My heart was pounding inside my chest, and the vein on my temple was throbbing. I didn't know what to think. Traitor. Onus. Those were the two things that rang inside my head like the church bells that echoed again and again from dawn to dusk on my birth.

The pounding inside my brain felt like an automatic rifle against bullet-proof glass- not enough to break me, but enough to leave damage, enough to break me soon.

Onus.

The curly haired boy was-

Traitor.

The killer of my grandfather was-

Ilyaas whispered to me. "Are you okay?"

I swallowed. "My mouth is dry." Breaths were hard to come by, but I kept my mouth shut to preserve some moisture at least. Why was I nervous? Before the deaths of all the heirs to the damn crown, I was ready for this destiny.

"Hey..." Ly turned me to face him. "Breath."

I did. "Do you think they'll like me?" I tried distracting him.

"Is that really why you're scared?" He was skeptical, but he gave in. "I don't know. I don't know them."

I just nodded, my hands tracing the tight bodice of the dress, willing myself to breath in a little deeper. The square neckline gave me room to breathe, but the sleeves made me sweat, and the skirt was too voluminous, and a bit too short for my liking.

"But it doesn't matter if they like you or not. Doesn't matter if they call you Onus because of your hair. You're the empress." Ly took my hands from my waist and held them in his own. "All of them will want you... and you only have to pick who you want."

"Why can't I just marry you?" I said with a sigh. This conversation was already old. I always asked. It would be so easy to love him.

"Because goddesses don't marry mortals."

I slapped his arm. He actually got a smile out of me.

"Are you ready? The runner will take you to the National Gallery." Uncle Hassan asked. "You're nervous?"

I nodded. "How many will there be? Two today..."

"Five types." He showed me his outstretched fingers as he counted them off one by one. "Second sons of existing monarchies, first sons of non-problematic extinguished monarchies, sons of world leaders, sons of billionaires, and then people who have excelled in politics, sports, the sciences or art in the age range of eighteen to twenty-three. We narrowed it down to thirty."

Thirty. My husband was there.

I eventually decided to sit down. We were at the second-floor balcony at the southern gates of the house, with the runner underneath us, it's engine silent if not only for a small thrum. "I don't want to go yet." I stared at the runner, looking like a white pill - the carriage to take me to one of my possible future husbands.

"It's not that bad. When I had mine, the girls were lovely." Uncle Hassan remarked.

"How did it go?" I had to keep the conversation going, or else I'd have to go.

"Well for your father and I, we had our coming-of-age at twenty-one. I had I think fifty girls, and your father about the same. Mine was only cut short because on the third day I came out as gay and renounced my claim to the throne."

"You said it wasn't bad." I had my hand to my temple by this time. "And father's?"

"He was a military man, much like you actually, so the girls were quite excited." He came over and started playing with my hair. "It only lasted five days since he admitted he was already dating your mom in college. It was horrendous, the women were angry... your grandfather bought them all the best runners each to keep them from saying anything bad about your Abbu."

"Can't I just buy them all runners, send them off their merry way and just... delay this until I'm twenty-one? I mean, that's under my jurisdiction, right?"

"And what if you don't reach twenty-one? Who'll be the monarch then?"

My heart sank. I knew why already but to have someone actually say it to my face...

"I advise... not to bring your beloved Ilyaas."

"If their masculinity can be threatened by the mere presence of my bodyguard, I'd rather not marry them."

The conversation ended there, and so off we went.

Uncle Hassan decided to meet his husband for lunch, and so it was me and Ilyaas in the runner with the pilot. As the runner started hovering, I couldn't help but admire the gravity propulsion. Runners were truly getting better, and I wished I could get on one again, alone.

As I was looking down on the city while I flew over it, Ilyaas handed me a small box. "Earpiece, and contact. Raza wants to contact you directly now. He says you can talk to him if you're underwater, and he'll reply via messages on your contact, and as a PS, he said to close your eyes when you're under so the contact won't swim away."

"Underwater?"

"Yeah, no mics in the pools and in the tubs."

"Why can't he just contact me through you?"

"He thinks it's more efficient." Ilyaas shrugged begrudgingly. He didn't believe that excuse. Him and Raza seemed to be friends, but I saw a slight change in the relationship.

I took the earpiece out, and put it snuggly in my left ear, and hiding what was semi-visible underneath my hair. The contact needed a few tries, but I managed to put it in my left eye as well. "I don't like it."

