I wake to a folded note on the table beside my bed.
We have been left to help ensure the success of finding the stone.
Briar and Castor.
A simple message, and yet it steals the air from my lungs.
“Oh.”
The sound slips out before I can stop it. The weight of loneliness settles heavily on my chest, that familiar ache of being the one left behind.
A knock comes at the door.
“Come in,” I say, keeping my voice level.
The maid enters, eyes downcast. “Majesty, the council requests your presence.”
Of course they do. The world might be stirring again, but politics never sleeps.
“Very well,” I responded, rising from the bed. “Tell them I will be down shortly.”
She curtsies and withdraws.
I smooth the creases from my clothes, lift my chin, and breathe through the silence.
I may feel hollow, but an Emperor cannot afford to show it.
If I cannot move the world myself, then I will remind it that I still stand.
The council chamber smells faintly of smoke and wax, too many candles burning too long. As I enter, the air shifts, thick with anticipation and barely restrained panic.
“What news do you have?”
“When will Empress Kathera return?”
“What of the food stores? Our people grow desperate!”
The questions crash against me all at once, voices layered with fear and doubt.
I raise a hand. “Gentlemen.”
The noise dies down, though the tension does not.
“We are searching for the Stone of Ilina,” I say evenly. “Briar and Castor have departed to aid in that effort. I trust them, and I expect their return soon.”
A few murmurs ripple through the room, doubt, unease, perhaps even resentment.
Then a voice cuts through the din. “We cannot keep following the ghost of a queen, Majesty. You rule now, or no one does.”
I turn toward the speaker, a young man, dark-haired, still struggling to grow the beard that might make him look older than his years. His hand trembles slightly as he runs it through his hair.
“Can you not feel it?” I ask quietly.
He frowns. “Feel what?”
“Celentra,” I say. “It breathes again. The stillness is breaking. The rivers shift, the air stirs. Can you not feel our Empress pulse within it?”
The man hesitates, glancing toward the others—several nod in uneasy agreement.
“And yet,” I continue, stepping forward, “you stand before me and dare to call her a ghost? The woman who gave you your seat at this table? The Empress whose sacrifice has kept this realm from collapsing?”
Silence follows. Heavy. Charged.
“I rule in her stead,” I say, my voice low but carrying. “And I will do so until the day she returns. Do not mistake patience for weakness, nor faith for blindness.”
The young councilman lowers his gaze. Around him, no one else dares speak.
For a heartbeat, the candlelight flickers. A draft stirs the chamber’s air, and the faint scent of roses threads through the silence.
Kathera’s roses.
The world is moving again.
“I will move with it.”
My voice sounds steadier than I feel.
“Prepare the people,” I continue. “Make sure they know that Celentra is waking, that our Empress will be home soon.”
I turn toward the tall window, away from the council.
Behind me, one of the older council members clears his throat. “If the Emperor believes the world breathes again,” he says softly, “then we must learn to breathe with it.”
The sound of cloaks brushing stone follows. One by one, they leave the chamber until the last echo fades.
When silence finally returns, it is heavier, but somehow less cruel.
I turn back toward the table. The fantastic oak surface gleams in the shifting light, and at its head sits the empty chair, her chair.
For a moment, I can almost see her there.
Kathera, half grinning, her eyes bright with that impossible mix of mischief and command. I can almost hear her laugh, low and rich and alive.
“Oh, Lyrian,” she would say, amusement softening her words, “I have not seen that serious face since the first day we met.”
The ghost of her voice fills the space between heartbeats.
I press a hand to the back of the chair, her chair, and let my thumb trace the smooth curve of the carved crest.
“Then maybe it is time I start wearing it again,” I whisper.
Outside, a breeze stirs the curtains. For the first time in years, they move.