Dinner time.
I'm rattling my empty plate with the spoon.
Boring.
Tapping on the edge of the porcelain plate.
I stopped paying attention to the overly pretentious conversation the people at the table were trying to have. Alet walked me to the door of the dining hall, but guards weren't allowed to go inside so he said he will wait for the dinner's end outside. I also had to change my outfit before that, did I tell you?
The light purple gown had settled around me like liquid moonlight, pooling softly at my feet. The high collar framed my neck was embroidered with gold strings that caught the flicker of the candles each time I turned my head. The air shimmered with laughter and the muted chime of crystal, yet I found my thoughts wandering down to my shoes. Guess the color? Golden, gleaming, of course, and far too tight. They bit at my feet with every subtle shift, a secret penance beneath all the splendor. If I could, I would slip them off under the tablecloth. I was never a fan of wearing shoes.
I had always worn gold in my attire for royal gatherings, intricate threads woven through silk and burning vibrant red, curling into patterns of sunlight strings and ancient sigils that shimmered whenever I moved. The tradition had been born of the late queen's will. When she was still alive and I was still... young, she had said that gold was the color of divinity, of endurance. "So that people never forget the light you bring us," she once murmured as the seamstresses fitted her train.
I was spending a lot of time with her in my first year here. The queen had taken a sudden, inexplicable liking to me during that time. She was inviting me to her private teas, asking my thoughts on matters far above my station, even laughing, on occasion, in that rare, silvery way that made the courtiers turn their heads. She eventually became colder to her own son than anyone dared admit, her affection toward him measured in duty rather than warmth. That's when she started being mean to me.
To Miriam, that year was an unforgivable theft — I had taken what little affection the queen had left to give. I could feel her eyes on me during those afternoons in the sunlit garden, her smile too sweet, her voice too careful. She was her mother's mirror in every way, but where the queen's chill was elegant, Miriam's was sharp. Even then, there was something unsteady in her laughter, something fragile at the edges. Well… the queen died, and some whispered that it was Miriam's doing. In her place, Miriam rose. She was no longer a mere reflection, but a sharper elegant cut, more flawless version of her.
I don't know for how long you have been looking after me. I saw you only recently, only recently I started caring about this. But I can tell you one thing - I didn't like the queen. Not then, not when her smiles began to tremble into rage, not when whispers spread through the palace halls of her sleepless nights and sudden fits. They said grief had driven her mad after the king's death, but I think the madness had been waiting for her long before that.
Even though I didn't like her, I still obeyed the rule about wearing gold. I found I liked it, surrounding myself with brighter hues, trading the monotony of grey and routine for something that actually felt alive. Every gathering, every banquet I was a little happier because I could wear any of the golden gowns. The crowns are still terrible. The shoes are too.
Did I say I am bored? The only thing keeping me sane is talking to you. Thank you. Thank you because otherwise I would go crazy.
I think that the guests by now should get their main dish. Erzion was at the center of every bit of small talk among the nobles and from time to time I exchanged brief glances with Miriam, who sat across the table from me. To my right, at the short end of the table, sat Erzion. On my other side were Prince Deon and his wife, Lia. I suspected he had drugged her or something, for she was uncharacteristically silent this evening.
"The end of the year is close too!" One of the people at the table whom I hadn't met before was speaking so loudly that his voice broke through the imaginary barrier I used to block out political talk. The only time the barrier disappears is when someone mentions the word territory. And apparently, that was exactly what this annoyingly loud voice had done. "The northern territories are extremely cold because of the Northern Sea."
False alarm. The word was not mentioned in any controversial or aggressive way. Boring.
"Pst."
I lifted my eyes from my plate, the silverware feeling suddenly heavier in my hands. For a moment, Erzion had stopped speaking entirely and his gaze found mine.
"You bored?" His voice was low, casual, but carried that quiet teasing edge he always seemed to use around me.
"Rhetorical question." I muttered, keeping my eyes on him just long enough to let him notice the corners of my mouth twitch.
"You hungry?" His tone softened slightly, but there was still that flicker of mischief behind his calm.
"No?" I replied, shrugging lightly, though the plate in front of me suddenly seemed far more interesting than the exchange itself.
"I have prepared something for you."
"Dessert comes last," before I could even continue my sentence a new plate appeared in front of me. The servant quietly filled my glass with more water and left the room the same way he had entered- imperceptibly.
On the plate lay something that resisted definition. It shimmered faintly, as if the surface were alive, colors shifting between bronze and deep indigo, a slow pulse of dark and light shades. It didn't smell like food. It smelled like rain on metal, like burnt sugar, like... something delicious.
