THE USURPERS| 2021

CHAPTER 1: THE HOLY CAGE

I.
CHAPTER 1
The Holy Cage
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ON THE FOURTH DAY of my fourth month in isolation I awoke with a memory of something my sister had told me. We were both children then, but Aurora was always strangely wise. As we watched our father, the Emperor of Elysia's coronation, she whispered to me in the pews: "what do you think he gave up for that?"

I didn't understand it then, but I wished I could go back to that moment and give her an answer. Everything. I would say. As I laid on the floor of my room, watching the constantly locked door, I realized that I too would have gave anything for that kind of power, that kind of freedom. And for a moment, I almost didn't blame my father for sending his cursed daughter away for eight years.

Eight years that were spent with me serving sporadic punishments of isolation by my caretakers. The priestesses had been entrusted by my father to deal with the greatest threat to his reign—me.

Four months and four days. It was an estimate, but I tried to remember to mark each day that passed with a scratch of my nail on the wood frame of the window. Sometimes, especially in the winter, the wood froze and it was impossible to make my marking. Other days, I was too incapacitated from the sleeping tinctures the priestesses would give me to care. Either way, it had been long enough that when the day came that the door opened I almost collapsed in tears.

"Your highness?"

Harsh lamplight filled the room, the figure of a man stepping in the door way. I had to squint to make out his features, but as soon as I saw the outline of a tall man with a long beard, I knew who it was.

Aerves, the captain of the Queen's guard. My mother's most trusted advisor.

I did not try to get off the floor. Nor did I crawl away from him. If he's here to kill you, let it be done with. It's easier to take your revenge as a ghost. I thought.

Aerves stepped into the room slowly, his shadowed head moving to look around the room. When he moved closer, the lamplight lit his face and I noticed there were tears in his eyes.

"You poor child."

I kept my gaze to the floor, swallowing down my sudden instinct to act. I hadn't expected sympathy from him, I certainly did not receive any from my own family. When I was first sent to the temple, I had been a naive child expecting to only be gone for the few months my father had promised. Those months had turned into years, and the letters I had tried sending my parents and siblings had never received responses. Soon enough, the priestesses realized the consequences of my fits of anger and would lock me in my room for months at a time after each one.

The last time, however, hadn't been an incident of anger.

"Did you truly try to end your life?" Aerves asked kneeling before me and taking my hands into his cold ones. I wanted to pull away but I was still in a state of shock. I had no connection with my former life up until now.

I couldn't bring myself to speak. In response to my silence, Aerves started mumbling a prayer, nodding his head with the recitation.

You must be dreaming, I thought to myself. I had resolved a long time ago that my family had sent me away to get rid of me. I was only twelve when it happened, but I still remembered the look on my father's eyes when he told me I would be leaving. The great Emperor of the Elysian Empire had also had been uncharacteristically content when he looked upon me for that last time. At first my naivety had thought it was out of trying to make me feel better about leaving, but I later realized that it had been relief. His monster of a daughter was finally dealt with. Nobody would question the purity of the bloodline with me gone.