My eyelids squeeze shut as his words hit me like a ton of bricks.
I’m trying,I think pathetically, hating myself for my own failings.Can’t you see, I’m trying?
“You think painting your nails, putting a purple streak in your hair means you’ve reclaimed your autonomy, Emilia?” His voice goes dangerously soft. “Why don’t you try taking something that actually matters for a change? Something you actually want?”
Tears fill my eyes as his words slice through me. I feel another few stitches shake loose inside my heart. Frozen, I take a deep breath.
Another.
One more.
Gathering my courage.
Summoning my strength.
“What if the thing I want most is—”
The words falter when I whirl around and find he’s already gone back inside. I’m alone on the terrace, my breath puffing like smoke in the empty air.
My hands fist in the thick fabric of the blanket he placed around my shoulders. If I close my eyes, I can almost pretend it’s a set of strong arms, pulling me close. Keeping me safe when the world feels immeasurably screwed up.
What if the thing I want most is you?
* * *
“All risefor Her Royal Majesty Emilia Victoria Lancaster, Queen of Germania!”
A hundred and fifty middle-aged men lumber to their feet, eyeing me with a strange mix of apprehension and apathy as I make my way through their ranks. The aisle cuts straight down the center of a dozen rows of wood benches, culminating in a raised pulpit at the front of the grand chamber. I keep my eyes fixed on it, hoping my face betrays none of the nervous energy zinging through my system.
I take a deep breath. The air here in the National Assembly smells of leather, furniture polish, cigar smoke, and that unique perfume birthed from old books. With soaring ceilings, dim lighting, and walls full of portraiture, it looks more like a musty library than the much-revered House of Lords.
The ministers nod deeply as I pass, their ridiculous white powdered wigs bobbing. They look like something out of a Renaissance reenactment. Old men playing dress-up.
I press my lips firmly together to keep them from twitching as I make my way up three gleaming mahogany steps and take my place on the small platform at the head of the room.
Two chairs await — the empty one intended for me, the other reserved for a man I’ve met only twice before, in brief passing at state functions. Prime Minister Edmund Mallory. We’ve traded no more than a few words in total since I claimed my Lancaster lineage last fall. He rises to his feet when I reach him, torso inclined in a shallow bow.
“Your Majesty. Welcome to Parliament.”
“Thank you, Prime Minister.”
Mallory is a solemn man, but his eyes are not unkind when they meet mine, nor is his body language aggressive as he gestures for me to take my seat. In his late sixties, he still cuts a rather impressive figure. Time has not completely weathered what once must’ve been quite a handsome face.
In truth, I don’t know much about him, except that he’s held his position for nearly twenty-five years — longer than I’ve been on this earth. In his record-breaking tenure as Germania’s PM, he’s dealt exclusively with middle-aged Lancaster males: the late King Leopold, his father King Leonard before him.
What he might think ofme— this audacious child-queen who dares trespass on his realm — remains a mystery. His blank expression reveals next to nothing.
“Please, take a seat, Your Majesty.”
We sink into the ornate wood chairs on the dais. The entire hall immediately follows suit; a hundred and fifty ministers settling onto benches, their black robes billowing like ship sails. For a moment, the hall is silent as a graveyard as I gaze down at them. They gaze fixedly back, a sea of lukewarm welcome. Everyone seems to be taking my measure. I feel like a child being sized up on her first day of school.
Will she cry and call out for her mother?
I try not to cow beneath the weight of so many chilly stares. Just being in their midst is strangely unsettling. Not only am I the youngest person present by several decades, I’m also the only one without a penis. My own anatomy has never been quite so apparent to me.
It’s obviously startling to them as well. Like Mallory, none of them have been confronted with a female Germanian monarch in all their time serving our government.
Until today.