Chapter 47

The two sister moons glimmer dully above, the sky dark and empty of stars. In a small clearing between two towering trees in a forest on a mountain is a mound of dirty the length of a human body. The soil was still damp, the dirt dark and rich. There was no headstone.

“Goodbye Elias. You will be missed.” The words had barely escaped her lips, whispered underneath her breath before Livia turned and runs.

She watches her younger self dash past her, the emperor's cloak clutched tightly around her.

Livia had been so skinny back then. Her skin unblemished and white as snow, her pregnancy barely beginning to curve her stomach. She had been brimming with her newly returned magic. Though at the time, she was still bitter of its unfortunate timing.

She recalls how tedious it had been to evade Saer's men on that mountain. Livia had come close to being caught so many times. It made her desperate, and then she had recalled Sen. That he would be spying on his enemy for his people. How by this time, he should be hidden, in a guild forbidden from doing magic.

She recalled that the guild he was in had once been a spot she could teleport to. From Aster Academy to the Eastern Empire in a matter of seconds. Saer had always been there to greet her, Amelia, in her first life.

Livia turns back to the grave. Her hands rest on her round belly, a wane smile on her face.

“You won’t ever be able to meet your father,” She comments as she idly caresses her stomach, “And he will never be able to meet you.”

Elias had no children.

Maybe a few months after, with his newly wedded empress, but then, he was never given the time. She, along with him, had been killed. Just like all the women who had been in his harem. Any babe that had been nestling in any of their wombs had been destroyed along with their mothers.

Just to ensure Saer’s rule.

“In a way, I’m glad,” Livia admits, “You would have never been able to thrive, to be whoever you turn out to be, as the heir of the Eastern Empire.”

Because her baby was male, he would be proclaimed the firstborn, he would have been acknowledged. He would have been a prince, and he would have to endure all the responsibilities, expectations, and limitations of his status. Her son would have been raised for the sake of his nation; his care would have been forced out of her own hands.

If she had been still decaying in the harem, her pregnancy would have soon been discovered.

Elias would have been happy.

He would have pampered and coddled her even more than usual. It would have been suffocating and utterly annoying, she would have huffed and prickled up, but sit still and let him. Because being by his side, it was tolerable. As unsafe as it was, as much of a target it put on her back as the favorite, Livia knew it was the only way she would survive. To live long enough to escape.

The news would have spread fast.

Soon, the empress dowager would have learned of it, as well as the empress herself.

If Livia had been stuck in the harem, she would have been at their complete mercy. But back then, Elias had kept her close. He would have tried to be a wall, between her and them. He would have tried to protect her.

Like he had the night he died.

And just like that night, he would have eventually failed.

Maybe it would have been poison, a concoction for miscarriage, or a simple accident, but Livia had known it would be only a matter of time before some attempt was made. The empress hated her on principal. She had been the ‘other woman’ after all.

But for the empress dowager, it would have been personal.

That old, withered bitch had sold her and had her raped.

Repeatedly.

And then Livia had been discovered by her son just as she was being thrown away like garbage.

Elias took a liking to her. He was fascinated by her, nearly obsessed.

Livia had hated him as much as she hated the dowager and the princes. Maybe even more than them, because Elias had been so nice, and by then, Livia had been nothing but a black knife ready to cut the first hand to reach out to her. Weak, and beaten down, all she had left was her teeth and broken nails.

She had fought.

Like a beast cornered.

But even then, Elias had persisted. No matter how many times she had broken his skin, drew blood, and remain stonily mute while her eyes had promised his murder every night.

“Your father had been so stubborn,” Livia says, her smile shrinking, “I did everything I could to dissuade him away from me, but he was determined to draw me back into something that wasn’t numb, hurt, and broken.”

Livia looks up to the sister moons.

“It’s a shame that you won’t meet him, but that does not mean his memory does not live on,” she says, and then everything around her flickers and blurs.

She blinks rapidly and wipes a tear from her eye. The world around her sharpens once more.

Livia lifts a hand. With a single thought, a flower appears between her fingers. White petals dipped in purple. It was familiar.

Her smile gone; she places the flower on the grave.

When she turns, she is back in her room. Instead of elegant furniture draped and all shades of pink with high walls, and windows that reached the ceiling on a bed she could sink into, she was on a hard and lumpy mattress in a room she did a half-decent job at painting herself.

Coarse but soft blankets were wrapped around her shoulders, and before her, a flat-screen TV was the only light in the room. She grabs blindly for her phone and reads the text her mom just sent her.

‘Need anything from the store?’ Her mom had written.

