I was fuming the whole way down. It had me wondering if it was me who was at check mate. The emerald ring box he pulled out of his coat pocket was proof enough that I was deluding myself if I thought even for a second, I knew what he was doing. I'd played right into him.

"A token from Antarctica." He said, grabbing my free hand and slipping it on me. He didn't even wait for my approval. He didn't even care that it was the wrong way around; no one can propose to me, it was custom that the one with the higher rank would be the one to ask. That didn't matter to him, I didn't matter to him, only he mattered to him. But that was expected.

It burned a little, the silver chafing my skin. "I'll put in on your right, and then you can transfer it to your left once we make the announcement."

Announcement. I wanted to vomit.

It was shaped like an eye, tapered into points at both ends, surrounded by stones all over, looking like a snowflake, a compass. It was diamond and silver, cold to the touch, like the soul of its giver. How come all the jewelry I owned was a symbol not of love or wealth or status, but of freedom being denied? Shackles. They were all shackles.

Once we landed, he got out first and held the door open for me, like the gentleman he pretended to be. "It was a pleasure, Lizaveta." He said in a tone so glorious and victorious that I wanted to slit his throat and let the blood spill on Kuscovo's manicured lawns.

But for now, I had to settle for his smirk.

Without thinking, I fisted my heavy hand solid and drove it to his face. He went down easy, his whole body hitting the ground in a thud. Right where his mouth met his cheek, a big red gash was left by the diamond ring he gave me just moments earlier. The diamond had his blood now too. At least it can cut us both.

"Yes, it was." I said, boarding the runner again, leaving him in the dust of the courtyard. "We're leaving!" I shouted at my crew, seeing Jazzy bound towards me from the garden where she was resting after her hunt.

Ilyaas was first to come inside, his face of concern was overtaken by the smile that wouldn't go away. He saw the punch and he was very satisfied at my technique, satisfied someone finally took the smirk off that douchebag. "You cut pretty boy's face."

"He isn't that pretty." I nodded, willing myself to smile, but not having the strength to do so.

Once the door was closed between me and Kuscovo, and once the pilot was tinted out of view, my throat tightened.

"I can't-" My breathing was getting faster now, as if each one I took couldn't quench me. Soon, my hands followed suit, shaking and sweating in a full-blown panic attack. What a weak empress.

Jazzy came near me, placing her head on my lap, her eyes full of concern. I felt the jolt, and we lifted off the ground before the tears followed.

Ilyaas didn't know yet, and still, he didn't ask. He came closer to drape an arm over me and started to calm me down.

When we were stuck under the rubble of his small town in the desert, we had a game; name three things you noticed, and you slowly forget everything you feel. You ground yourself from the panic lifting you, shaking you... Breaking you. You count.

"One... The sky is blue." He said. "Two... The air is warm." Ly's hand stroked my hair. "Three-"

"I didn't kill Upapa."

He just opened his arms to me, as he always did.

"No, you didn't."

×+×

I didn't have lunch with Theo because I didn't think I'd make it out with the contents of my stomach. I thought I wanted to kill my grandfather, but the urge to murder someone had never been as strong as the urge to kill Theo Argentine Velez.

Uncle Hassan came, and seeing my distraught face, opted out of words and platitudes of purple regalia. He just gave me a light blue sundress made of light cotton and got the hairdresser to braid a purple ribbon into my hair as a symbol of my status. What the most shocking thing was that he gave me flats.

"I need to learn heels-"

"Not today." He said, patting my hair down. Uncle Hassan had way too much to do to be staying with me, but I was glad he did.

Eventually, he got tired of the silence.

"I heard you punched Theo Velez." He said in a matter-of fact, no-judgment tone.

"You heard right." I said, feeling the ring sting me one more time. I turned it over to hide the enormous diamond on top of it. As long as it was on my hand, Theo would not speak.

"I don't care what the rest of the people in the Privy Council say. If you don't like him, you don't like him." The rest. He was a council member now after I approved his appointment on the way to Kuscovo, and at least there I knew I had someone who had only my interests in mind. "You don't have to find someone you're in love with, but you can choose someone who doesn't make you cry after the first date."

Nevertheless, there was nothing we could do... for now.

"Where's Ilyaas?" I asked.

"You said he was off duty?"

"Right." But that didn't mean he could go away at a time like this. Maybe he was annoyed... My hormones were probably out of whack, and he was way too confused to comfort me. Maybe he just wanted to take a nap. "I'm scared, uncle." I whispered, being completely honest for the first time since I left the peak.

"Don't be." He said, straightening the small pin of a golden compass on my chest. "You're stronger than you think, you're braver than you give yourself credit for, and well... you have me. Ex-heir, beautiful, spider."

