“What good is the most elegant pot for a flower, if it isn’t watered at all?”
The flowers around me shine with fragile pride, just as I once did—and perhaps, in the eyes of the patrons, still do. I’ve been suffocated by empty compliments: how smooth my skin is, how extravagant my scent floats like a shroud, how I resemble a single rose drifting over a sea of death, each water droplet a dull reflection of the common. How ignorant they are, letting darkness be the domain of the ordinary—when the black sea symbolizes the bloodline of higher demons. However, most people know nothing beyond Earth and Elisia, with no tales from the outer continents. Even among nobles on Elisia, knowledge about Earth itself is scarce.
I sit among my family in a long line. Timothy is to Father’s right; Elisia, the 21st, to his left. My elder sister, decades my senior, sits beside me, while Robertson sits second to Timothy’s right, and I sip my drink, amber liquid catching the candlelight. My lips wear a faint gloss, mascara fresh as if untouched by the tears that stained my cheeks barely an hour ago. Emely, my chief maid, has done a flawless job. The guests mirror my smile, a collective mask of polished perfection worn by my family and their guests.
Why do I keep this façade? Why do I pretend to live when every part of me wants to die? I should have ended it hours ago—drugged myself into eternal sleep, avoiding this banquet and its hollow celebrations. But I do not. And now, I am forced to listen to my father.
“For all of you, I seek a bright future. No, through the eyes of Goddess Valhena, I see a future shining beneath the sun crafted by your deity Helios. We unite ourselves and let the colors of no gods lick our boots. We are superior, for our god has not abandoned our will. Remember these words—today, tomorrow, and the day after. We will drink until our bellies burst to prove the strength of our beliefs, lest we end as the reds...”
I stop hearing his words shortly after he begins to speak. My gaze drifts over the crowd, patrons hanging on his every syllable as if he were their god incarnate. The hall is a temple of opulence, enormous tables scattered like islands—tables as grand as the one where we, the royal family, sit. Hundreds of them. Everywhere, the cold blue lips. Some grin, baring sharp whitish-blue gums. Others clasp their hands, listening intently.
But I see none of them, nor my family. My eyes fixate on the murals behind the golden chandeliers, long chains of gold dripping from the ceiling dozens of meters above. The curved ceiling bears a painting I always study when beneath this grand display.
Two men stand side by side in exaggerated poses, bleeding from glowing red eyes, a radiant light burning between them—cleansing their shattered souls. Within that light, nothing exists but pure whiteness—everything and nothing all at once.
Around them swirl black, bat-winged demons and white-feathered angels, dancing in the corners—one being, a seraphim, with six wings, each shielding something hidden.
I cannot see more—not because there isn’t more, but because I cannot bear to. My chest tightens as it always does when my eyes fall on that scene. Something inside me leaves—an aching void in my heart that never fades.
This banquet is a stage, but I am a prisoner behind the curtain. The youngest daughter of the royal family, orange-blooded and cursed. My mother died giving birth to me. My siblings look at me with disdain, and my father’s gaze is dark with something worse—something I dare not name aloud.
They see in me a reflection of her—a curse they want to bury. So I cradle thoughts darker than the shadows around me: the temptation of eternal rest, the finality of oblivion. The abuse I endure at my father’s hands, punishment for looking too much like a woman long dead, drives me to the edge.
Yet I remain here, playing the dutiful daughter, smiling when smiles are demanded, hiding the scream beneath my polished façade.
The chandelier’s golden light touches everything but never reaches the hollowness inside. The air smells of expensive perfumes and cold ambition. Voices rise and fall around me, but all I hear is the echo of my own thoughts.
My fingers tighten around the glass, the coldness a fragile anchor in the storm of my mind. I remember the words I whispered once, What good is the most elegant pot for a flower if it isn’t watered at all?
Without care, I will wither.