140AD - The Rise to Empress || [GxG] ||

Chapter 47

Aprilis (April), 143AD

I walk the gardens now each and every morning, past the atrium, beneath the trees and I halt at the marble seat we used to sit on. I hear the servants in the halls and the plebs in the distance, laughing, talking, and sometimes, even crying. I hear the birds chirp and the bees buzz. 

I know I'm not sitting out here because I want to hear these things. I'm sitting here seeking you because I know this was the place you loved most. Sometimes it feels like the last echo of you bounces between the distant walls, between the trees, and finally, it sinks into the soil. And sometimes into my bones too.

As much as this place makes me feel the last bit of you, I hate to admit that you have left behind a vast emptiness not only among the people, but among this palace, among my bed, among my thoughts, and my heart. When things are quiet, it sinks in that you're actually gone. Therefore the noise of the general day isn't that terrible.

Your absence wakes me up every morning and forces me to come here and search for you. I've come to realize that you never wanted any of what surrounded you day by day; you never truly wanted what my father bestowed upon you. He forced you into having a lifelong responsibility over me simply because of his title as the Emperor.

After all these months, I've had an epiphany that Bellamy Blake isn't to blame for your death. Only I can be blamed. I blame myself every day. I think about what was taken from you, and what I took from you all in service of this crown that I'm not sure I even deserve.

You had warned me over and over again that we were running out of time, rapidly so, and that we had to leave the city for our own safety. But I was so wrapped up in your bliss that I didn't want to admit it. And I was too selfish to make the right decision and choose you over my throne. I thought that I could have it all.

But regret always does come too late. A wise man once said to you that he who wants everything loses everything. Qui totum vult totum perdit. And losing you was everything.

I'm the reason you're gone. I'm the reason your laughs will never echo in these halls again, and I'm the reason that I'll never feel your touch again. And your sister's seeming denial of your death worries me; she doesn't mourn you. Not the way I do.

Our time together was bittersweet, my love, and I'm afraid to say that my selfishness has now once again gotten the best of me.

I can't keep allowing the phantom of you to force me awake, and force me to come and sit here, and force me to long for you in the simplest desperate way.

I've written of you every morning, hoping that it would make things easier. It hasn't. I must let go of you, I concede, Lexa. I can't keep searching for you every morning, and I can't keep crying until my chest burns. I yield to the memory of you.

I know you're in Elysium, somewhere, probably sitting on the edge of a mountain, swinging your legs backward and forward, watching the sun set over and over again. You're happy, and I can only beg the gods that even though I can no longer search for you on this plain, you'll still keep waiting for me there.

I can't wait to watch a sunset with you again, my love.

The Empress enclosed the wooden booklet, placing it next to her with a deep breath. It was but another day in Rome, bland really. It was early morning, and she was yet to have breakfast as per usual. Walking the gardens had become ritualistic. It was as if her body had come to know the route on its own, at the exact same time each and every day.

"Heavy is the head that wears the crown." A husky male voice says. "Mind if I sit?"

"Even if I were to say that I did mind, you still wouldn't go away. So, please, do what you will." Clarke says, already mentally preparing herself. Valentina had seized from systematically poisoning Bellamy about a week prior and as if the gods had blessed him, he miraculously recovered from his ongoing ailment. "What can I do for you, Emperor?"