“Beast!”

“Neither a man nor woman! A creature that goes against nature!”

“Traitor! The Empress is a traitor!”

Once a dutiful ruler and sword of her empire, Nasrin Luzi. When she married, it had been the first time she was given a surname. She cherished it for some time. Nasrin has known her husband since they were children—she spent my whole life as his fiancée and empress. Acquainted with each other since childhood, and that still didn’t stop him from being the person to drive her to her end. Once the proud empress who kept together the empire—now, being called names like The Tyrant of Luzi, The Hag Without a Heart–and possibly the worst one, The Incomplete Matriarch.

These were all names I heard as I stood naked in the capital, chained and humiliated. Being paraded around like an exotic animal; people who already had a problem with my designation, all with my husband in the forefront.

“A traitor,” Hadrian sneered, “and a barren one at that, not even fit to be called a woman.”

He even taunts me as he watches me, confined in a prison cell.

“Just for you. A slow, agonizing death for an agonizing woman.” 

Where did everything go wrong?

I wonder as I sit in a ragged dress, shackles clank as I dig into the pockets. 

I knew he wasn’t exactly kind…but to kill me like this, wasn’t it cruel? Even if he didn’t love me, I thought he at least trusted and respected me—well, I felt that until he brought another woman into our home. A pretty girl, the one trailing behind him with a newborn in her arms—the saintess born into slavery, the savior of the people.

If he wasn’t the emperor he’d be pelted with stones for owning a person as it’s been outlawed for ages–yet, they call him her liberator.

I took a vial from my pocket—my aid, Sorin brought it to me yesterday at my request. 

He cried as he handed it to—Sorin, the aging man with the usual vision of indifference, mourned for me.

“Your majesty, there has to be some other way—”

“Sorin…death is something we all must go through. And I am choosing mine. Won’t you allow me that?”

Sorin…had quite a pretty face when he cried—I worried the man with my affairs so much that he started to grey before even I did. Making him cry during bed is fine, but this just won’t do.

“Everything will be, all right? Don’t cry. You have served me well, even in the end.”

Even more tears poured from his eyes. I've known him since his mother, the duchess, showed him a child to me at my debut ball. Such a cute child, peeking out from behind his mother’s dress with the same pink hair as her. I was twelve years his senior and he’d always seen me as some sort of hero the year ever since I came back from war and begged his father to let him apply to be my secretary. He’s been by my side ever since.

Staring at the bottle, I go on, drinking the bitter liquid—my eyes sting. Ending my life myself, even pushed to the edge, is the one thing I have left since my life has…always been at the hands of others.

Before I became his wife, I was the adoptive daughter of a fallen noble family. My father was unknown, my mother was a traveling lady of the night. She never stayed in one place for long, until she had bewitched my adoptive father, a baron only in title. He took me in after her death.

Their relationship was what my adoptive father’s wife called a “lapse of judgment,” and that a good man like him could never have an affair. He always had arguments with my adoptive mother, hoping I could be like my mother, an omega in the future—or he hoped to get back the gold he spent on her. Either way, when my mother died, his wife found me, tearing away from her cold body—from the age of three to nine, living in the home was absolute hell. 

I was not pretty like my sister nor a boy like my brother—hell, I had not even gotten my designation—but to them, even fallen noble blood was still better than the foreign woman I had been born from, so my class had not mattered. A maid, that’s what I was. Perhaps so they could feel like actual barons instead of their poor imitations. 

But, when I was nine years old, I saw a farmer accidentally set a patch of his crops on fire, I had an idea.

I set my plan in motion, and soon all my family were set on fire in the main house. I knew since I slept in the stable, I wasn’t affected. It was oddly easy, I wondered why I had not done it before. Everything, all my troubles went away, with an oil lamp, even for a brief moment.     

I did not cry at the funeral—I had a stoic face like my father’s as I stood at their graves. Relatives, talking amongst themselves, argued that you’d take the bastard in.

“I already have five kids; I don’t need another mouth to feed. Why don’t you take her in?”

“Me? As If I’d want a child like that in my home. What if she turns out to be a wench like her mother? An omega too.”

“She’ll hear you!”

“And? Everyone knows her parents were from that land of…barbarians. Don’t know? Those of lowly blood pass it on to their children. She’ll only be trouble, let an orphanage have her—maybe she can charm a nobleman like her mother.”

I expected to be an orphan, it wouldn’t be different from life with my adoptive parents.

The empress dowager found me, and at that point, my life was in the hands of the empire. 

“If you don’t want to live on the streets, you will marry my son and bear him an heir.”

“But—”

“There are no buts. If you cannot fulfill your duty, another woman will. Do you understand?”

I grew up in that castle with Hadrian, while he was free to be a child, I was taught at a young age how to be the leader of an empire— I had been taught many things, including how to satisfy Hadrian when I came of age. Something a child should never see, I saw. I was never to upstage my husband; I was only there to be something pretty, to give birth to children, and to keep my head down. 

Once and a while, we played together. Even as a child, he was a prideful little boy—why wouldn’t he be? He was the emperor's only son and heir. Although at the time, he was a child who stumbled over a simple tree root.

Things were simpler then.

“You’re so clumsy, Hadrian!”

“I’m not clumsy, I tripped because you were chasing me!”

“Maybe,” I shrug, unfazed by his usual outburst, countering, “if you weren’t so slow, I wouldn’t have to chase you.”

He glared at me, his stormy blue eyes reddening with tears yet to be shed. “I am not slow,” he insisted, his voice rising.

“Just what?”

“Just a fat girl!” Hadrian blurted out.

