emilia. It matters a great deal what we do with our lives. It matters more than anything. Because, whether you leave a big imprint on this world or fade without a trace, the passing of time is a great equalizer. It can render empires into ashes, can condense the greatest of legacies into a footnote on a forgotten page in someone else’s history book.”
Mrs. Fiero laughed lightly — notatme, not in a way that made me feel foolish, but in a way that told me she knew something about life I hadn’t learned for myself yet.
“When I worry that I’m not doing enough, that I’m living a small life, that I won’t be remembered by anyone of consequence for achieving anything resembling greatness… I like to remind myself that you don’t have to change the whole world to leave your mark on it. Even the smallest of lives has value. Because it’s how youlivethat matters. Not the things you leave in your wake. Not what comes after you when you’re gone.”
Of all the lessons Mrs. Fiero ever taught me about great wars and old feuds, ancient cities and long-gone empires…this one, imparted in a whisper on a shivery spring afternoon by a pile of old stones, would wind up being the most important.
Unfortunately for me…
You never seem to realize the most important lessons in your life untilafteryou’ve royally fucked things up.
Emphasis onroyally, in my particular case…
Chapter One
“Your Majesty?”
A throat clears gently to my left. I do not turn to acknowledge the sound. I stare up at the Great Hall’s gilded ceiling far overhead, studying the angelic fresco figures painted there through narrowed eyes. The cherubs seem to mock me with their serene expressions, smiling down in perpetuity, strumming their gold harpsichords with stubby fingers.
“Your Majesty… I’m sorry for the intrusion, but it’s quite late…”
I don’t even blink.
He swallows audibly. “What— What are you doing here?”
Boy, if that isn’t the question of the year…
What the actual fuck am I, Emilia Victoria Lancaster, doing here?
In this goddamned castle?
In this goddamned life?
The throat clears again, louder this time. As though the man doing the clearing has somehow managed to convince himself I simply didn’t hear him, rather than the more obvious alternative — that I am doing my damndest to ignore his existence.
“Is there anything I can assist you with, My Queen?”
I don’t answer the quivering question. I don’t even lift my head from where I’m lying on the cold floor, my limbs splayed out like a starfish against the silver-veined marble. My eyes remain fixed upward, toward those mocking painted figures. I squint, struggling to make out their finer details in the faint light cast by the chandeliers.
At this late hour they’ve been dimmed to their lowest setting; the wall sconces doused completely. That’s not a surprise. No one is usually in here at this time of night. Hell, most people aren’t evenawake, this time of night.
I hear the servant shifting nervously from one foot to another. I’m sure he’s at a loss for what to do in this scenario. I can’t exactly blame him. It probably came as quite a shock when he rounded the corner on some nightly errand and found me lying here on the floor of the vast Great Hall, clad only in a pair of old yoga pants and a thick cashmere sweater.
A queenly sight, this is not.
My advisors would be utterly aghast at this show of impropriety if they could only see it.But they aren’t here to chide me anymore,I think as the faces of Lady Morrell, my old etiquette instructor, and Gerald Simms, the former Palace Press Secretary, flash through my mind.They lost that right when they stabbed me in the back.
“Y-Your Majesty? Can… can you hear me? Are you all right?”
Persistent one, isn’t he?
I press my eyes closed, as though that might make him disappear. I don’t possess the energy to deal with him right now. Frankly, I don’t possess the energy to deal with much of anything. These days, I consider it a miracle if I manage to last until the sun sets without crumbling into a ball of despair under the weight of my own exhaustion.
When did simplyexistingstart taking so much energy?