I touched my fork to it and it gave way too easily, like it had been waiting for that exact motion. The first bite was a confusion of texture, it was soft, crisp, cold, warm, and then the taste struck. Not sweet, not savory, not even tangible: instead, emotion. Regret. Wonder. Laughter. I felt them more than I tasted them.
Suddenly I was somewhere else.
The transition took a blink. The clinking of silverware stretched into a ringing note that shimmered and broke apart, scattering into the distant sounds of trumpets and laughter. The ceiling above me rippled and expanded until it became a vast canopy of striped fabric, gold and crimson, swaying slightly in a wind I couldn't feel.
I was standing on packed earth, the kind that has been trampled by countless feet. The air smelled of sawdust, candied nuts and smoke from torches that flickered in uneven light. Around me, the crowd murmured but they were all faceless, shifting figures.
A drum rolled somewhere unseen.
From the shadows, a man in a glimmering red costume stepped into the ring. His eyes caught mine for an instant, sharp and knowing, before he turned and began to climb a rope that seemed to rise into infinity. The higher he went, the quieter the crowd became. My heart moved with him, matching the rhythm of his ascent.
And then...
He spun in slow motion, his body bending the light around him, each rotation scattering a trail of golden dust that hung in the air like the memory of movement. For a moment, he was neither falling nor flying - just suspended, as if the laws of motion had been politely asked to wait.
And when he finally caught the rope again, the tent erupted in applause so fierce it blurred into the sound of waves crashing. I realized it wasn't applause anymore, but the sound of my own pulse, dragging me back to the dining room.
"Vilendra?" I heard Erzion calling me.
I blinked. Erzion was watching me with curiosity. A strange, unfamiliar warmth pooled between my legs, spreading in quick, shivery pulses that made it hard to think. My breath came heavier, uneven, as if my chest couldn't keep up with the sudden heat rushing through me. My blood felt like it was boiling beneath my skin, my face and neck flushing in tandem. Every nerve seemed to hum, alert and restles, and I realized I had never felt anything quite like this before.
"Do you like it?" he asked.
"I don't know yet," I said. "But I want to taste more."
Erzion's smile was small, deliberate, like a flicker of candlelight testing the air.
"Then go on," he said.
The fork trembled slightly in my hand. The thing on the plate had changed. The colors had deepened, hues of stormcloud and dusk, shot through with faint veins of light. I didn't question the transformation. It was already weird enough.
The next bite tasted odd. A taste of nothing and everything at the same. It spread through me slowly, curling up my spine, humming under my ribs. My vision blurred again and before I could resist, the room unfolded once more.
The circus was gone.
Now I stood on a high wire stretched across a nameless void. Below me was nothing but a swirl of colors, dark blues and greens, a sea that might have been sky. The man in red was there too, he was lying on the floor, his legs were severed from his body, a weird dark figure sitting on top of his torso eating from his flesh.
"What is this... meal?" I asked, turning toward Erzion, my voice tinged with confusion and something like disbelief. For the first time I felt full from a meal.
"Your Majesty! What is your opinion on the matter?" We were interrupted by mister Lorian's cold voice.
Erzion didn't turn to face him immediately. The Emperor's gaze lingered on me a moment longer, the faintest trace of a smile ghosting across his lips before he finally shifted his eyes towards Lorian.
Crown Prince Lorian stood rigid in the middle of the of the table, his silver insignia catching the candlelight. His sister was piecefully eating her meal next to Miria. "Your Majesty," he repeated, bowing slightly. "Regarding the southern ports, our merchants are eager to resume exchanges with Eclias."
Erzion's fingers drummed lightly against the table. "Ah, so the three years contract we had is ending soon," he said softly, almost tasting the word. "And what would Eclias offer in return this time?"
Fiorium was a small country, tucked somewhere along the western coast, little more than scraps left behind after Erzion's relentless expansion. It was a fragment of land, stubbornly holding onto its independence while the empire claimed everything else. That was exactly why Fiorium needed access to some of our southern ports - to trade goods with countries from distant continents. As an empire that now dominated the entire south coast, our holdings were both a vital lifeline and a powerful bargaining chip. Without those ports, Fiorium would have remained completely isolated, a tiny kingdom dwarfed by the reach and ambition of Erzion's conquests.
"You could discuss this some other time, dinner is not a time for politics," Yrene said sharply, spearing a piece of chicken with her fork while shooting her brother a look sharp enough to draw blood.
"Princess Yrene is right. We can do that on the tomorrows meeting." King Aldren tapped the rim of his glass and the servant stepped forward to refill it with wine.
"Yes, Your Majesty." Lorian fell quiet.
And his sister wasted no time filling the silence. "So tell me, Princess Tanya, I do hope your recovery has been… satisfactory?"
