Author's Preface
“Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale / Her infinite variety.”
— Antony and Cleopatra, Act 2, Scene 2
William Shakespeare
The first time I see my father is the last time I see my mother alive. I am barefoot on a cold marble floor, my hands bound in chains behind my back. The stench of blood clogs my nostrils. Only my mother’s sobs, echoing around the throne room, keep me from pitying myself. She is hurting more than I am.
Maybe at one time the royal throne room was beautiful, but the rightful king of Saol Eile has been comatose for half a decade now, and in the resulting years of civil war, it seems that the Crown Prince has seen fit to convert the neglected space into an executioner’s playpen. For what felt like hours, Mom and I have waited in line behind twelve other prisoners. After weeks of wasting away in the palace dungeons, each other prisoner is as starved as we are, their sackcloth rags hanging from their skeletal frames like the tattered sails of a derelict ship, heavy iron manacles like rusted anchors.
One by one, the guards drag the prisoners up to the base of the throne, where they kneel before a bloody wooden block. They plead for mercy. The Crown Prince listens. He almost never speaks. His court, a small crowd of nobles surrounding the throne, does most of the talking for him. They seem to be enjoying themselves, passing wine and platters of appetizers amongst themselves, laughing and bickering about the vices and virtues of the poor bastard on trial. The debate is all for show, anyway. It always ends in the same verdict—the executioner stepping forward, a moment of bated breath, and finally a head rolling across the fancy marble floor. They don’t bother to mop up the mess between prisoners.
When it is our turn, the guards nudge my mother forward first. At once, the executioner, a burly Northman nearly two feet taller than her, steps in to separate us. His leather apron, steel axe, and battle-scarred forearms drip with blood from the day’s ceaseless butchery. But I have nothing left to be afraid of. Despite the chains, I shove past him.
“That’s my mother. I’m going with her,” I tell him.
The executioner looks down at me in surprise, then sneers. “You’ll die with her.”
“I’ll die anyway,” I sneer right back.
He lets me go up with her. Maybe he’s glad to move the docket along faster—to kill two birds with one stone. As I am forced to kneel, the fabric of my ragged trousers instantly soaked in the puddle of blood, I jerk my head to the right to see how Mom is doing. Even without the near threat of execution, she doesn’t have long for this world. Her head and body hang limp and forlorn. Her face is sunken and sallow, and her tangled black hair is streaked with more white than a mere two weeks ago, when we were captured. She has been crying so much that no tears are coming out anymore, just these ugly, grating sobs.
“Mama,” I say to her. When she does not respond, I shuffle as close as I can and nudge her arm with my shoulder. “Mama, it’s Eloise, I’m here with you. Mama?”
“Order!” snaps a man’s voice, and something hard cracks against the floor. My head snaps up. I am ready to give the man a piece of my mind, to really lay into him how much he’s hurt my mother, how I hope that he gets the death he deserves, and how I hope he rots in hell…but my eyes follow the source of the sound and it’s not even the Prince who said anything. The bossing comes from a squat old man, rapping his cane against the ground. No, the root of all evil is a different man entirely—one who has stayed unusually silent throughout this spectacle.
The Crown Prince reclines, almost bored, in his throne. Besides in newspapers, it is the first time I have ever seen him. My father. We look nothing alike. He is tall and slender, porcelain pale like the rest of the royal family, with green eyes and ashy blonde hair that borders on gray. I am more like my mother, sharing her raven-black hair and bronze skin. Yet since I was old enough to understand, Mom has insisted that I—the penniless daughter of a laundress, barely scraping out our living in a rat-infested slum—am the secret child of Prince Rosencrantz, an heir to the royal throne. The same throne that we now kneel before, awaiting the executioner’s axe.
If Mom was not suffering so much, I would be tempted to say I told you so.
Instead, I take an extra moment to survey my “father.” He barely looks down at us in indifference, his tired eyes half-lidded and ringed with dark shadows. A lady with severe red makeup and an elaborate white hairdo leans over, whispering in his ear. Her stomach protrudes beneath her vibrant purple gown, full with pregnancy. My father waves his hand to shoo her away before meeting my gaze.
“State your defense,” says the Prince.
I inhale. Throughout the past two weeks, Mom has been coaching me through our prison cell walls on what to say. It was all the same fairytales that she told me growing up—her love story, her secret wedding, her giving birth to me. But I do not tell him any of those.
