Gloria Regali

Chapter 30

No amount of political power and money cannot change what was done.

The empress of the Philippine empire was given every bit of finery. A monarch walks in silk and gold amongst the common folk. Anastasiya remained unmoving as she felt the presence of her late son in his nursery. She had remembered how frequently she spent her time here with Elias.

Every detail in the room brought back memories of her son. She'd spent the entire morning locked up in her son's room, afraid of losing the familiar aroma and identity that the room had provided. The empress had spent her time surrounded by her own thoughts and memories of her son.

The crown prince was still here.

Even if her visions were blurred by darkness and grief, Anastasiya could sense his presence. Her son's sweet coos were echoing in her mind like a soft whisper. The empress had lost count of time as she sat on the floor in her son's room, terrified that his memory might vanish.

She can't afford to let him go. How could she let someone go for a brief moment she had spent with him?

Growing up, Anastasiya was told that bidding farewell for someone who she had spent time with for a short amount of time would be the least painful amongst all. They had not specified that bidding farewell to an infant she had carried within her would hurt more than someone she had spent a lifetime with. After all, no one foreseen that she would lose her son at a very young age.

What the empress was going through right now is excruciatingly painful. It's as if Anastasiya hadbeen stabbed in the heart by a long and sharp knife.It seems to be as if her body was not willing to cooperate and doesn't have any more life in it. The wind continues to whisper in her ear that she should put an end to her pain. It's difficult to accept the passage of time now that her son no longer with her.

Her eyes scanned the room with such curiosity. Every bit of the room was once filled with laughter and memories she was willing to treasure.It was the days when she can still see the sun before her eyes. However the unthinkable happened, and the the light had dissipated from her surroundings.She was willing to exchange everything for a do-over: before such tragedy happened and her world shattered.

Before all of her dreams for Elias obliterated.

She had been crying for hours already. Anastasiya knew she can't go on like this any longer. There were no tears to shed and now I'm she was a mess. The atmosphere suddenly changed onced she realizes that it was her reality. The nursery room was once filled with childish laughters and countless memories. To see it all empty and silent, was too painful to bear.

The nursery felt her emptiness and it mimicked what she felt.

What happens now?

The empress did not want to know. She knew far too well that the whole empire was mourning for the sudden death of the sole heir to the imperial throne. Anastasiya could not care less about the throne, Elias was her son before he had been the crown prince of the nation. She had been grieving as his mother and not as an empress of the empire. She knew far too well that the court would urge her to conceive for another heir once more in order to secure the throne.

That was what she was in their eyes anyway, a breeding machine.

Was it really the will of the heavens? For a mother to love her son yet to be separated by the veil of death. For her to move forward and age yet he remained frozen in time, eternally stuck in the past. For Anastasiya to live while her son could only be a fragment of a memory. She could call out his name yet all he could be was an empty title in the eyes of the court.

A torturous end, indeed.

That is what the empress will learn to live with.

A knock was heard yet the empress did not respond. Strangers, they've arrived. The empress had considered several of the nobles a stranger towards her. They would pay their respects and condolences yet they will be gone in a flash. Her solitude was drawing to an end, as they were slowly asking for her presence. She was the empress of the Philippine Empire once more.