Ashtium: City of Sun
Decay

ENOCH

Adler looks up from his empty dinner plate. Mother wipes her teary eyes with a scowl while watching him.

Adler speaks in a cheery voice, “The advisor has regained much of his health, Femke. He is no longer on his death bed.”

“I would dress as such for you or any others. He is still recovering.”

The emperor stands up, getting in a few words before mother escapes the room, or more accurately, him. “So am I.”

I laugh at his dramatics.

“Recovering?” I say in disbelief.

His gaze travels over to me slowly.

“What do you know of this slave that attacked my advisor?”

“They did a poor job of it. Mother claims it was a woman of course.”

Adler crosses his arms. “Was it?′

“Well-” I start to explain.

Abruptly, he stands up seeing mother re-enter the dining hall. My jaw drops seeing the sisters all parade inside with our guards following in line around them. The tallest sister steps to the side with her hands followed in prayer. I can’t make out which one is Greta with their identical outfits and all.

Did she even come along?

“Empress, our greatest apologies. One of our own has lost our god’s gift. May we speak to him? Rather, would you wish to speak in our favor?” the tallest sister asks.

“I will ask in your stead,” Mother announces. She turns to father with new distress since the nameless gift was given to one of their own instead of her. “What is this all about? The hospice is not to have any personal ties to our family.”

Father steps toward her with a raised chin. “I don’t know of any gift. They think I am their god, Femke. Why don’t you just leave them alone? They are just religious caretakers. Chances are one of them helped you come into this world-”

Mother shakes her finger at him. “No!” She draws out her whip eyeing the hospice women kneeling in front of her. “I will not have word of that. I thought you loved me! Stop letting every woman worship you! I will...outlaw it!”

My body flinches sharply seeing her crack the whip dangerously close to the line of old women. It hits the floor, the sound echoing across the new silence of the room.

Mother’s brown eyes grow distant as Adler walks up behind her. He grabs her hand as if to take the lithe weapon away. He kisses the crook of her kneck while gripping her whip. “Give it to me, Femke.”

Suddenly, her body goes rigid. Mother jumps forward and turns on her heels with the whip in hand, appearing ready to use it on him.

“I’m going to visit, Urdmin. Please, Enoch, lead these women back to the hospice. I don’t want to hear about the gift or any gods. Talk of such things will now result in death. We do not need the mongrels to lose their minds over such things!” she shouts.

Father watches me storm after her.

“No, mother. Think about what you say and how great a population we have. You cannot ban such a thing when the majority supports it.”

“I’ll ban anything I want,” she tells me in an even tone, but she isn’t talking to me. “No more worship. Starting tomorrow, your temple will be taken down and replaced with a...theater.”

Adler circles his arms around mother. “Femke, I am emperor.”

His soft, charmful tone hasn’t worked on mother since as far back as I can remember. He doesn’t earn a smile or compliance of any sort. The words left unspoken are what drive her to lose it. She will never have say over him as much as she desires to.

Perhaps that is where their marriage really went wrong. They both want to control each other...

Mother’s voice trembles as she twists the whip between her delicate pale hands. Her lips form into a pout, and when Adler tries to kiss her, she pushes him back with something between a scream and a screech. Whatever it is, the noise sounds dreadful.

It sends the hospice women scattering to the corners of the room as she starts running every which way.

Her whip goes in all directions she looks. Across the floor, the dining table, the chairs and several guards standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Adler rubs his chin looking unaffected by her horrific outburst.

He proceeds to walk out leaving me to handle the situation.

Feeling brave, and like I really have no other options, I tackle the empress sending her off her feet and under the mess of the table. She sits up with a wild look in her eyes with crumbs of meat and mashed vegetable in her hair.

Her grip on her whip is much looser now.

“That’s it, everything is alright now. Do you think you’ll be okay-” I start to say.

In a hurry, she bolts away from me with a speedy crawl out from under the table.

She stands up and brushes off her jeweled tunic robes. Her breathing settles as she stands up straight looking stern at her audience and the mess she created.

“Forgive me, sisters. Enoch, send them my greatest apologies and see them off well to the hospice. I want you to wait for me there with Urdmin and replace your father. Make sure he comes as well. We should all apologize for our behavior in front of them. Find out what gift they are looking for and grant them it, please.”