It’s a different place entirely than it was when it was my mother’s sitting room. I remember it bright and soft, with sunlight filtered through the stained-glass windows and a thick patterned rug that covered most of the floor. Cozy chairs and sofas surrounded a sunstone fire pit where she would sit at the end of the day with her closest friends and advisors. The memories are hazy, but I remember her laughing with Ampelio, a goblet of red wine in her hand, while I played with my toys on the rug. I remember him whispering something in her ear and her resting her head on his shoulder. I don’t know if the memory is real, but I suppose it doesn’t matter. I can hardly ask them about it.

I blink the thought away and force myself to focus on Kaiserin Anke. It’s been years since I’ve been this close to her in anything but an official capacity, when her skin has been slathered with an apothecary’s worth of creams and tints. Time hasn’t been kind to her, leaving her face looking like a half-melted candle and her hair thin and patchy. The red silk dress is finely crafted, but it sags on her gaunt frame and makes her skin look even more sallow. She’s still young—not more than thirty-five—but she looks much older, despite the Water Gems coiled around her neck.

“Your Highness summoned me?”

Her small, milky eyes rake over me from the top of my head to my toes, and her mouth purses. “I thought it best we speak privately before you go and do something foolish,” she says. The roughness in her voice takes me by surprise. The rare times I’ve heard her speak in public, she’s always sounded more like a child than a woman.

I glance around the room. There is no one waiting behind her, no one crouched behind the patch of armchairs or the sofa. There is no one behind me either; the guards and my Shadows remain on the other side of the thick door. At the volume she’s speaking, no one else can hear her. Still, my stomach churns. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Your Highness.”

Her eyes linger on me a moment longer before her mouth curls into a tight smile and she clasps her hands in front of her. Each finger is ringed with a Spiritgem—every gem except for Earth. The Kaiser is sure to forbid his wife any strength, though she could certainly use it. “You’re an accomplished liar, I’ll admit that. But he’s always better, isn’t he?”

I fight the urge to swallow or look away. I hold her gaze. “Who is?” I ask.

Her smile is wan. “Very well, little lamb. We’ll play your game.”

The nickname prickles the back of my neck like an annoying insect I can’t ignore. She used to call me by it when she first came to the palace after the siege. That was before I understood the magnitude of everything that had happened. That was before the Kaiser’s punishments started. That was when I’d mistaken her cowardice for kindness.

“I don’t know what you mean, Your Highness,” I tell her, keeping my voice level.

She turns and walks away from me, gliding toward the chaise with the grace of a ghost before sinking down into it. “Has anyone ever told you how I became a kaiserin, little lamb?” she asks.

“No,” I lie. I’ve heard a dozen versions of the story, each different. Even those who were there, who saw it happen with their own eyes, each has their own version of the tale, painting it as everything from a triumph to a tragedy.

She leans back in the chaise and lifts her chin a fraction of an inch. Her eyes are far away, even when she looks directly at me. “You might as well sit,” she says.

Tentatively I cross the room and sit down in the chair closest to her. I try to mimic her prim body language, crossing my legs at the ankles and resting my hands in my lap. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s the way she always sits, even now, when there is no one to see her but me.

“I was born Printsessa of Rajinka, a small country on the Eastern Sea. A tenth child and a fourth daughter, of little importance outside the promise of a strong marriage. Luckily, one of our greatest allies had a son close to me in age. Our betrothal was sealed before my second birthday.”

“The Kaiser?” I asked.

Her mouth twitches into something that might be a smile. “Not at the time, no. Prinz Corbinian was how I knew him. Everyone called him Corby, much to his great displeasure. I didn’t meet him until I was twelve, but from that moment I was hopelessly smitten.” She laughs softly and shakes her head. “It’s difficult to picture now, I suppose, but he was a gangly boy with an easy smile. He made me laugh. We wrote one another such sentimental letters, you would hardly believe it.”

I know that this story turns, eventually, to the Kaiser only speaking to her in cruelty and the Kaiserin going mad with fear and hate. Thinking of him as a boy penning soppy love letters is impossible, like trying to imagine a dog dancing a waltz.

“My wedding day was beautiful. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and I don’t think I’d ever been happier—it was what I’d dreamt of for three years, it was everything I’d been raised for. You and I were raised in very different worlds, in that respect,” she says, keeping her gaze on me until I glance away. She clears her throat and continues. “We were wed in the chapel at my family’s palace, where I had first sworn myself to my god as a child. We only had one in Rajinka, you know. It was much less confusing.”

She pauses to take a breath, or maybe to steady herself. I know, more or less, what comes next. In no version is it ever a pleasant story—not for the Kaiserin, at least.

“We said our vows under the watch of his gods and mine, and the whole time, he couldn’t take his eyes off me. It felt like…it felt like we were the only two people in the chapel…like we were the only two people in the world. And when it was official, he raised his hand and gave a signal I didn’t understand.”

Though I know what happens, I still wait to hear her say it, barely breathing.

“His father’s men turned their blades on their kaiser, their kaiserin, all of his siblings, to be safe. Even the little ones, barely out of their short clothes. A few of the noblemen as well—anyone whose loyalty Corbinian couldn’t secure. And when that was done and the floors of the chapel were slick with Kalovaxian blood, they turned on my family and friends. Bringing weapons into a place of worship is a sin, so my people couldn’t even defend themselves. It was a slaughter.”

Her voice begins to shake, and I can’t help wondering if this is the first time she’s told this story. Who else would have listened? The Kaiserin keeps no confidantes, has no friends, no one at all who is wholly hers. And like me, there are parts of her she has to hide at all costs from the Kaiser.

“My parents, my sisters, my brothers, the girls I’d had lessons with, my aunts, my uncles, my cousins. All of them were dead before I even had time to scream. And when it was done, do you know what my love said to me?”