The Empty Ones (Fantasy Romance)

1. Empty

For I am empty, I am worth less, or is it worthless?

This is how my life felt so far: worth less in the better days, worthless in the worst.

I stare at the white stone walls again, for the millionth time. Sometimes, I catch a glimpse of the red moon or the violet one out the small window of my room. It gives me a vague notion of the time that has passed because I lost count of the days some time ago. The window is too small for me to climb out, so maybe that qualifies the room as a cell, a cell for someone who still holds some importance, but still a cell.

The violet moon draws a ray across the room, shining over the scar on the back of my right hand, a testament of what brought me here. I shall never forget; I shall never give up, so the scar shouldn't be in vain, so everything that led to it shouldn't be. 

I take a deep, shaking breath and start to recall the steps that led me here; all of them, one by one, so I don't forget; so loneliness doesn't drive me insane.

My name is Zaretha. I am the only daughter of Karim Wayatashir, Alsayid, great priest and leader of the Faith of Zenith, one of the greatest sorcerers of the last century and right hand of the Emperor, known for his powerful magic as well as for his political cunning and wit. 

And I... I was born empty, magicless, to everyone's most bitter disappointment. 

Many are these days, and nobody can really pinpoint the reason or the exact time it started, when the magic started to drain from our veins, until it became overwhelming, and all the tasks that magic solved seamlessly started to become problems. 

The cahils pointed their fingers at the people and said it was punishment because they disobeyed the gods. What my father, the leader of the cahils thought, I do not know. Maybe he didn't consider that a problem of his own, given his fabled power, not until his own daughter was born without any trace of such. 

They say my father could sense power in others, as only a few magic bearers can. So, thinking back, the day I was born must have been the bane of his existence; an empty baby surviving his healer wife. 

My mother died in childbirth, and, by most metrics, her death was very much in vain. A healer, ironically, who had saved many lives but couldn't save herself. 

My father must have loved her very much, because, in the twelve star circles I have spent in the Palace of Seaheaven, I had seen him only a handful of times, and when I did, it was only to be looked upon coldly and with openly displayed disdain, as if I chose to be empty... As if I chose to be a disappointment... As if I chose to kill her...

Seaheaven was my realm, and I knew every corner of it. Maybe because it was the only place I had known until the age of twelve. So maybe that would qualify it as a cage. A gilded one, with a huge library, an immense garden and a dock that stretched out in the sea, but still a cage because its gates never opened to me. 

 I had the finest tutors to teach me languages, numbers, diplomacy and dance, but I never had a father, even though he wasn't the one who died. Neither did I have a peer my age to share my thoughts with, an equal to bond with. 

Maybe out of the blazing wish to prove my worth, I always tried to excel at everything. Maybe, in the back of my mind, I hoped my father would see that and tell me that even if empty, I am not useless and by that worthy of his love. Everything was wishful thinking in the end because he couldn't have cared less.

Not even his new wife, Imelda, who turned out to be a fairly decent woman, convinced him to build up a relationship with me after several attempts.

They had married shortly after I had turned five. I remember the day clearly because it was the first time I was allowed out of Seaheaven, my father's palace. It wasn't a grand ceremony, and only a few courtiers were present, of whom I remember only the Emperor, with his eyes like burning embers. He looked at me, and I felt his gaze in my soul.