“Your Highness,” I croak. My voice is hoarse from dehydration, and I hack up a cough before composing myself. “My mother has done nothing wrong. She is a laundress on Lavendel Road, and has lived and worked there for my whole life. She has never so much as stepped foot in this castle to come near to the Royal Family, and she knows no foreign tongue to speak with enemy spies. She hasn't a penny to spare for a wartime cause. I beg of you, Your Highness, have mercy on my mother. She could not have possibly joined a plot on your life, nor the lives of any of your family.”
The nobles start to speak up, beginning their flurry of debate again, but the Prince holds up a hand and they go silent.
“You are well spoken for a commoner,” he remarks. “Are you educated?”
I am a little baffled by the change in subject, but I play along. “Um…no. Not formally.”
“Oh?”
“My mother had a family friend. He sent me books since I was young, and insisted that I read them. She did her best to give me a lady’s proper education, and it’s because of her that I am a merchant now. Or…I was.”
The Prince frowns. “You?” He furrows his brow. “You’re a merchant? With which company?”
“Belsie Trade and Securities. I’m the chief operating officer, under Master Sibelius Odric.”
The lady in the purple dress lets out a biting laugh. “And I’m the Empress of Rhotasca!” she crows.
The rest of the court chuckles in amusement, but the Crown Prince raps his fist against the armrest of the throne and scolds them to quiet down. Despite the court’s disdain, he actually seems…curious. “You understand, I am sure, why that is hard to believe. Where have your travels taken you?”
“All over the world, Your Highness. We were most recently in Orzopallan, speculating on properties for oil drilling. But we haven’t stepped foot in Saol Eile since 492, we were trying to avoid the civil war—”
“That does sound like Master Odric,” the Prince muses. “Avoidant. Perhaps…like he had something to hide.”
I have been trying to stay calm, or at least, to feign calm. After all, I’ve seen a dozen other sorry bastards begging and screaming for mercy, and all it seemed to do is make the Prince want to kill them quicker. But the idle accusation breaks something within me. I am gaining no ground against this man. He seems determined to find some reason to drag Mom and I to the chopping block. Yet for the life of me, I cannot imagine what that reason would be.
“Your Highness, I swear we had nothing to do with the war!” I cry. “Master Odric is innocent. My mother is innocent. I—I don’t even know what I could be charged with. Please Your Highness, please just tell us why we’re here!”
He cuts me off. “How old are you?”
“T…twenty-five?” It escapes my mouth nearly as a question.
“Your name?”
“Eloise.”
“And your family name?”
“Rossach.”
A strange frown flickers across his face. Confusion? Before he can speak, the clinking of chains alerts me that my mother is moving. She is trying to stand up. In her weakened state, and with her hands bound behind her back, she stumbles once, then struggles to her feet.
“Edgar,” Mom rasps. “My love. Please…”
In a sudden burst of speed, she lunges for the throne. The guards rush to restrain my mother, but she is unnaturally fast, and she reaches the Prince—only to fall on her knees at his feet.
“Eloise is your daughter,” my mother pleads. “Your only living heir.”
The guards seize her around the waist and drag her away. My mother is in hysterics, thrashing with a strength I had never seen of her before, so that even the executioner who comes to restrain her has his axe knocked out of his very hands. The nobles are muttering. Amidst the chatter of the Crown Prince’s court, I almost don’t hear what he says:
“Imogen?” the Prince whispers.
But no one is listening to him except me. The lady with the purple dress is shouting, pointing left and right and finally to the executioner. With a disgruntled huff, the executioner bends down to pick up his fallen axe.
“You promised!” Mom screams. “You promised you would protect us!”
I squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t look. I can’t. I don’t open them again until it’s all silent, and until a hand presses against my back, forcing me to bow before the throne. As the executioner saunters lazily to my side, pushing my mother’s decapitated body away with his boot, he chuckles gruffly.
“Haven’t killed an ‘heir’ yet today,” he remarks. “Any last words, my lady?”
“Yeah,” I reply. As the executioner brushes my hair away from my neck, I crane my chin up. Now, more than ever, I want the Crown Prince to look in my eyes as I die. Then I scream.
“I’LL SEE YOU IN HELL , YOU MOTHERFUCKING MAN-WHORE!”
What a shame. They behead me before I can even see the look on his face.