𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐀 𝐒𝐔𝐂𝐂𝐄𝐒𝐒 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘. 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐒 𝐀 𝐑𝐔𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍.
It's the beginning of a new age when Jaylah Imperatrix seemingly returns from the dead to reclaim her throne. And in perfect timing.
In her absence, evil has be...
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Act 3 Chapter 115 JAYLAH
It had been a boring day so far—no surprises from Ermalai, who had fallen mysteriously ill and had gone without being seen since their dinner. Due to the nature of their public relationship, she had to feign worry for him. But in the safety of her mind she hoped he would die that day with the taste of human flesh still on his tongue.
However, things took a turn for the interesting when Jaylah was approached by Tasoula, her past lover, out of nowhere. "Is there something you would like?" she asked, worded carefully.
"I would like to talk, Your Majesty." Tasoula's dark eyes flicked to Antinoch, who was ready to shoo her away at Jaylah's beckon. "Alone."
Though she had an idea of what the conversation would be about, Jaylah relented. "Very well."
She told Antinoch to wait outside and keep watch as she and Tasoula went into Jaylah's office, which was closest. As soon as she told the girl to speak, she said, "I want us to be the way we were before you left." It was bold and assertive, but had that not been what drew Jaylah to her in the first place?
"I am engaged to be married."
"Not happily so, if the rumors are true." Tasoula leaned forward, becoming more serious in the face of Jaylah's apathy. "I still think about those days fondly. You were one of the only people I felt like truly understood me."
"It was the same for me," Jaylah found herself admitting, as if some part of her old desperate self had resurfaced with Tasoula's statement.
"Then why will you not accept my offer?"
"The past may have been pleasant but it is still the past. We cannot go back."
Tasoula laughed at that. "Did we not go on and on about how we were going to force our way so high above the expectations of the court that the very idea of being sold off as trophy wives would be laughable? Did we not dream of becoming goddesses in our own right?" She shook her head, the unbound waves of her brown hair gleaming. Jaylah recalled the days in which her fingers combed through it. "We can do whatever we want."
Jaylah looked across the desk at her and was struck by a wave of something indescribably sad. With her dark good looks and expression of permanent distain, Tasoula could have been her. And she was, in a way. She thought back to the days of being pulled in the direction of a spineless mother, in the direction of a father that both frightened and awed her. To the days of casual cruelties falling from her lips like rain. Of being so gut-wrenchingly lonely in a city full of people who had no choice but to respect her, and of fearing that for all her talent and for all her bloodlust, the best possible outcome for her future was being dulled down until she was nothing but a wife.
She and Tasoula were one and the same: girls who had been born with too much fire for their mortal bodies to hold. That Princess, the cruel, unhappy girl she had been, needed Tasoula past their physical relationship. She needed to know that she could be loved by somebody, even if that somebody was just a copy of her.
