Chapter 1
Her funeral was held with great grandeur.
The news that the Empress of the Elhyde Empire had drawn her final breath plunged the entire nation into mourning.
For days on end, day and night alike, the procession of mourners never ceased.
Instead of the white flowers traditionally carried in remembrance, the people bore blossoms of vivid hues, distributed by the Imperial Household.
Within a glass coffin, lavishly adorned with gold and jewels, lay Empress Henriette, sleeping in perfect repose.
Clad in a white gown, she looked today more than ever like a bride awaiting her groom, radiant and beautiful.
The dress, made of layer upon layer of costly silk, was adorned with heavy jewels and fragrant fresh blooms.
Yet, whatever finery she wore, it was but a burial shroud, destined soon to be consumed by flames along with her.
On the final day of the grand funeral, the cortege began its last march.
The sky stretched high above, flawless and cloudless.
At the head of the procession walked the Emperor, performing a grief that was almost excessive.
Clutching at the coffin, he seemed unable to stem his tears, a sight that was, to the unsuspecting eye, achingly pitiable.
The crowd, taken in by his display, wept all the harder.
What a spectacle it was.
“Her Imperial Majesty, the great Empress Henriette Neva Hortensia, was not only the cherished soul-companion of His Imperial Majesty Wilhelm, but also the compassionate mother who cared for our hardships.”
By Imperial custom, a royal’s body was placed upon a beautifully adorned funeral barge, set aflame, and sent drifting out to sea.
It was the highest honour the living of the Elhyde Empire could bestow upon the departed, a final gift.
The deep blare of horns signalled the last rite.
At the command, hundreds of flowers were flung into the air.
Petals scattered on the wind, releasing an overwhelming fragrance as they bid farewell to the Empress.
Just as the priest raised his torch to set the barge alight…
“W–Wait! The Empress Her Majesty, the Empress has come back to life!”
A young boy, wide-eyed, cried out to the crowd.
Thinking it nonsense, the mourners broke off their silent prayers and looked up.
But when others confirmed that the boy had not been seeing things, a ripple of shock ran through them.
The Empress slowly rose from where she had lain as if in a deep sleep.
With a languid flutter of her lashes, she drew the cool air deep into her lungs, spreading her chest wide as though to savour the fresh breeze, again and again.
Yes.
The Empress Henriette, I had returned to life.
She had come back because she would not go quietly into death.
Blood, hot and surging, rushed into the heart that had lain still, stiff muscles loosened and bones grew firm once more.
Her pallid skin bloomed with the soft blush of spring roses.
As memories flooded back in a great tide, she knew beyond doubt, she was alive again.
‘Ah. I have truly returned.’
She turned her head slowly, looking out at the assembly.
They stared as though they had seen a ghost in broad daylight.
Henriette smiled lazily and greeted them.
“It is a fine morning, is it not?”
The crowd erupted with cheers, sobs, and embraces mingled until the solemn funeral was thrown into joyful chaos.
The priest, mouth agape, did not even notice that his torch was setting his own mitre aflame instead of the barge.
Her lady-in-waiting, Charlotte, who had been clinging to her composure all day, collapsed on the spot.
“Her Majesty the Empress has returned! Long live! Long live!”
“Glory to the Elhyde Empire! Glory to Their Majesties!”
“Long live! Long live! Long live!”
The funeral, now turned festival, was filled with three kinds of people.
Those who cried out in joy,
Those moved to tears,
And those who could not contain their rage.
But of one thing Henriette was certain: none of them could possibly imagine what she had endured, or how close to death she had been, to return now.
“…Henriette.”
The voice was Wilhelm’s. Beneath its measured calm lay a quiet fury.
Knowing full well what lay behind it, she nonetheless smiled brightly.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“We have left the Empress in such a poor place for far too long.”
He spoke words he did not mean, and approached the barge.
Slipping his arms under her knees and shoulders, he lifted her lightly, yet with a roughness like a man reluctantly retrieving a discarded toy from the rubbish.
Could there be a sight more entertaining?
In the gold of his eyes, so close before her, dozens of emotions clung together in a tangled snarl.
Deciding how best to match the Emperor’s little performance, she looped her arms loosely around his neck.
Her lips almost twitched upward at the sight of his face, but she schooled her expression and replied evenly:
“I have been away far too long.”
Words like I missed you, I love you, I longed for you had long since lost all meaning between them.
Such obvious lies were best left unsaid as they were after all, a matter of courtesy.
The man holding her desired only one thing.
He wanted her perfect death.
But….
She had returned.
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Charlotte was weeping again, sobs spilling over uncontrollably.
She had brushed the Empress’s silver hair with such care that it lay smooth and gleaming.
Henriette could not dislike the girl, who alone seemed genuinely concerned for and glad of her return.
Still, there were things that drew her attention, Charlotte’s mourning sleeves, badly stained and the several handkerchiefs soaked through and the girl’s eyes, swollen and red from crying.
Aside from that, the atmosphere of the chamber was one of solemn quiet, broken only by Charlotte’s persistent hiccups.