"Thank you." I pursed my lips. Despite what the news ran with, my uncle didn't only reject the crown for a man or for the fame. Uncle Hassan liked the dark, the silent, the secret. It was hard to believe, yes, but even with his flair for the theatrical, he also knew how to be a fly on the wall.

Maybe it was his remark about being a spider, maybe I was just losing my mind, but I asked him. "Do you know anything about the explosion at the East Garden? Suspicions about Upapa's death? The regency?" My brother?

He stopped fussing over the ribbons of the dress, only to continue. "My only suspicion about father's death was if you were responsible. I believed you when you said you weren't" If only everyone could.

"And the East Garden?"

"There was no chatter." He shook his head, in disbelief and suspicion. "There were no preparations on the ground, no hiding people, just silence across the continent. There might be factions remaining of the Ravens, but you got rid of a lot."

"Then who did it?"

Uncle Hassan shrugged. "Maybe it was really an accident." His lavender eyes contradicted his words.

"Accidents? In Eurasia? In Lesya?" I whispered.

"We'll find out. If they really did attack... they were smart about it. The gardens are the only places without cameras or comms... but that wouldn't make sense. Terrorists like attention."

I nodded. It was only because of the lack of cameras I came out of that garden unknown. And it didn't add up. Why claim my grandfather's life and not an attempt on mine?

"I'll take care of it. It would be faster if I had Raza, though... but he is investigating something I don't know. If we need dirt on Antarctica, I'm sure we can find it." Uncle Hassan said.

I took a breath. Antarctica had dirt on me. "What do you know of Akihito?" I asked. If anyone knew, it would be him... or Raza.

He smiled.

"He's not an Ilyaas Malak but he's attractive enough. He knows a few languages, some instruments, you know, the normal."

A few hours ago, Raza told me he was clean, and his family was a very respectable one, and that there were some structures that defied modern sensibilities. But that was to be expected of a dynasty older than time.

"Akihito's a second son. The chrysanthemum throne will never be his, but he is his father's favorite, so maybe they want him next to the Throne of the Ascendant. He is also known to be kind especially to lower-income families-" He looked at me straight in the eye out of a sudden intensity, as if a jolt of recognition went through him. "Don't tell him you're a pilot."

×+×

The watch on my right hand was counting up to the hour. Seconds now. I didn't want to go out to the balcony before he did. The Japanese liked when people were on time; not early, not late. So, there we were; he was at the other door, separated from me only by an indoor waterfall, while I was at the other side. Ji Su and Natasha standing behind me the way Ilyaas was supposed to. Where was he?

Looking back, I saw Ji Su fidgeting a bit. She calmed herself down when she noticed my look.

Uncle Hassan left me to be with his husband for the afternoon. It felt like I was hanging mid-air, no one to talk to, no one to tell my worries. But did I even want to voice them?

Words had this certain power; the more you said things, the realer they became. But if you don't say them, you can't address them.

Say it? You die. Don't say it? You still die.

In the end, I had to resolve myself to silence. The second son of Japan can't solve my problems anyway.

There. Time.

Both our doors opened, synchronized, to a balcony overlooking the East Garden. I could hear both our steps on the hand-painted concrete floor, but I kept my eyes forward to the table of food awaiting us. Akihito got there first and pulled out a chair for me with more respect than Theo had earlier today.

"Thank you." I said, in a tone that hid the roiling thoughts of my head. There was a traitor, there was an alleged Onus, and I might be named both.

"Of course, your imperial majesty."

"It's Liz."

"Aki." He bowed a bit towards me. Aki had this face... a kind face. Slightly tanned, glasslike skin that seemed to glow in the afternoon light. It was then that I could see the years of purity his bloodline had. Everyone always said the Indians didn't like mixing, they forgot the Japanese never mixed at all.

And that was it.

He looked down at his food, so I did the same. He ate, I ate. No words. Aki smiled at me, went back to his food, and looked at the garden. This lasted for an hour it seemed. I wasn't one for breaking the silence, since I didn't want to talk either. So, I looked over the clear balcony, onto the expanse of the East Garden and its restoration efforts.

Some places were scorched still, but most of the plants were replaced and looked good as new. From then I realized why the chrysanthemum child wanted to meet me here, on a balcony of skyscraper looking over the garden.

From this height, the garden looked like an open chrysanthemum in full bloom - the symbol of their king, one of the many kings under my empire. I wondered how the easterners argued about its design. Almost all the elements when it came to shrubbery were Chinese and Korean, but the structure of the garden itself was not.

Maybe Akihito was trying to remind me that even in the capital, they too held much sway.

There.