‘Baby supplies’ she texts back.

‘What!?’ It was her older sister that replies.

She forgot it had been a group chat. Her sister had moved out years ago, but her mom often used the group chat for everyday conversation, to keep in touch with her daughters.

Livia grins in amusement, and the expression comes easy on her now round face. She wasn’t large, but she wasn’t skinny by any means either. Her skin was no longer pale, but a warm brown, and her hair wasn’t soft and flowed down her back, but instead was captured in a hazard mess of a ponytail at the base of her head.

She shuffles on the bed, and the movement was odd. The covers fall down around her, and she blinks in surprise at her belly. She was still pregnant. The image before her was rather bizarre.

Livia was older in this body, but she never dreamed of ever seeing it swollen with a child. She cups her stomach and marvels at the stretch marks, the way it her belly is actually a bit smaller on this body and does not poke out as much.

“This is weird...” She mumbles and startled a little at her own voice, which is stupid. It’s her voice after all. Before life two and three, but it had been so long.

She struggles to stand up and looks down at the sound of something clattering to the floor. She has to move sideways to see what it is, so her belly does not obstruct the view.

The game controller reappears in her hand the second she lays eyes on it. Livia looks to the TV screen.

Leighton's face greets her looking embarrassed with a plain patio background behind him.

Oh right. She finally had gotten around to his route. Behind her, the covers shift. She turns around to see a clone of herself wrapped in the coves she just discarded with a game controller in her hand.

“Compared to the others, Leightons's route is a bit boring,” She had muttered to herself, squinting at the screen, “But in a way, that is also really nice. Leighton isn’t hubby material, but he is still best boy. Good boy.”

Livia shivers, embarrassment crawling up her spine.

Damn.

She blinks, and her past self freezes in place. Livia turns around and starts prompting through the dialogue on the screen.

Amelia: What's wrong, Leighton?

Leighton: Oh. Um, nothing. I just wanted some fresh air.

Amelia: I understand. I also needed some after...

Leighton (looking away): Yeah...

Oh, this event. It has already passed. Amelia was announced crown princess candidate, and Leighton had not been happy. After getting away from his twin sister, he walks to the patio where Amelia is given the option to let him think in peace or ask what is wrong.

Livia glances over the next dialogue options and chooses one.

Amelia: I got so flustered, b-before I knew what I was going, I w-was accepting it! It had all happened so fast.

Leighton (surprised): What?

Amelia: To think that his highness would even consider me at all. I mean, why me? Surely, there had to be some kind of mistake.

Leighton: You and Prince Rodale have gotten close lately.

Amelia: Of course! He has been helping me with re-organizing the old library. You know they will be destroying it soon. So many good books will just go to waste! I could not sit back and not do anything. Not after all the work, my mom put in keeping it up when she worked at Aster Academy.

Leighton (surprised): That’s why...(mutters)

Amelia: Hmm?

Livia keeps smashing the button, shuffling through the long and dry dialogue. She forgot how tedious this game could be. It was a testament to how much she had become invested in it. Otherwise, she would have dropped a long time ago. Fucking Saer.

Her eyes glaze over as Amelia and Leighton begin to gush over obscure and fake books and she just drops the game controller, fed up.

She is just wondering what memory she should waste her time with when she feels something lifts up and pulls away. A copy has been made, and things move, straighten and slot into a bit of order as they fad slightly, becoming less distracting.

Livia closes her eyes and lets out a small sigh, rolling her shoulders which suddenly feel a bit lighter.

When she opens them again, Sen is taking the second stone off her head.

Beth's worried face quickly takes up her view, “Are you alright, Lady Livia? Are you feeling any symptoms of depletion?”

Livia smirks weakly but arrogantly, feeling only faintly dizzy, “I’m fine, Beth. This spell wasn’t even that taxin-” Her eyes widen, before she quickly pushes Beth away, and promptly throws up on the side of her bed, barely missing Beth's shoes.

“Ugh,” Livia wrinkles her nose in disgust, “Sorry.”

Beth sighs, and the mess is gone with a sparkle of her calming magic. A hand rubs at Livia's back as she gags dryly. Her head spins, and she feels like both her hands have been amputated and her face feels numb.

Her magic was truly gone now.

Damn.

“Do you think you can sit up? Maybe drink something?” Beth asks kindly.

Livia shakes her head, “I want to wash out my mouth,” she says, her voice raspy. A minute later, an empty bowl is placed under her, and she is given minted water.

Once that is taking care of, she settles in bed heavily, her eyes dropping even as Beth tries to ask her more questions.