Since Esmera was abandoned on a stranger's doorstep as a baby, the only person who has looked out for her is herself.
Until a lark starts visiting her, leaving behind exotic flowers and iridescent pebbles that the internet doesn't recognise.
Esmera...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"I could ask the same about you." Tauram tilted his head, a crease forming between his eyebrows. "The last I saw you, you were a lady newly-married to a lord. Now, you greet visitors at SUAF. How did that happen?"
That was a big change—a gulf between two lives—and those weren't usually formed by choice.
The breath Anjarah let out wasn't very fitting of a lady, but of course, she had left that life behind. "You do remember I worked at SUAF before marrying Xin?"
"Of course. I just never imagined you'd return here." With elegant fingers, Tauram traced over the ornate feathers carved on the handle of the door enclosing them in the fragrant office.
Anjarah sank into a high-backed chair behind the desk cluttered with paperwork, gesturing for Tauram and Esmera to take the two seats in front of her. Although grimy and indented by every person who had occupied this chair before Esmera, the green, gold-embroidered cushions seemed too pretty to sit on, but she obeyed.
Lundas took his place beside Tauram, while Samier scurried behind the desk, out of the clouded leopard's sight.
"Ten years is a lot of time to catch up on in one conversation." Anjarah picked at a loose black thread dangling from her chair.
Tauram leaned forward, resting his forearms on the desk. "But it's a good start."
Anjarah sighed, the sound heavy with grief and disappointment Esmera recognised all too well. It was the sound of someone whose life hadn't gone as she had intended.
"You might remember Xin's family wasn't too fond of me." A shadow passed over Anjarah's face, stark though the office was dim around it.
"I do." Tauram cocked his head. "You were brave to marry him despite that. You must've really loved him."
There was something in his tone. Was it curiosity? Bitterness? If Esmera could read it, maybe she would know what had been between Tauram and Anjarah before.
Anjarah smiled thinly. "Xin got very sick five years ago. When he passed away, his brother replaced him as the heir to the Mingei estate, and his noblewoman wife replaced me." She clasped her hands on her lap.
When she spoke, her voice was brittle with pain that never faded when and how everyone said it would. "We had a son, but I came from a working-class family. In the wake of Xin's death, his parents decided his son was unworthy of his title because of his commoner's blood, and I was unworthy of their house, so out it was with me and my baby."
"Oh, Anjarah... I'm so sorry." Tauram rested his hand on hers.
Her eyes fixed on their hands, but Esmera didn't think that was the image held in her distant eyes. Maybe she was seeing someone else's hand instead of Tauram's, during some happier time. Maybe she was seeing nothing—all that remained after she had lost her husband and everything he had given her.