Henriette heard the small, stifled sound of a maid’s laughter from somewhere behind her.
Charlotte flushed crimson at the mockery, gripping her comb so tightly that her hand trembled.
Henriette, quick to notice, spoke without turning her head.
“I wish to be alone with Charlotte. The rest of you may go.”
“Yes, Your Majesty…”
The maids bowed and withdrew, leaving the Empress’s already spacious bedchamber feeling emptier still.
Charlotte continued to hiccup miserably.
“Oh, truly… hic! I—I am sorry…”
Her tiny hands balled into fists and thumped her chest in an effort to stop. It was the sort of sight that could make anyone smile.
Henriette, for her sake, kept her own amusement in check.
“It’s all right, Charlotte.”
“But, but… hic… Your Majesty…”
“Will you help me change? I’ve not worn anything this heavy with ornaments since my wedding day. And I will need a bath.”
“Of course.”
Henriette plucked a blossom from where it was pinned over her heart, turning it slowly in her fingers before setting it atop the dressing table.
A flower cut down at its peak, it reminded her of herself.
“This dress… hic… His Majesty the Emperor chose it himself.”
“He did?”
“Yes… himself.”
Wilhelm, who had shown no interest in anything she did for so long, had chosen her burial shroud with such care.
The hypocrisy of it, the brazen insult, filled her to the crown of her head, so much so that her mind went cold.
“I thought there would be no one to miss me when I was gone.”
“How can you say such a thing? I, Charlotte Goldbloom, will serve none but you, Empress Henriette.”
Her lady-in-waiting, breathless with vehemence, hurried on.
“In all the Elhyde Empire, the title of Empress belongs to you alone. Do not say such things! When Your Majesty opened your eyes again, it was as though I had been reborn as well.”
It seemed the hiccups had finally passed, for Charlotte’s words tumbled out like rapid-fire.
“Charlotte… what day is it?”
“Let me see, today is the fifteenth. You have been abed for ten days, so… ten days since the Princess’s death anniversary.”
“Ten days. I see.”
Henriette narrowed her eyes, tracing back each memory, her daughter’s death and her own.
Emilia Justine Hortensia.
The sweet, clever child of five, who had inherited the name of the great-grandmother who had doted on Henriette.
She was without doubt the legitimate blood of the Imperial House.
Yet her hair, golden as sunlight, had sown discord between her parents.
A golden-haired child, born of an Emperor with hair black as a storm and an Empress whose hair shone silver as winter snow.
Even when Henriette explained that the child’s tightly set mouth was her father’s, no one believed her.
There was no stopping the idle tongues, and the whispers grew like snowballing frost.
In no time at all, scandalous words passed from mouth to mouth.
They said the Empress had taken the captain of the knights to her bed.
People believe what they wish to believe. In the end, the Emperor had begun to doubt her.
The rift between them only deepened.
Unless required by matters of state, they scarcely met face to face at all.
The memory, vivid and foul, turned Henriette’s stomach.
A wave of nausea struck, and she pressed a hand to her mouth, face pale.
Startled, Charlotte hastily offered her own skirt in place of a basin.
Henriette buried herself against Charlotte’s warmth and screamed until her voice broke.
Only when she had subdued the storm of feeling within did she speak the one truth lodged in her chest.
“Emilia… I want to see her.”
There was no reply.
“My daughter… I miss her so much.”
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“Where is the Empress?”
“She said she was unwell and would forgo the evening banquet.”
At the attendant’s reply, Wilhelm gave a perfunctory nod, as if it mattered little. He was in no mood for supper himself.
The edge of the knife slid cleanly through tender meat, parting it with ease. From the split flesh seeped a red-tinged juice, spreading across the plate.
The chef had said it was the finest veal, prepared specially for the occasion.
Ah… and the long-awaited funeral of the Empress had been ruined so completely.
The Emperor’s dry laughter split the still air.
It was far from the smile of a man glad to see his only consort alive again, there was something far too cold, too eerie, in it.
“Today of all days, the meat tastes particularly fine.”
He had not spoken to elicit an answer.
An oppressive silence hung over the ornate banquet hall, as heavy as the gold and silk that dressed it.
Wilhelm tipped back his wine, swallowing it in a single draught as though to quench something hotter than thirst. He tossed his head slightly, as if clearing it.
The unexpected had happened. Now, the next step must be decided.
But how had it happened?
That day, he had checked the Empress’s pulse himself. Again and again.
He had even received the imperial physician’s formal confirmation.
When her pale skin had taken on the faint blue of death, he had ceased to doubt it.
Everything had been arranged with meticulous care.
His brow furrowed sharply.
The Empress was meant to have been a grieving mother who had pined so for her dead daughter that, on the anniversary of the child’s passing, she drank poison and followed her into death.
She was supposed to vanish in precisely that way.
“Henriette…”
Outside, fireworks burst noisily in celebration of her return.
Dappled with flickering light, his face took on an unsettling cast.
“My Henriette…”
The crackle and boom of the fireworks smothered the rest of his words, just as well, for they were better left unheard.
“You must die for me again.”
