Renouncing the Emperor's Heart

Just a little while of rest...

The morose company of the dead was the last place she expected to find the little bit of peace and quiet she had been longing for. Yet, in a way, it made sense that the departed would know the silence she needed.

Jovine inhaled the warm spring air, ignoring the way her turquoise silk gown grew cold and damp from the wet grass as she sat atop the hill of the Imperial Cemetery. Her heavy eyes traced the view of green mountains filled with colorful blooms still hanging onto the season before the heat would come to wither them away. As the furthest site from the Palace, it felt like she had finally escaped its confines and found herself in some faraway forest where no one would find her. Of course, the thought of crumbling skeletons nestling beneath the ground was a small hindrance to the illusion, but with her back turned away from the headstones, she could neglect that little fact.

The worst is yet to come...

Her father was right. It would only get messier, more hostile and sinister, but for now, for a just little while longer, Jovine pretended that problems like that were far away in the distance where it couldn't touch her. Like all great thinkers, she simply chose to avoid the slightest act of running her brain to the ground with more senseless deliberations.

She smiled. Maybe she should keep it like this...flee somewhere where no one knew her and start a quiet life in the woods. Maybe she could forget that people were waiting for her. That there was a purpose she couldn't discard.

Maybe she could forget why she came back in the first place. The death that dragged her into this insanity.

She sighed and rested her chin on her knees. If only it were that easy...

"There you are."

Jovine jumped, her little bubble of thoughtless delusion rupturing. She swiveled around to see the Grand Duke standing a few arms away, glancing down at her with a pleased glint in his eye.

She blinked, following his steps as he made his way to her sitting form and dropped down beside her.

"I know you asked me to wait for you, but I'm afraid I've been too impatient lately," he admitted, admiring the view she was just dreaming towards.

Her eyes settled on his knot of silver hair tied at his nape, his sharp jaw, his straight nose, his warm eyes when he finally glanced her way. When he smiled, she couldn't help but return it.

She was surprised, but she welcomed his presence.

"Well, you found me," she said, turning away to find solace in her new favorite view again.

"I did."

A low hum in her throat was her only response. Her eyes closed as a soft breeze tangled through her unbound hair. The scent of fresh flowers and earthy grass whirled around her.

"How are you, Your Majesty?" Amon softly asked.

Keeping her eyes closed, she raised a brow. "Are we back to formalities, Grand Duke Amon?"

"No," he chuckled. "But seeing you sitting here like this, with the wind in your hair, the sun in your face...you seem too regal for me to call you by name."

She exhaled a laugh. "I have grass stains on my rear and a bug bite inside my gown. Nothing about this should look regal to you."

"I beg to differ."

She curved her lips into a small smile. Her head lolled back in a drowsy haze as another wave of green-scented wind grazed her skin. With the cool breeze and the warm sun, Jovine felt content enough to fall asleep right then. A sense of great satisfaction emanated from the wind as it touched her cheek. In her state, it felt solid enough to support her head as she leaned into the pull.

How kind of the sweet spring air to come to her aid. How friendly, and warm, and...

Familiar. 

The wind. Again. 

Jovine's eyes flew open. Whipping her head to the side, she clashed with the sight of Amon's flushed, tensed face and the slight tremble in his clenched hands.

As the wind picked up again, her fingers reached out into the invisible pressure, testing to see if she could indeed touch it as it had touched her. When a soft draft wriggled around her finger, it felt as if it was intent on holding onto her. She didn't miss the way Amon's pupils dilated from the act.

"I had the strangest thought the last time we met," Jovine baited, studying his expressions with a stoic gaze. Her fingers curled into her palm, an attempt to trap a bit of this curious air that seemed to thrum in her hold. "It must be my own mind playing tricks on me. A mirage or a hallucination on my part."

Amon never answered. He only kept staring with dark pupils and a thin rim of gold.

"The idea," she continued, never breaking his stare. "That this wind." Her hand wafted through the air once more. "Is you."

There it was. The speculation she had been holding back for days until she could speak to him again. The incomprehensible notion that something...unnatural was happening around him. Something mystic, enchanting, and unearthly.

"Is it?" she firmly asked once more, needing a direct answer from him rather than a faintly heard hallucination that seemed more and more unlikely as the days passed.

His fingers twitched, an unwilling jerk that seemed more instinct than calculated, and a wave of air swirled around them, blurring the world outside until her head spun.

His answer was the same.

"Yes."