"Me neither."

Below us, the city spread out like a mossy compass. We flew over the northern garden and seeing its shining limestone pyramid made me wonder if the eastern one finished it's rebuilding yet. Once I decided to look back to the House, looking for the pyramid's golden crown, my eyes caught sight of the range separating the capital from its southern neighbors and I couldn't help but feel trapped by it. It seemed as though it was pushing me to the north, sealing any sort of U-turn I could think of.

"You should have just left me on Everest." I say, wondering if the pilot could hear us past the sliding door separating us. "I would have heard about his death, and I'd still disappear. People will blame the Ravens for kidnapping me maybe, and then... a cousin would take over, maybe they'd abolish the monarchy."

"You're being selfish." He was right. Ilyaas stiffened next to me, as he gazed over the five runners surrounding us, probably calculating our speed, or checking the skies.

"Every time I see the Tien Shan mountains, I remember how close I was." I sighed away the heaviness forming in my heart.

"Do you really not want to get married that bad?" He turned to me, his face annoyed and yet truly asking what he could do to ease my pain.

"It's not that." I said that because it really wasn't. Nervous about meeting guys who'd end up my husband, yes. But enough to run away, no. "The boy at the hospital said some guy bent the fireworks downward... and it triggered the rest in an explosion. Sounds like an Onus to me."

He looked at me with a start and I took that as a cue for my turn to look at the other runners. "But the Ravens are gone."

"Raza didn't think so. Now I don't think so." My palms were getting sweaty. "I thought I was getting revenge for the country but seems like I just pissed them off. I made a mistake. I feel like I betrayed everyone..."

"I'll look into it." He scooted closer to me. "But the Onus... they're rarer than gold. The boy was probably just hallucinating."

It would be a few more minutes before we would arrive at the lake where the National Gallery nestled itself. "Distract me please. My worried face isn't attractive, and I'm trying to win a man today."

His chuckle was distraction enough. "Okay... um..." Ly loomed at the city we left behind. "Why do they call the capital Lesya, and not Solomon the first? I mean... he was the one with the royal blood and the purple eyes, she was just a tribute."

"She was a beautiful and brilliant tribute. She ran the country after he died, you know, when she was regent. Apparently, Lesya was the greatest ruler of all; even better than her husband." I had this all memorized from the time my brother once told me stories of her to make me sleep. His stories always backfired. I was more awake than before every time I heard about her.

"Do you know why I call you Lesya, though?" The way he was looking at me playfully told me I'd be wrong if I answered.

"Because of... Queen Regent Lesya?" That's what I always assumed.

"Ha! No." He combed his hair back with a hand, pleased with himself. "In your history, she was this hot ginger girl with the smile, right? In the north, it's a whole other story."

"Well, the north is wrong." I shrugged. "Queen Regent Lesya is the red-head that united the empire. Everyone fell at her feet, everyone loved her, and that's why you call me after her because I'm stunning too!" My pride was fraying at the edges. He was doing a good job distracting me.

He laughed at me. The audacity.

"Humor me." He said. "In Egypt, they said she was Onus."

"How dare you insult Queen Regent-" I grit my teeth. She was my all-time idol.

"I said humor me."

I kept quietly fuming.

"Again... in the north, in Egypt specifically, she was the silver-haired Onus that helped the other Onus of Eurasia escape to Africa alive in the genocide-"

"Okay firstly, again how dare you insult the memory of Queen Regent Lesya. Secondly, she was a red head. Lastly, she would never - and I mean never - protect Onus. Why would she protect the surface-dwelling mutts? Those things killed her people!"

"Eurasia killed them back so who are you to judge?" He said. "When people kill the people, you're with, you strike back, don't you?"

"Yes, but that's different."

"Fine. It's not different but fine." He reeled the aggression back, sensing I was well-distracted already. "Well maybe we're talking about two different people who're both named Lesya. Maybe my people were confused. Hey, it's just a theory... but what if they were the same person and she wore a wig or something?"

"Highly unlikely."

"Maybe we called her Lesya because it means 'savior of humankind.'" He offered up, Ly's eyes glinting at his victory of distracting me.

"Well, that would be wrong because the Onus are not even humans."

"Then give me your theory about the duality of it all."

"Um." I sighed. "It's probably a folk-tale the Egyptians made up about Lesya to scare the children not to cross the border and not to run out at night because the Onus would kill them, or the Queen Regent Lesya would."