Something caught my eye as the pyramid's petal was being replaced with limestone-like panels. A string of lights underneath each panel, pulsing. I leaned in to get a better look at the lines of small lights slowly and carefully being turned over by the workers and their robots.

"What-"

"Those are the transmitters." He finally spoke, looking a bit enthusiastic, only a bit.

"Transmitters?"

"Yes... I studied the gardens in college for my agritech degree."

"Ah." Agriculture. Peculiar for a prince. "My advisers failed to tell me about transmitters being installed."

He shook his head, his delicate features highlighted by the setting sun. "Not installing, reinstalling."

"Can you educate me? I never went to college, but I think I can catch up."

Aki smiled, his eyes so delicately smiling with him. It was endearing. If only I had a better day, I might have been falling at his feet already. "Of course, Liz." He offered his hands to me as he stood up.

He guided me to the edge of the railing to get a better look at the garden. The wind whipping my hair made me feel as if I was flying.

Maybe it wasn't too much to ask for a good way to end a bad day.

"The pyramids of the capital are transmitters of all the information of the empire... they give the information to the King's- I mean Imperial Guard." He pointed at the Pyramids in view, the east and the south. "It's a combination of media, security, finance and everything, really."

"They're transmitters." I said under my breath. "That's why the gardens are a no-tech zone?"

"You do catch on quick. Yes." He chuckled. "No tech, no radio, no wifi, no Bluetooth, no ether. Keeps the transmissions clear and safe from hacking."

But one of them was broken now. Maybe it really was too much to ask for a good ending to the day.

Hacking. That was the last word he said.

Then we were back at the table, back to the silence, as the night sky appeared. The heaters turned on; the lights dimmed for us so as to see the stars clearly. We were there for what seemed to be hours already... and I didn't leave because I didn't want to be alone, but still, he didn't talk.

A few silent smiles, a drink, a snack. No words. He didn't talk to me. It wasn't because he didn't know English... he was fluent, and so was I in Japanese. Aki was already probably briefed on the things I liked, he even wore a dark red suit to our first meeting, echoing my penchant for being forced to wear red.

He stayed silent, and despite me wanting some peace too, his stillness caused me discomfort. I knew he was supposed to, but didn't he want marriage as well?

"Aki... am I wasting your time or are you wasting mine?"

He wiped his long-fingered hands through his hair. Was that his tick? He did it twice already in a minute. "I apologize."

"No..." I said. "No need to apologize, I just want to know."

Aki looked at the door he came from, then behind him as if to check if anyone was listening. Then he turned off his handheld. He was turning off all contact, it was something I did often as well before I did something stupid.

"What's wrong?" I asked as my hand inched closer to the butter knife. If he was going to try something, I had enough anger in me left from this morning to relieve him of his tongue. It wasn't being used much anyway.

"Your imperial majesty..." He said with a deep breath. "You are beautiful, you are intelligent... even without college, and I know you are kind as well from your hospital visits. Take this not as an insult to your person, but a fault in mine."

"What?"

"I have absolutely no intention of marrying you."

Thank God. I thought.

"But why?" If I knew, I could magnify that trait and use it so none of the other princes or rich bastards would even try getting my proposal.

"I'm sorry but... I can't find it in me to stand as the husband of the throne that-" He licked his lips shut. He sighed deeply, his eyes straying to the rice field of the East Garden.

There they stayed for a while, and just when I thought we were back to the silence, he looked back at me, his eyes so full of sorrow.

"What did I do?" I panicked.

"Just because something is wrong, doesn't mean you caused it, Liz." He smiled ruefully. "It wasn't you who ordered it, your imperial highness."

"My grandfather? What did he do?" He did a lot of things- good and great, and bad to me.

He swallowed. "May I tell you a story?"

I blinked. He was all over the place, wasn't he? Silence and now a story.

I simply nodded, letting go of the butter knife I instinctively picked up.

"When I was eighteen, I enrolled in Huazhong Agricultural University to study agritech. You see, in Japan, we have the best advances in communications and architecture, but at that time, I believed we were lagging behind in supporting the backbone of our society."

"The farmers."

"Yes, I assumed they were not getting the opportunities they deserved." He shrugged, sniffling. "Although the empire provides for their retirement... they usually don't have comfortable lives before then. Some of them even have to forfeit their retirement for the loans they incurred beforehand."

Another thing to address. I thought Upapa already did.

"Well, there I met a girl." Aki smiled a little.

"Is she the reason you won't even entertain the thought of marrying me?"

"Let me explain." He had his hands up in surrender. "We were young... I was eighteen. It's only been three years."

Aki's eyes always strayed to the garden as he talked.