"It has been wonderful visiting our neighboring continent. I have unlocked new depths to my abilities and discovered powers that owe nothing to the Gods' gifts."
Henio was a country on the east coast. Not big enough to be a strong force, but not small enough to call it a a miserable semblance of a state like Fiorium.
"Oh, how splendid! Then you no longer require the support of the Great Emperor of Solstice?"
When Tanya and Yrene started barking at each other across the table, Erzion turned back to me, eyes glinting like stormlight. "You remember our deal?" he whispered, leaning close enough that I felt the heat from his breath.
I swallowed hard, I have finished the meal already but the taste of it still was clinging to my tongue.
"This is your meal," he said, his voice low and deliberate.
No way. Gods, you heard him too?!
"You really did it," I said, my words sharp, tasting of disbelief. Was this really the taste of that thing from the prison tower?
"I promised," he murmured, almost proudly.
The power still burned through my veins after the meal, a fire that made me pulse with divine energy, exhilarated beyond mortal reckoning. It was exquisite, so intoxicatingly strong that at last I tasted something I could truly savor, something worthy of my hunger. I was still shaking, my breathing had returned to normal but the excitement was still there.
"I adore you." I simply said in reply.
"I know you do."
Erzion's gaze held me, unblinking, like he was weighing every heartbeat. A slow, deliberate silence stretched between us, heavy and electric. The princesses' voices faded into a distant hum, barely noticeable.
"There is more left as well," he said finally, his voice a low rumble.
I couldn't even reply because after that I heard Tanya's voice rising even higher. "I sense it! It is coming for us all! The third eye is watching us!"
"That's the whole point of being an eye!" Listening to her drone on about powers unblessed by the Stars was nearly unbearable. I have heard about it years ago and if she was planning to bring it up again I would really crash out. She had this research, you see, years ago, and she shared it at Miriam's wedding. I could not to listen to it one more time.
"Is there a problem, Miss Vilendra?" Tanya sneered, her voice dripping with malice. She didn't even care to call me Your Highness like others call me.
"You are too loud, eat your meal kid."
Being a literal God, everyone here felt like children to me. Even confined to this human form, even with the few memories I had, they still felt tiny to me, insignificant specks in the vast brilliance of my world. Everything moves like molasses in this realm, stretched thin, slow to the point of almost stopping. That's why most things barely register for me, my attention drifts past them like wind over still water. Anything that hovers near stillness, or worse, is completely motionless, bores me utterly.
"At the moment you are on one table with the kids, you are one of us and you still don't want to accept that."
No one expected me to answer. Humans existed beneath the edge of my attention and even their most desperate attempts to reach me bounced off a wall of silence. As I said before, everything here moved like molasses.
"Even the Gods descend to us in human guise, gracing the world with their presence. And you… you cannot even summon the will to reclaim the realm that is rightfully yours?"
"King Aldren, please, make your daughter be quiet," cold voice coming from Erzion's chair. His hairstyle was a disaster. I supposed he had run his hands through it one too many times tonight.
"Tanya, come on child, lets focus on having fun tonight and take it easy." King Aldren slumped in his chair, robes rumpled and crown already long gone from his head, the wine-stained empty glass dangling loosely from his fingers. His cheeks were flushed a deep crimson, his eyelids heavy and half-lidded, and to be honest I was amazed he could even formulate a full sentence.
Tanya didn't stop, not that I even cared what was about to get out of her filthy mou-
"What's up with your ears even? I dont remember them from..."
I slammed my fork into the table, leaving it quivering where it stuck in the wood. The sudden crash silenced the room for a heartbeat, and every pair of eyes pivoted in my direction.
"And I don't remember you having a tongue. Let me fix that for you."
Silence.
I felt a leg tapping me on my foot. I looked at Erza to my right out of the corner of my eye. "Don't." His lips shaped the word barely, but I still could understand what he meant.
I tilted my head back toward the left, toward the seat Tanya occupied, her expression smug, calculating. "You survive this evening," I murmured, my voice low, "but there won't be a second mercy."
"What is this?? Your Majesty!" Her indignation was theatrical, sharp and shrill, echoing faintly off the walls.
I forced myself to rise, each movement deliberate, my gaze fixed on the door where Erzion's servant waited, ready to open it for me. I passed Tanya's seat slowly, deliberately, feeling the weight of every eye in the room. When I reached her, I leaned close, letting my voice drop to a hiss behind her ear:
"You have forgotten that gods are cruel, arogant and prideful creatures."
The words lingered there, heavy and poisonous, and I straightened, leaving her with the chill of my warning as I stepped toward freedom.