Marquess Edward Rainer was as fair and valiant as people made him out to be.

He was noble and handsome. A faithful husband, a gentle father. It was difficult for people not to admire him, but they didn’t know the sadness in his eyes.

Standing within the Imperial Cemetery, Jovine found her father with his head lowered and his eyes closed. Freshly arranged bouquets of white chrysanthemums laid beneath the headstones for Alexander and Helene de Tristaine, his departed friends who left too soon. She pressed her lips together when she felt her nose stinging. It looked as if he had significantly aged from the way the lines deepened at his mouth and the slump in his shoulders. She had never seen her father so dejected.

Softly approaching his form, Jovine hesitantly called him. “Father?”

He opened his eyes and turned towards his daughter with a weak smile. “Your Majesty,” he bowed his head in respect.

She blinked. “Please don’t hold formalities with me.”

“It’s the way it’s supposed to be,” he politely answered.

“It’s just us here.”

Her father nodded, his lips twitching. “Seeing as it is just us, I assume Elias didn’t want to see me?”

Jovine clasped her hands in front, facing the headstones. “He’s not ready yet.”

“I didn’t expect him to be,” he admitted. “Are you…not ready to see me either?”

Glancing down at her feet, she shook her head in denial, but she couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes. “Why did you do it?” she asked.

She felt his stare branding the side of her face as he let the seconds pass in silence. “You’ve started down a dangerous path, Your Majesty.”

“And how do you know what path I’ve decided on?”

“Amon vel Feyras stands at your side. I believe that is answer enough.”

She tensed. If rumors of her liaison with the Grand Duke were already circulating the Empire, without the proper context, her plans would end up in flames. “No one should know about it yet. Not even you, Father.”

He tilted his head up towards the soft spring sun that was starting to heat as summer approached. “Rumors haven't started yet, if that's what concerns you. Elias asked a favor from your younger brother. You know as well as I do, Easton has never done well with secrecy from me.”

Despite her concern, a hint of amusement slanted her lips. Easton was always more innocent than he let on. And a terrible liar.

“With the Council in knowledge of it now, however, the cities will start to talk,” he continued. “The coming storm is inevitable, Your Majesty.”

“I never wanted you to be implicated in this mess,” she muttered. She turned to him, shouldering her guilt with a grimace. “Why would you involve yourself? Why would you want to?” She would be a traitor. A failed Empress who would bring ruin to the Tristaine name and a daughter who would shame her family. How could he so easily accept her treason?

Her father stared at her with regretful eyes that were lined with red exhaustion. Cautiously bringing a hand to her face, he caressed her cheek with a hesitant touch. “You are my daughter. Nothing is worth more to me than defending my child.”

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

He brushed a lock of hair from her eyes, his fingers trembling. “And you’ve grown so much, Jovine.”

She bit her tongue, willing herself not to break, but the warmth of her father’s touch made her feel like a child again. After all the heartbreak she’d endured, the hysteria she barely kept at bay, the urge to run into her father’s arm to bawl like a babe was difficult to suppress. She just wanted peace, just needed a bit of rest. Was an Empress allowed such luxuries?

Her father’s brows furrowed as a shadow passed over his striking features. “In my grief, I lost myself to notice. And it shames me that I let him hurt you. That I didn’t…”

Jovine stood frozen when she heard his voice break. If she moved, she knew she would shatter with him.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered in remorse. “I’m so sorry I failed to protect you.”

Her willpower snapped. Tears gushed down her face, and he cradled her head to his chest to cry with her.

Jovine silently sobbed into his cloak, the onslaught of the past few weeks pouring out of her in a soundless stream. She had been betrayed, murdered, reawakened. Wretched games, stolen crowns, and endless lies were all she knew now.

There was too much and no time to deliver the extent of her anguish.

“I don’t know how to do this,” she whispered. “I don’t know if I’ll survive it.”

“You will survive this,” he vowed in an unyielding voice. “You are no longer alone, no longer adrift, Jovine. I promise you.”

Jovine clutched his cloak in response. How long had she kept herself forsaken in an estranged castle with nothing more than a traitorous husband, his wicked mistress, and the nobles who pitied and ridiculed her? In her own foolishness, the blinding nature of her love had isolated her to a darkness she could have escaped if only she had reached out.

She wasn’t alone anymore. Not at all. She knew this now. Even as her tears quieted, her father refused to let go. Instead he held her closer, as if he was afraid the dark would come for her again if he lost his grip.

“We’re both awake now,” he murmured cryptically. Did he mean their grief?

“How many times?” he asked her.

She leaned back. “How many times?”

“How many times have you come back?”

Jovine’s heart stopped. Come back?

Stumbling, she looked up into his obscure, emerald gaze. Standing in this light, he looked so much like Elias. All knowing and fearfully aware.

“W-what do you mean?”

He didn’t answer and only stared into her, searching for something she couldn’t offer. It couldn’t be what she was thinking. He couldn’t know… How would he? Yet…

Jovine’s father glanced at the headstones. “Here. To their graves. How many times have you come back?”

She blinked, her heart stuttering. Was that what he really meant? “Many times,” she distantly answered, though her mind still whispered suspicions. For a second, she swore he meant something deeper.

“It all started from their deaths, didn’t it,” he muttered. “Alex and Helene shouldn’t have died so soon.”

“Father, do you…” she hesitated. “Do you know something?”

A muscle feathered in his jaw. “It’s the fact that I know nothing that haunts me every night.”

Her brows knitted further.

Reaching out his hand, he evaded any further dwelling on the topic. “I need to go back to Bellbay — your mother is waiting for me. I will rally supporters and raise banners for your cause. But only when the time is right.”

“I don't want the family entangled in all this. I can't have you —”

“Anything that concerns my children will be my own burden so that I may protect them,” he interjected. “You are starting a perilous, but necessary struggle. If fate was kinder, it wouldn’t be your own husband you had to bring down." He looked down at the billowing flowers resting atop the earth. "But even they wouldn’t have wanted their own son to crumble the Empire.”

Jovine grasped her father’s calloused hand, an acid bite of contrition strangling her breath. “She asked me not to give up on him,” she hoarsely admitted. “To bring him back.”

His face darkened. “If there was anyone who could, it would have been you. But if it comes at the cost of my daughter, I will not stand for it.”

“I gave up on him," she breathed, voicing the remorse she didn't realize had been eating away at her.

“Don’t ever blame yourself for it.” The Marquess pressed his lips to her forehead. “I love you, Jovine,” he whispered. “Tell Elias I love him as well, will you?”

She gave him a wobbly nod. Before he departed, he caressed her chin and looked at her with a worried, fatherly gaze.

“Be strong, Your Majesty. The worst is yet to come.”