The Solitude of an Emperor [TO BE UNPUBLISHED]

58 : Left without Trace

Darya watched Zale prepare a tea for him as she just sat there in his living room, looking at him to check on his health. It was the last day when he got discharged from the clinic. The stab was deep and he should have been barely alive but maybe because he is not an ordinary human that it miraculously healed within a short period of time. He looks quite excited as well. Now she is curious as to why.

“I am glad to have seen you doing well, Zale.” She started a conversation when Zale put a cup and a tea in a kettle on the table between them.

“Yes. It is thanks to the immediate treatment that I was able to survive.” Zale smiled, “I am happy to have lived with good people in your Empire.”

She chuckled, hearing that a person is happy to have lived in the Empire for the first time.

“You were the first one to have thanked me with that reason.”

Zale was surprised. “Really? But I can tell that many people are feeling the same.” He started pouring the tea on the cup.

“All of the people I have met in this town know your name very well. They would shower me with compliments about your achievements and great works. The kids also see you as a fairy. They said that you are so beautiful when they saw you in person.”

There was a small blush on his face when he uttered the last sentence. He does not want to say that, it was a slip of his tongue. He finished putting tea on the cup and moved it to Darya’s side.

Darya chuckles with Zale’s comments. “These compliments… I have not heard any of them in person.” She took the cup of tea and took a sip of it. She then put down the cup before speaking again.

“It is refreshing to live with the many, especially when they would gather to celebrate something that makes you feel so ordinary. I wonder if I could feel it again.” The smile on her lips faded and her expression became nostalgic. 

It is a fact that she had no vision of becoming an Emperor during her first life. It is because she wanted to live ordinarily as a Princess. But because of the bitterness and melancholy caused by betrayal, she had come to wish to stop. She wanted to stop regressing and if it is not possible to stop regressing, at least she could find  “…solitude.” She suddenly utters these familiar words.

Yes, when she kept on regressing to different timelines, she wished for solitude… no, she found it but… she cannot remember. She found it but when she opened her eyes again, the time was turned back.

“Solitude?” Zale was curious about the word she suddenly uttered after being silent for a few seconds.

Darya came back to her senses. She took another sip of the tea and put it down. “I was wondering why I could not remember my fourteenth life, truthfully.” 

Zale flinched there. When Darya talks about her lives, he could not help but feel strange. He would feel out of place, feeling like he is talking to someone who had way more experience in life than him. Sometimes, he gets intimidated by this. It is because he is worried that he might look like a fool in her view because of his shallowness.

But it is also strange that Darya could not remember the last life she had unless…

“Was the time turned back after your fourteenth life?” He wanted to ask this question to himself alone but he did not realize that he said it out aloud. 

This surprised Darya in some way. “Yes.”

Zale was taken aback because of his mistake but seeing Darya unbothered by his question, he felt relieved. He looked at her in the eyes as the different people appeared behind her.