I remember how much his words hurt then. Quietly, clutching the hem of my dress, I replied, “That’s not very nice, Hadrian.”

Perhaps he had always been this mean, he had been doubled down, saying, “It’s the truth. You’re big and clumsy, and you’ll never be as graceful or beautiful as the other girls at court. Who knows if you’ll even be an omega.”

“Oh?” My voice trembled, “And how do you know if you’ll be an alpha then?”

“Father said so.  And he said that when we marry, that means I own you!”

Being designated an alpha was not something I had imagined would happen to me. Of course, I had been taller than other girls my age, I practiced sword-fighting as a hobby to keep me from staying indoors so often, making up the excuse that it would be easier to bear children with more strength. 

It wasn’t unheard of that people appear later in life, but I was designated as an alpha three days before my wedding—and Hadrian a beta.

We never became lovers, because of that, but he who had been my friend also drifted away once it was made known that I could never have children as alpha. I was not useful to the empire in that anymore—was it my fault that I was born with this body? 

“Who cares if your lowly birth parents were born there? They have money and resources that will help build the empire you are now loyal to. Don’t disappoint me again.” I was ordered to enter wars at Hadrian’s behest—he even told me to lead the war with my parent’s homeland. These choices haunted me for most of my adult life. Even here, dying, I can’t forgive myself for killing those who were innocent during wars exploited for mana stones. Empresses are usually seen as the mothers of the nation, but I was merely a tyrant obsessed with war. I had even trained a young man to kill beside me.

Elias. 

I found the empress’s stray, a child among the chaos of war. A dog who heeded my commands, one that drove to his death on the battlefield.

Even giving my life won’t be enough, but it’s all I can do with the bit of power I had stripped away.

“Well, I guess I can’t call you Miss anymore since you’re married. Isn’t that right, Empress?”

Navia, the young island nymph that buried her way into Hadrian’s heart and sight. Although, I wasn’t sure if he had one—he favored women who were small, meek.

I remember the first time I met her, in the chaos of an auction house bust. It was of many, which Hadrian took ownership of it like he always did—she stood on a podium, being paraded around like an animal, as most slaves were. It was strange really, a thing I did as empress was make sure slavery was abolished and did numerous crackdowns on slavery in the empire.

And yet, the Emperor who’s the leader of all these people, takes a slave. Having a slave while taking credit for its eradication. Taking a saint a prisoner–no wonder the church didn’t affiliate with the empire. It was hypocritical, it was disgusting. He was disgusting, this damned country develed into the filth he portrayed. 

I couldn’t blame her for wanting a better life and clinging to the man who held the most power in the empire—I don’t know how it is to be an omega and one enslaved at that.  My death isn’t her fault, Hadrian’s indifference isn’t solely hinged on her; and yet as I sit here, dying, I see her hold a child and wonder how my life would be like if I had been born in a body like hers instead. If I were to be a mother, an empress, instead of running around like a dog under Hadrain’s beck and call.

I didn’t hate Navia. Most women would hate their husband’s mistresses. But I always stared at her in passing and wondered if, like me, she wasn’t happy with her life. Yet endured it for the sake of survival. 

Victims in differing ways, that’s what the both of us were.

“Y-Your Majesty, don’t do anything rash. Stay still while I—”

“I’m not no one’s majesty anymore. That aside, you’re being such a good girl again. How did someone like you end up in a place like this? Come, sit beside me.”

Navia’s full lips rest in a flat line, before taking her place beside her. She looks at me with big, weary eyes. Her curly hair falls on her face, and her soft lips form into a grimace.

“Nasrin don’t you—”

Hadrian who had been on the sidelines glares at me and yells, though I put my hand up to silence him. His voice brought a ringing to my ear. He was always so annoying, always there with a grating voice. 

“Calm down. You may hurt women, but I don’t. What can a dying woman do, anyway? Your wife wants to talk to me in private as well, don’t you, Navia?” After I finish speaking, my breathing becomes labored. I realize I don’t have much time left. Hadrian reluctantly leaves, I turn to Navia.

“Navia…in a…another life, if…we could’ve…been friends, I would ‘ve liked…”

I would’ve liked to give you a better life.

I’ve lost my ability to speak. Navia rests her head on the shoulder with her child in her arms—a cute child with skin, hair, and eyes like her. Thankfully the girl didn’t look like Hadrian. She says some words to a maid, who hurriedly takes the child from her arms. “I  need to heal you,” she says, pulling my paralyzing body into her arms.

“I need to heal you, then everything will be ok.” her voice comes out in a ramble.”

‘It’s no use,’  I think, ‘Holy power only works but so much. It doesn’t bring people  back from the dead.’

“Your Majesty. I’ve never been a selfish child once, but if this were another life, I wouldn’t want to be your friend.” She’s crying as she speaks. I want to wipe her tears away but I’ve lost my sense of being. As I die I can only watch her as she trembles. 

“We can never be friends, I’ll only be satisfied if we were lovers!”

…lovers?

She can’t be serious.

“If you were my wife, I'd never cry like I am now. If you were my wife I’d be the happiest I’ve ever been since I woke up, salkeld with that man standing over me. I’d gladly bear your children, empress--no, Nasrin. I love you. And I also have, even before this–”

Love? Has anyone loved me in this life?

My eyes roll back. 

Is this what death felt like? At first, it was cold in this cell, but now it’s warm like fire spreading over my body. It feels like all the pressures of my life were lifted.

Navia’s voice is the last thing I hear as I succumb to the poison.

“It wasn’t supposed to end like this–not again!”