"Her name... Reed Yan." He barely choked it out. The pain in his eyes washed away the enthusiasm and kindness that was there just moments ago. "She wasn't like us. Her father was a farmer who became paralyzed after an accident with a truck, her mother had a small garden, and she had an older sister who disappeared... Probably trafficked as a child, and seven younger siblings. She was a breadwinner at eighteen."

"What happened?" Reed was in past tense.

"Her papa... he pawned their land to get her to college. You see she was very intelligent, far smarter than me. Top of our class." His chin dimpled as he tried to fight the tear sliding on to his cheek, smiling at the memory of his Reed. "I'm sorry this isn't professional of me... But she liked me. She told me she did, she was brave like that, and I liked her too. I didn't make a move, though, since my family always thought I would be promised to you. But I promised myself I'd tell her in the next semester."

Aki wrung his hands together in frustration, his deep regret crashing against the cracks of his silently charming facade. He ran a hand through his ebony hair again.

"Aki, what happened?" I asked despite not wanting to know the answer.

"It was 2347. The land her father pawned... the land she was saving up to buy again it was-"

"Nationalized." I remembered. I was sent to the Chinese border to keep the peace. It wasn't a peace easily kept.

"Yes." His tears came, one after the other. His nose was red, his chin wobbling ever so slightly. I thought he was trained to hide all his emotions like me, but he was failing miserably. I wanted to hear him speak before, but I didn't want to see him cry. Aki was still a stranger to me, but I didn't want to see him like this.

Somewhere in the distance, I heard a small click.

"And then-" He continued. "She joined a protest group from northern China. Eurasia branded them as Mongolians, a faction of the Ravens, to hide the fact that they were Chinese farmers."

I knew what was coming next. A tear fell from me. "They were Mongolian rebels. They were threatening the farmlands-" I said. That was what they told me. They told me they were murderers. They told me they were the enemy. I was supposed to be a hero.

I froze.

Aki shook his head. "They were farmers. They wanted their land back... Eurasia bought every square foot for less than a denari. Even the richest farmer couldn't live a year on that pay-out." He wiped his face with the back of his hand. A denari was the same price as the ribbon in my hair. "They got shelled by the air force. King Solomon said it was human error... that the bombs slipped? Errors? Here?" He raised his eyebrow, incredulous, mocking. "God, I wished it was human error. I would have rather it been human error than deliberate human interference."

He swallowed a sob. "I never saw her again."

Another click in the distance, one look left only showed me the sky.

I reached across the table to him, and surprisingly, he let me. A complete stranger had opened his heart to me, and I didn't have the courage to tell him I might have been the reason for its shattering.

"I-" He sighed against his sobs. "I give her mother money sometimes when I have enough not to be conspicuous. Her father died as soon as he heard she was gone. She was the only hope of her family, you see. Reed's siblings... I don't think they can afford college even with their scholarships since dorms and... yeah I can't do much, but I feel like I'm honoring her memory by not-"

"Marrying me." I whispered.

"It's not you, your imperial highness." He choked and sniffled. "It's not you, Liz. It was King Solomon and the whole council... I just feel like I wouldn't be respecting what she died for if I followed what was expected of me."

"I understand. I'm sorry." My heart was breaking. How could he be telling the truth when what I knew and truly believed in was the opposite? But he wasn't lying.

He looked into my eyes, our tears mirroring each other. Aki pleaded. "That's why I wasn't talking... But if you can... please keep me here. I don't want to disappoint-"

I stood up, and he followed suit, the way he was supposed to. I pulled him closer to me, got on my tip toes and whispered in his ear. "We're being photographed. Kiss me on the cheek so they'll know you're trying. I'll smile back. Okay?"

He did as he was told. I smiled as promised.

"Thank you. Keep me as long as possible, and when you choose a husband, just don't let it be me."

"Okay." I squeezed his hand. "Stay."

My chest hurt.

My thoughts were much more of a mess now. My heart was breaking, and the shards were free-floating inside me, threatening to cut me from the inside out.

I was crying too, silently, the way he did, with sighs and quick wipes. Silent tears were far more painful, weren't they? Pain was more painful when you were told you had no right to feel it.

"Send me her family's names I'll do what I can. I'll get the ministers to draft a proposal for agrarian reform as well. We can name it after her if you want." I didn't know what I was saying, but if being empress meant anything, it was that I could make promises I could keep.

"You don't have to." He said, but his eyes were grateful. Finally, a small smile was leaking into his features.

"I don't deserve your confidence... Or your tears. This is my way of making amends."

"You really don't have to."

"Yes, I do." Because the pilot of the jet runner that dropped the shells on that fateful day of 2347, killing seven thousand Mongolians, killing Reed, was me.