"You think that's more likely than the wig thing? Or the two Lesyas?"

"Yes, because who in their right mind would save an Onus?" I said that, hoping that if I was, he would.

×+×

We circled the National Gallery twice before landing. While Ilyaas was busy communicating with the guard, I saw a small figure at the courtyard of the main building. "I thought I was meeting two today?" I asked him.

"You are."

As we descended from the sky, the National Gallery stood in all its glory. Then I understood why the founders decided to put one of the largest museums of the empire a little far away from the capital.

While the capital shone with a sheen of the promise of the future, the National Gallery was a time capsule of remembrance. It had no business in a glass and steel city, it needed everything else to only be nature for it to be regarded as fully as it should.

In front of its courtyard was Kapchaga, a reservoir now unused, looking like a navy oval stretching for what seemed to be miles... it looked like a sea. Surrounding us were grasslands, and the nearer it got to the museum, the more manicured things became. It was as if the gallery was a human footprint, bending the nature around it to its will.

The National Gallery itself was a group of stone buildings imposing themselves at the banks of the Kapchaga. We were headed to the largest one.

It was called the Parthenon, but to be honest it was an ode to the British Museum, which was crushed in the third world war, which was also an ode to the original Parthenon. Limestone columns at the entrance reached into the sky, supporting a tympanum with images not of Greek gods, but of the people emerging from the ground after generations of hiding from the sun.

As I got out, feeling the same sun on my face I wondered how they felt.

"Liz!" I heard the cheerful voice of none other than my favorite cousin.

"Wills!" I practically ran to him. Before I hugged him, he insisted on bowing to me comically, then curtsying, then bowing again until I slapped him on the shoulder.

"I'm just showing my respect to my great empress!"

I hugged him. "Where's Winter?" I asked, looking around the cobblestone courtyard for a blonde prince I once threw a tiramisu at.

"Prince Arthur is first in line." He said, taking a good look at me. "He has his own crown, so they sent me! Apparently, I'm going to be your husband!"

I almost choked with laughter. "We're second cousins, autumn prince."

"I know. Disgusting, you know I'm not marrying you, right?"

"Thank god. Twenty-nine more to go."

He laughed at that, his eyes catching sight of Ilyaas. "Why do you need twenty-nine if you have that specimen?" Wills nodded at Ly, his mauve eyes showing the slightest bit of intimidation. Only Ilyaas could make a prince from one of the longest-surviving monarchies look like that.

"He's not interested."

"Gay?"

"I don't know actually."

He shrugged. "Speaking of your number one... I'm not alone."

"Yes. There are two of you." I looked around again, seeing the guards around us, but not one prince. "I thought it was Artie, the wintery ass."

"Its... he's a cousin from my father's side." He let my hand drape over the crook of his arm as he led me to the stairs. I was thankful for having not-so-high-heels. I really needed to practice more. "Long-abolished monarchy, but he still has a title."

"Okay."

"He was stunned actually when he got the letter from Hassan."

"Okay."

"I'm trying to be his wingman here; I honestly think he has a crush on you."

"Okay." I took a deep breath. That was good. "Where is he?"

"His name is Konstantinos of Spain." He said, stopping right in front of me at the bottom of the stairs.

"That sounds like a Greek name, but okay..." I said, as my eyes trailed up the stairs, landing on the figure in blue.

"Ah, his ancestors were Greek, I think. I don't know."

It was all I could do not to have my mouth agape as I made my way to him. As I ascended, he descended with each step. The closer he got to us, the clearer he became. Sandy blonde, eyes like smoke and the Caspian Sea.

When we met at the center, he bowed deeply. "Your imperial highness."

"Tino, Liz. Liza, Tino." Wills said. "Now I shall get a jet ski, and off into the lake I go."

I had a protest locked inside my throat. Although I was happy to get this over with, I didn't know this bright man.

"May I?" He offered his hand to me.

I wouldn't say willingly, but I wouldn't say I was dissenting when I gave my hand to him. He led me up the remainder of the stairs, to the empty museum.

"Um." My wonderfully intelligent, witty self said. "Nobody's here."

"Ah yes..." He said in a British accent that matched Wills'. "The management insisted for your security."

"That's no fun." I looked at him. "I'm sorry, I didn't know. I bet people wanted to see the art-"

He shrugged. "Silence is a welcome friend."

