Martha raises an eyebrow. I do not know for certain if I have answered correctly, but when she stands, still holding onto my file, I am at least assured that she is not throwing my application back in my face.
In the end, she thanks me and escorts me to the reception room to wait. While she steps back into her office to make copies of my file, I am left to look around. This reception room, like the rest of the palace, I presume, is impractically opulent. I see no purpose for the reception desk to bear such intricate stonework of mythological figures, nor for the very light fixtures to curl like the tendrils of vines and glitter with dewdrops of crystal beads.
Perhaps if the decor’s sole purpose was to occupy the restless attention of a visitor such as myself, and thus prevent them from realizing how long they had been waiting, then I might forgive the frivolity. But like everything else—and everyone else—in the palace, this room is obsessed with its own grandiosity, and serves no purpose but to boast its callous wastefulness. To fund such a shameless display of decadence…how many princes snatched food from their starving children’s mouths? If a small reception room is enough to turn my stomach, then I can only hope Martha likes me. I would much rather work inside the records department, where the furnishings are simple and practical, than anywhere outside of it.
Once Martha returns my papers to me, I return home. I have not yet received a job offer from anywhere, but I still have plenty of work to do. Based on nothing but my own memory, I am making a timeline of what will happen in the next seven years. It is…frighteningly sparse.
MEMORANDUM
TO: Eloise Rossach...Odric?
FROM: Eloise Odric. Nobody will see these besides myself, but it will be good to get in the habit.
RE: Regression Returns Strategy: 7-Year Projection
DATE: September 30, 489 AR
Present Day. 489 Annum Regis. I am registered as a merchant’s apprentice and leave Belsie Port with Master Odric. King Edwin Rosencrantz III is alive and well. The whole Royal Family—Queen Philomena, Crown Prince Edwin IV, Crown Princess Emerlane, Prince Ezra, and Prince Edgar (my father) are alive and well.
+1 Year. 490 AR. Queen Philomena dies suddenly. I do not recall from what. King Edwin III falls into a deep depression and gradually into a complete coma, never to awaken. Crown Prince Edwin IV and Crown Princess Emerlane are named the “Twin Regents” to manage the country.
+2 Years. 491 AR. This is where the civil war begins to take shape. Edwin and Emerlane are good rulers, though inexperienced and incapable of quelling the political dissidence. A small faction of nobles begin to recruit support from the growing merchant class and many commoners. Master Odric and I were far enough away from Saol Eile to decline participation in either side, although I recall both parties sending many letters arguing their position. Though I agreed with the defectors with respect to empowering the free market and lowering royal taxes, they had some rather extreme views on “purging the undesirables” that I found distasteful.
+3 Years. 492 AR. Edwin IV and Emerlane are killed in an otherwise uneventful skirmish against one of the northern barbarian tribes. With the king out of commission and the queen dead, the Twin Regents were more or less holding Saol Eile together on their own. Prince Ezra is declared next in line and acting regent. During this period of instability, the civil war blossoms into full force. At this point, Master Odric and I decided it was best to sever all trade to and from Saol Eile, since we are both legally citizens of the state, vulnerable to our ships and goods being seized for wartime service. As such, we do not receive much news about the civil war besides that it is ongoing.
+4 Years. 493 AR. I do not recall. I remember having difficulty sending letters and stipends to Mama, likely due to the war. This is approximately the time when elysium reaches its peak value on the international market, so this is likely when I should sell.
+5 Years. 494 AR. I do not recall.
+6 Years. 495 AR. Prince Ezra goes mad. I don’t recall exact details, but I know he goes on some sort of murderous rampage throughout a noble estate, only ending when he is physically subdued. I believe he commits suicide in prison. Prince Edgar is declared the next in line to the throne and acting regent.
+7 Years. 496 AR. The civil war begins to die down. The lull in the conflict led Master Odric to consider retirement, and this is when he filed with the Crown to amend his will. Mama and I are summoned to court, arrested, and executed.
In summary: my father, now fifth in line for the throne, will rocket up to first in a little under seven years. Perhaps this makes him suspect for his family’s incapacitation. At first, I wonder if that is beyond the scope of my investigation, but a nagging suspicion lingers. Can it be a coincidence that, in such a short time, the entire royal family is wiped out in a series of suspicious deaths? And just before I, Edgar’s only living heir, am executed for no crime? Maybe. War is bloody and indiscriminate. Perhaps I have been reading too many royal romance novels, where the trope of the fratricidal prince is as commonplace as a female lead with strangely colored eyes and hair. Or perhaps it is a pattern. Presently, it is too close to call.
I have taken on a nasty habit of working late. I keep my window open, allowing a fresh breeze of autumn air that is just gentle enough not to whisk papers away, and can watch the bustling evening activity of Lavendel Road as I work. Though my neighborhood is poor, it is rich in life. Children laugh and play in the street, weaving around the day laborers and factory women on their way home. Since the weather is nice today, the community kitchen has set up their food stall in the square, and the delectable scent of toasted bread and venison stew wafts up to my window. Soon, Mama will call me down, and we will join the throngs of our neighbors in waiting for our daily bread. The smell will be not so nice amidst the unwashed masses…but our tummies are as hungry as theirs, and the fact that the food is free makes everything more delicious.
This is my home. I have spent so long away from it that I almost forgot how much I love it. Even though, in this life, it was a mere few weeks ago that I studied by this window for countless hours in preparation for Master Odric’s apprenticeship, my mind and memory have not resolved with that fact. I am a grown woman in her childhood home. It really feels like seven long years ago, and to experience it again brings tears to my eyes. Is this but a dream? I wonder. It is so beautiful that it must be. In the split second before the axe falls, my life is flashing before my eyes, and it has come to rest upon this single, perfect moment. If time freezes here, I will let it.
For a minute, I consider it. I could stay here. I could get a job at the washinghouse down the street, like Mama. I could keep living here, with this view, knowing full well that my wage cannot feed me, but assured that the community kitchen will have soup and bread to spare. A humble living. But an honest one. A safe one. When I told Martha that I desired a steady, predictable life, I wasn’t lying, though even a position as a records clerk now seems dangerous compared to staying home. Perhaps time would march on as it did in the last life. Perhaps, in seven years, Mama and I will be seized and dragged away again. But we will have lived those years happy and at home.
As I ponder, a sound catches my attention—the clatter of a horse’s hooves on uneven cobblestone. The colors of its saddle and the tabard worn by its rider mark it as a royal courier, delivering mail from the palace. It is not an uncommon sight on Lavendel Road, mostly heralding legal summons for nonpayment of taxes, but it is directed towards our house today. I know what it is, even before I rise from my desk and head to greet the courier.
I suppose, then, my mind is made up. Had the fates wished for me to relive my childhood years, they would have sent me further back in time. The envelope is addressed to Eloise Odric, in her official capacity as Royal Clerk of Records.