The Abandoned Empress : Once More

Chapter 01

The rhythmic sounds of the horses traipsing slowly through the thin bed of white snow that continuously gathered within the paths of the capital city of the Castina Empire reverberated through a young eighteen year old, countryside noble's ears along with the gentle turning of pages. She was the second child and daughter of Viscountess Pratham Rivera, Cerin de Pratham Rivera.

The silky straight ash purple hair that fell at either side of face danced every once in a while due to the cold wind that had found itself trapped in the moving carriage. Her sharp memorizing amber (brownish-orange) eyes were in a thick old book that cover looked to be stained by a great amount of blood. As her black laced gloved hand went to turn another page, it stopped abruptly. She had suddenly felt it. That was a chilling wave that had roughly slammed over her body, causing the seemingly non-existent hair follicles on her neck and arms to stand along with goosebumps scattering all over them. And this wasn't because the weather.

Closing her book, Cerin placed her hand on her neck. Then that hand fell next to her other hand on the ancient literature that rested on her lap. Turning her head and moving the curtain of the carriage window, she asked the one sitting in front of her, who was quietly knitting a purple scarf. "Manon, what is happening, today?"

"Oh yes!" Manon chirped as if suddenly remembering something. "You hadn't been informed. In the next few hours, I believe it was ..... Aris..tia.... Yes!  Aristia la Monique's execution by the guillotine."

"Hmm." Cerin lowly voiced on hearing this. No wonder she had felt the sensation like a sudden sharp blade coming down at her throat. "Aristia la Monique." She murmured to herself, her voice seemingly holding no emotion whatsoever. "So now is her death date, huh."

This was the daughter of Marquess Monique, the one who had been accidently identified as the chosen Empress of Castina by an oracle that had been sent from god and now Queen soon going to be stripped of her title. This was the one her grandmother had foretold would have a fate of misery before she would be put to an end by the only man she ever so desperately loved.

Cerin gazed out window, looking high to see pieces of the imperial palace in view and gray clouds of a snow storm brewing in the horizon. Reopening her book, she commented. "With her death, the fall of the so great Castina Empire is quick approaching."

Manon glanced up from her knitting, innocently tilting her head to the side. "Well, it doesn't matter if the Castina Empire falls, because like always before this empire was established the Pratham Viscounty always stood tall and will continue to do so, right?"

"True." Cerin simply answered with no interest at all, her amber eyes still in the book. But then for some reason an image of Aristia la Monique flashed in her mind.

****

She was now a broken shell of her past self, Aristia la Monique.

Her silver hair that declared that she was one of the noble Monique bloodline was dull, moistureless and hazardously clipped short to her shoulders, leaving the front hair that framed either side of her face longer than the back. Even though she had been frail from since birth, there was no colour whatsoever in her face that made her look ghastly pale. Dark bags were underneath her golden yellow eyes that she had inherited from her mother, that were now lifeless. Clothed in a sullied fog gray short sleeved shirt with a few small splits in it's neckline and a long skirt of the same hue that reached slightly below her ankles, fit for a prisoner, she was bounded tightly in a brown rope with her arms behind her back.

She trudged bare feet up the steps of the hard cold execution platform, where the guillotine sat, awaiting her. The one who would order for the drop of the guillotine's blade on her neck was behind her.