"Your accent." I said, not knowing where I was taking the conversation.

"I was-" He took a steadying breath, smiling, his dimple appearing on his cheek.

"Are you as nervous as I am?" I blurted.

He nodded plentifully. "Yes, absolutely."

Our laughter echoed against the marble floors, the limestone walls... I never heard laughter like it. Like a flame, it danced around the room, somehow burning away my anxieties just a little.

How did he do that? How could a stranger do that?

As we crossed the threshold, he let go of me and ran to the center of the expanse, leaving me near the doors. "You must be wondering why I chose the National Gallery."

"You chose it? I thought Wills just wanted to go jet skiing." I pointed to where the revving sound was emanating from, with a shout of glee from Wills floating above the noise.

"That was just a perk." He said, raising two fingers as if to emphasize his words like a professor would. "But you see... I'm-"

"Spanish with a British accent."

"Born in America, raised in Chelsea, with a melting-pot of predominantly white ancestry. Which... inspired the whole building." He turned around his hands in the air, proud. "But that's not the point, even though this whole building screams the Greek side, I wanted to show you some paintings."

"Paintings?" How did he know I painted?

"Yes."

There were probably documents or dossiers about me distributed to them. I didn't know how to feel about that.

"Okay...?"

Tino stretched a hand towards me. "I'm in Waseda Business School."

"Japan?" Tino was coming at all sides, wasn't he? I couldn't help but smile.

He grabbed hand and led the way. Tino seemed to be glowing in his white pants and periwinkle long-sleeved button-up. He seemed so happy to be there that my chest lightened a bit. "Yes, you've heard of it?"

"It's the best-"

"Yes, but I hate it there." He led me down the halls, and up an elevator. "I mean, I love money, as everyone does. But when I was thinking of date ideas, it never occurred to me to show you the accounting cycle."

I chuckled at the thought of an accounting date. "And so why are we at the gallery?"

"Because..." He looked down at his shoes in thought. "I wanted to show you something beautiful aside from a mirror."

Was that a compliment? Was he flirting? What was I supposed to do when that happened?

The elevator doors opened to the floor with the paintings from the eighteen hundreds down to the nineteen hundreds. A long hall of paintings basically, from Pissarro to Warhol, extending far and wide around us on the dark green walls, in golden frames.

He continued. "I'm royal, right? But we don't have castles, we don't have our own country anymore... which I'm thankful for. It's granted me a good life." He pulled me out onto the parquet floors. "But I've realized that almost everyone else who you'll meet in the next week will have palaces, or piles of gold, or mines of diamonds hidden away in mansions."

Tino subjected me to his smoky, summery eyes and smirked.

"So?" I asked.

"They might have standing armies, a plot of land on Mars maybe... and they'd be the better choice."

I stayed silent, absorbing his words. He was right. They'd be the better choice for the country.

"But you already have all those things." Tino whispered as he led me to a painting of what seemed to be a lake, with a sailboat next to a chateau's road. "So, I came here as early as I could... to show you the only thing that gets me through every demanding day at business school, hoping it will give you the same comfort it gives me."

Comfort. Nobody even thought of giving me that in the past weeks. Everyone was talking budgets, parties, my coronation, international relations, my marriage...

I stopped to look at him, a stranger, and yet- "Thank you." It was the sincerest thing I've said in a while.

He beamed.

"So, what is this?" I gestured at the painting.

"This is a painting by my man, Claude." He said, standing next to the painting like a tour guide. "Claude, or as others call him, Monet, was an impressionist."

"Yes, I saw his waterlilies." They hung around one of the larger guest rooms at the house, the oval one.

"Ah, so you know him then." And so Tino continued. "This is one of his lesser-known paintings, the Promenade at Argenteuil."

I took a closer look. Argenteuil. "Du haut de la colline, au moulin d' Orgemont... on peut apercevoir, un peu plus loin, la Seine-"

"Et penser à Monet qui fit son avant-scène des rives bucoliques qu'il peignit en amont." He continued with smiling eyes. "You've read the poem too?"

I nodded. "It's beautiful." The painting wasn't grand, it didn't depict a won battle or a beautiful woman, but in its calmness, I felt a certain longing for a life I wanted to return to although I never once was there.

My eyes trailed to his face. He felt like the painting.

I took a mental note to send the painting to him that night.

