Page 44 of Blood Red Woes

“And I get that, I do, but I’m not an empress,” I say. “My magic is… new. I only got it when I woke up in Laconia. Back home, I’m just a normal girl.” A normal girl with her life falling apart, but whose life isn’t nowadays? Welcome to the world and all that.

“Perhaps that is so, but here, now—you aren’t normal. She’s right. No one has magic other than the empresses.”

Shaking my head, I tell him, “I don’t know about that. You want to know what I found inside Acadia’s castle? Empress Morimento’s son sitting on the throne. Maybe he can’t use magic himself, but magic is still affecting him. He can’t get off the throne. He’s been stuck there for years.”

The more I say, the wider Frederick’s eyes get, until I think they’re about to pop out of his skull. Seconds pass as he processes everything I just told him. It’s a long while before he says, “Her son, you say? That is… that is strange, indeed. What about the Empress herself?”

“Dead,” I say.

“You saw her body?”

“No, I didn’t. Her son told me. He also told me his mom was so insane that she threw your dad into the dungeon and confiscated all of his things.”

The expression on Frederick’s face now reads as crestfallen. His gaze lands on the floor between us. “I… I figured something happened to him. A part of me didn’t believe he reached the castle.” He rubs a hand along the side of his face, smearing the grease stain there. “I can’t believe Empress Morimento would do something like that. I take it, then, she destroyed the research?”

“Not exactly.” Hope returns to Frederick’s face, though not for long, because I add, “He refused to give it to me unless I killed the other empresses for him.”

That gets Frederick to move toward the table to lean on, to give himself more support. “He wanted you to kill the other empresses?” Just by the way he repeats what I said, I can tell he is incredulous at the Emperor’s request.

I nod. “Yep. He said it would cut the threads of magic keeping him on the throne.”

All he says to that is: “Interesting.”

“I told him I wouldn’t do it. I can’t. He kicked me out after that, so I didn’t have the chance to look to see if your dad’s research was still there.” I pause before adding quietly, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. Even if you have magic somehow, I doubt you would be able to take on the others. It’s probably a blessing that Empress Morimento is dead and you didn’t run into her. If the fairest of the empresses could fall into such stark madness… I hesitate to wonder how the woes affected the others. But we can now assume they are still alive, which is more than we knew before.”

I don’t understand why it matters if they’re alive or not; it isn’t like they’re doing anything to help the kingdom. If they’rethat crazy, then locking themselves away in their castles was probably the best thing they could’ve done.

“It is peculiar, though, that Empress Morimento’s son is now on the throne—and imprisoned there, as you say. He was unharmed? No chains you could see?” Frederick asks.

“He was an asshole, but besides that, he seemed fine. No chains. No magic I could see. I didn’t stick around to ask him a bunch of questions. He wanted me to help him or he wanted me to leave. It was one or the other.”

Frederick starts to pace the length of the room. “My father stayed in Laconia for a few years, making sure everyone was okay. Helping the city build more homes for the refugees that made it. Before he left for Acadia, I remember him mentioning Morimento’s son. I find it odd that the woes are keeping him safe. I wonder if, perhaps, the Empress herself was in that same position before she died?”

“You mean, was she trapped on the throne, too?”

“Yes, and does that mean the other empresses have met the same fate? Are they frozen on their thrones as well? And, for that matter, how does he know they yet survive? Can he feel them? Is he somehow connected to Empress Morimento’s magic? If he is, it would be the first I’ve ever heard of something like that.”

Frederick rambles just to ramble, and I listen to him for a while before I say, “He told me that empresses live a long time. That they can have children but that doesn’t mean their kids are their heirs.”

“He’s right. Empresses were never forbidden from having families—although most avoided it because they saw it as a weakness possible enemies could exploit.” Frederick folds his arms over his chest. “It’s said their true heirs are the ones they know from a past life. Strong women who are ready to take up the mantle and the power that comes with it. An empress only dies when she is ready to, when she gives her power to her trueheir. Yet another reason it is so odd Empress Morimento is dead. There should be another empress out there, then, to take her place in Acadia.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” I tell him. “Sure didn’t look like there was a magical woman walking around the castle. Her son was it.”

Frederick’s eyebrows come together. “If that’s the case, then the woes have disrupted more than we thought. We have had three empresses since the beginning of Laconia. Even if her son sits on the throne, it is not the same.”

I can tell he wants to further debate this, but I’m kind of in a hurry to, you know, get back home and fix my own shit, so I say, “Look, I’m sorry I couldn’t get more of your dad’s stuff, but I brought you back that, so now it’s time for your part of the deal.”

The look Frederick gives me makes my stomach clench in the worst way. “I… have been wrestling with our promise while you were gone.”

Maybe it’s due to the fact that I’ve been let down so much in my life, that anything that could go wrong does go wrong, but I know what he means, even though he hasn’t outright said it. “You lied. You lied to get me to go out there and look for your dad’s stuff because you knew you’d never be able to. You said you’d help me!”

“And I meant it, but… researchers have been trying to find ways to control portals for decades. Centuries, even. It’s more likely that I’ll find something to reverse the woes than learn how to create a portal so you can go home.”

His words, though spoken kindly, still cut to the bone, so sharp that my legs suddenly grow weak and I have to take a step back.

“Rey,” Frederick says, “I’m sorry. Deceiving you was wrong, but I—” He reaches for me, though I don’t know why. Doesn’t matter; I sidestep him and avoid his hand. “Help me get to thebottom of the woes, help me reverse them, stop them, and I will spend the rest of my life working to get you home.”

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