Empress of Self-Ruin

Chapter 17: Polite Conversation Between Two Wolves

TRIGGER WARNING: There's a relatively detailed scene of a panic attack. Please be mindful when reading and never feel like you need to read things that make you uncomfortable.

After leaving the prayer room, I wandered aimlessly around the vast palace, tuning down everything around me and trying to stay out of people's sight.

The halls were red from the sunset that streamed in from the windows. The sky outside was fresh with colors, brushed upon an artist's canvas like its rays were destined to create a great work of art, one given only to those with open souls who could capture the beauty in simple moments.

And all of a sudden, I was submerged in melancholy as if it were a cloak that I couldn't simply let fall to the floor, and though I held it so tight, I couldn't find the warmth I needed.

"Calypso, hold your head high. You are a Berenice and an Elloid, and nothing, not even some slippery snake, can hurt you or our houses. Do remember that on the off chance that anything should happen to you..." She paused, and I waited for a threat of a scolding if I embarrassed their name, but Mother said, "I will be there."

I remembered how my heart burst with sudden warmth when I heard my mother say those words to me as if it had thawed after years of snowfall.

She said she would be there for me. Yet, right now...

My heart gurgled, sputtering as it said, But she's not here right now, is she? Nor that time when you were executed.

She was long dead, even before she could see me crowned as the empress. Even someone as greedy and ambitious as my mother couldn't win against fate.

What an anticlimax.

I sighed dejectedly.

Despite the bitterness inside of me, I was suddenly overwhelmed by a need to hug my mother.

Oh, don't get me wrong!

My mother wasn't exactly an affectionate or warm person. If I was being frank, I wasn't either.

But I remembered the hug I had shared with her when I almost got into an accident in the Winter Forest near our territory had calmed my thundering heart then.

Pushing down the need to be held, I placed my fisted hands at my sides, determined not to let my charade break as I walked with a raised chin into the bright sunset.

I would be fine, I told myself. As long as I was cautious and calculated, then everything would go as I planned.

I started to relax, stepping down onto the second-floor landing and—

"Ah!" I stumbled back upon impact with a tall figure coming up around the corridor.

Their hands steadied me, an instinctive action to stop me from falling, and just when I thought I got lucky for once for not plummeting down the stairs and ending up with broken bones, fuck, fuck—of course, it was Constantine bloody Aragon.

With my luck lately, who else would it be?

I lurched back to free myself from his touch and immediately cursed myself inwardly for my carelessness. I should've played it cool instead of acting like a wounded animal.

But what should I do? My heart was barely beating, and even only the sight of him had me fighting away goosebumps.

His brows were furrowed, lips slightly parted. It was clear that he was surprised to see me.

There was a persistent buzzing in my ear, drowning out everything around me: the faint noises from the servants, the knights, even the chirping bird outside, all smothered by the buzz as I was caught in Constantine's fixed gaze. The colors and shapes of my surroundings faded into a blur. It was like we were the only people in this palace, and everything else had vanished into nothing.