He made a derisive snort. For him, love was a sentimentality, an incomprehensible emotion he looked down upon. But to her, it was what held her body together. Through the brutal winters and draining summers. It was the season that came after ‘misery’.
And that season had arrived in her life.
Sebestyén
There was an unmistakable sense of dread as Sebestyén entered his father’s darkened bedchamber, the man more commonly known as the reigning emperor of Alisia.
On the four-posted bed, hung with thick velvet drapes, the resting figure of his sire greeted him. His father’s chest rose and fell, interrupted only by fits of coughing.
For weeks, there’d been rumors floating around the hallowed corridors of the palace about the emperor’s imminent demise. Even Arnold, his brother, had hinted at it a few times. A dangerous illness had taken his father last winter, and though he recovered in the succeeding months, it’d left him frail and susceptible to another bout of sickness. Sebestyén himself had never perceived the emperor’s constitution to be frail. A delicate man couldn’t stride like his father did. A delicate man couldn’t growl like his father did.
At the patter of Sebestyén’s boots on the marble floors, the emperor cleared his throat. “I’m doing all right, doctor,” he said.
“It’s me,” Sebestyén said. “I came to check on you.”
Instead of relaxing in the presence of his son, the emperor tensed, pushing his back off the bed, and propping himself into a sitting position. Why did his father always treat him like the enemy? Sebestyén wondered. It wasn’t as though he planned to assassinate the old man.
“If you have time to worry about my health, use it to plan your campaign to Mesinia,” his sire chided. Sebestyén decided to take the admonishment as a sign that he was recovering. “With my health being what it is, this battle is crucial for the future of the kingdom. Don’t give anyone a reason to consider you a weakling prince. God knows how many times you’ve already disappointed me and the councilors already.”
Sebestyén flinched at the accusation. He’d only lost one battle in his entire military career, and somehow, that one battle seemed to overshadow everything else. His father had never been the encouraging sort, always holding him to impossible standards and punishing him for failing to meet them. At five years of age, the emperor had admonished him for failing to grow to the appropriate height required for a ‘future heir’. His punishment had been to eat large quantities of food, often to the point where he threw up.
At eight, his skill at foreign languages had been deemed ‘abysmal’ by the emperor so he’d been exiled to the neighboring country of Soka, abandoned and left to survive with the few words he could speak. He’d cried for weeks before adapting and acquiring a fluent command over the Sokan tongue.
But even those draconian punishments, he’d endured without complaint. What he couldn’t endure was that no matter how much he excelled at archery and horse-riding and court manners, the emperor only noticed the charm he didn’t have, the diplomacy he didn’t acquire, the war he didn’t win. He was a gaping hole, always inadequate, always lacking in some way.
As a result, he couldn’t forgive himself for any of his failings even now. The tiniest of incidents embarrassed him. And no matter how much time passed, he felt unprepared to sit on his throne as the emperor and call it his own. Sometimes, he wished there was no past. Sometimes, he wished he could just be who he was and be accepted for it.
He inched closer to the emperor’s bed studying the glistening sheen of sweat on his forehead. Age had sagged his sire’s skin, but it hadn’t been able to soften his raw masculine edges or add compassion to his fierce warrior eyes. His mother had always said Sebestyén looked like his father. But he wondered if anyone could look as intimidating as the emperor.
“Don’t worry about me when you’re in this state,” Sebestyén said. “And don’t worry about the war in Mesinia.”
“It is my duty to worry,” said the emperor. “Especially now, as I hover on the cusp of death.”
The prospect of taking the throne so soon hammered fear into Sebestyén’s heart. “That’s simply untrue,” he said. “The physician assures me that you’re suffering from a seasonal fever. It’ll be gone in no time.”
“Even so, your time to take the throne might come sooner than you think. I—” A cough. “I have grown too exhausted. You’re already twenty-five. A good age to become an emperor. Find victory in Mesinia and return.”
Yet another command to win yet another war. Every single time, his father manipulated him emotionally, made him believe that if he won just one more time, conquered just one more parcel of land, the kingdom would become powerful. He suspected it was all a ruse. Or else a political strategy.
“No one can predict the outcome of a war,” Sebestyén said. “Not even Suveri who possess future-seeing tattoos.”
The emperor stiffened. “Don’t mention the name of those worms to me. They’re a blight on this land. Once you’re back from Mesinia, perhaps you should devote your attention to sweeping the last of them away.”
Sebestyén didn’t reply, he only gathered his fingers into tight fists on his sides.
What would the emperor say if he knew Sebestyén was meeting with a Suveri woman? Would it just cause him more disappointment, or would it spark his legendary anger? He didn’t intend to find out.
“Don’t disappoint me, Sebestyén.” The emperor pulled a quilt over himself, finished with the conversation. Even without the gesture, Sebestyén would’ve guessed, since his father always dismissed him with the exact same words.
Don’t disappoint me.
“I’ll do my best. Please rest now,” he said.
As Sebestyén left his father and crossed into the barracks, he wondered why his fingers were still balled into tight fists and why the irritation sloshing through his veins felt implacable.
Maybe Rea was right. Maybe the people of this country were terrible, brutal warlords who killed because they could. Maybe his own hatred and prejudice toward her culture stemmed from the fact that he came from a long line of those men. He didn’t know any reaction other than disgust when faced with the name ‘Suveri’. It was all he’d ever seen; all he’d ever known. It was the only reaction that was acceptable to his father.
But Rea had shown him something different.
She’d shown him that even people who were of different worlds could find companionship, peace, and healing with each other. And that sometimes, nothing else mattered.
Rea
Death had a peculiar scent, one that evolved over time. A week before it strode in on its black chariot and claimed its prey, it filled the air with a thick, pervasive mustiness. One that could only be smelled by the most sensitive of noses.
Then once the reaping was complete, only the putrid smell of rotting flesh was left, coupled with the alarming realization of a soul having slipped into another world. For days, Rea had been trying to disperse the mustiness inside her cottage with lavender that she’d stolen from homes in the village during her nightly sojourns, but to no avail.