"Yeah, from a far it's beautiful." Tino said, pulling me a few feet away. "But up close..." He guided me back with my face half a foot away. "It's a mess."

"I'm a Monet, then."

He snapped to look at me, piercing me with a look that would have melted lesser beings. "Oh, dear empress, you're no Monet." He snorted. "You're a da Vinci."

×+×

We exited the museum at six. I didn't think I spent that much time there, but time flew by so fast with him. Tino was the human equivalent of a day at the beach. He was bright and sunny; his happiness was so contagious I almost mistook it for mine.

"Did I bore you?" He asked me as we made our way down the steps. Tino's feet were always half a foot behind mine back in the museum where we stared at a huge canvas of blue paint, and up until now. He was already walking like a consort.

"Absolutely not." I turned to look at him again. Such a new face, such an ancient feeling.

"Well, I'd love to spend another day with you if you'd let me. We can go on a food trip in the south garden." He suggested. "I've never been to the south, but my brother said it had the best curry."

Curry. I need curry. "I'm afraid every minute I have before my coronation is booked."

He pursed his lips in thought. "If that's so..." Tino's smile shone again, and like a mirror, I reflected it back. "Give me the next free minute."

"I'd be honored." I said, as I touched the cobblestones finally. "Where are you staying? You must be staying at the House."

"Well... my luggage is still in our runner." He shrugged. "I flew directly to the museum. We'll be leaving for the House at seven, I believe after dinner with the curator."

"You, Wills and queen Aridni?"

"The queen will arrive tomorrow... the English king isn't doing too well." Tino was walking me towards my own.

The king had always been sickly. Money and doctors could only buy so much time. Maybe by the end of the year, the winter prince would be king.

I looked at him again, his demeanor dimming ever so slightly, his heart going out to the friend who was now lounging at the lake. And just as it disappeared, his smile appeared again, just as bright. "Then... I'll maybe see you in the House?"

"Hopefully but highly unlikely." I smirked at him, knowing he probably would get lost.

Tino took my hand and kissed it as Ly opened the runner to let me in. "A pleasure, da Vinci." He said fixing his eyes at me. "Semper invicta."

"Semper invicta." I replied as I entered the runner and Ly closed the door. In seconds, we ascended into the cobalt sky, leaving the prince with the periwinkle shirt on the ground, staring at me as if I was the moon.

×+×

Ly was silent only for a moment. "How was it?"

"He's different. Happy." I said, feeling a warmth in my heart I hardly recognized.

Ilyaas took out his tablet from his satchel and opened a file. As he projected it onto the air in front of him, I averted my gaze. "No criminal record. Academically, he's doing great in international business, but his grades went down a bit this semester. Psychologically, it's his first year away from his family so separation anxiety. His father is a broker-"

"Yes, he told me."

"-mother owns a few department stores, sister graduated in fine arts-"

"I'd rather hear about his family from him." I remarked.

Ilyaas blinked.

"Ah so it did go well." I felt him chuckle. "You actually plan on having a conversation with him again."

"Well, he seemed cheerful."

"He has depression. He's been on medication and therapy for two years because of... well he'll probably tell you. So, I'm glad to hear he's happy and you're happy." Ilyaas smiled at me as he closed his tablet. "You might be good for him too."

"Doubtful." I said, fearing the warmth in my chest might burn me with my realization.

"Elaborate."

I sighed. It was the only thought that blocked me from enjoying the hours of walking through halls of Picasso and Cezanne. "He said not having his own country to rule has granted him a good life."

"And?"

"He'd be a royal to a whole continent with multiple countries if he ends up with me." I knew the baggage now; I didn't want him to carry it with or for me.

"That's the great life." Ilyaas shrugged. "He accepted his invitation. He flew here first. He knows the consequences."

"I don't think he does." I remarked, seeing the sparkling city nearing us, reminding me of who I was.

I was the center of the continent now; I was the guardian of my people. Every innocent child, every grieving mother, every dying soldier, every empty plate was my responsibility.

My empire was my meaning, and I still didn't even know how to define myself.

"He has a good life." I said. "Some people don't know that the price for a great life is happiness." I saw it in my grandfather. I saw the light only survive in my uncle after he left. I saw my father dimming every day the day of his coronation neared.

Eurasia was as close to perfect as any country could ever wish to be, but that could change with just one mistake. "Ilyaas, power demands pain... and who has more power than the empress?"