You Would Have Loved it Here

When I was younger, I would have this recurring dream. It started in the courtyard. Standing from a distance, I would see my mother and father under the shade of the gazebo, and my brother running about in the garden. I'd hold my hand up in the air to greet them. They all would turn to me at the same time and stop in their tracks, faces turning pale. As if they had seen a ghost.

Then the scene would shift. Suddenly I was in a forest, trudging through deep layers of snow. I don't think I'd ever really seen snow before, but I imagined this must be what it looked like. Pure white, glistening under the radiance of the sun. It was beautiful. But I never took the time to admire it. In the dream, it felt as though I was being chased and I had somewhere I was trying to escape to in that snowy land. But I couldn't remember.

That's when the man would appear. The man that looked like my brother all grown up. Dark, ebony hair and eyes the color of starlight. Impossible eyes, but they matched mine. Every time he appeared, I stumbled and fell to the ground on my knees. That's when I would notice for the first time the wound in my side. As the man resembling my brother edged closer, his sword drawn, the blood pooled around me on the ground, staining the snow.

When he came to the spot right in front of me, he would stop and ask,

"Do you have any final words?"

And I always gave the same reply, every time.

"Long live the sun of our empire."

Then the dream would end.

I would always wake up in a cold sweat, my heart racing, my hands clammy. As a young child, I regarded it as an awful nightmare. But as I grew, and the dream came back to me more and more frequently, I began to wonder if it was more of a premonition.

I wish I had been wrong.

It wasn't until my coming-of-age ceremony until I finally realized the truth about my recurring dream. I had always loved and treasured my family, but I had failed to realize my place in their world. As a princess of the imperial family, I could only be two things. First, a pawn to be used in their games. Or second, an enemy vying for the throne.

My brother opted for the second option, and the attempts on my life began as soon as I was old enough to be considered in the race for succession. I spent years dodging assassinations. Hiding and cowering. All the while, the only thing I could manage to do was beg my brother for his love back.

It was the only thing that had ever mattered to me. Not the throne or the crown. I just wanted my family to be whole again.

But my brother had forgotten our childhood together. Blinded by the veracious nobles in his service, and poisoned by public opinion. I was no longer a sister to him. But I continued to love him anyway, from afar.

But I couldn't spend forever dodging death. I knew at some point I had to make my escape from the imperial palace. I figured my best bet would be marriage. I could even frame it as my attempt to showcase my support for my brother's reign. So I set out to find a suitable husband. I settled on the lord of one of our furthest regions, hoping the further out I ran from home, the safer I'd be.

I tried to send letters of my proposal at first, but I was told they couldn't be delivered. The weather in the northern regions was too unforgiving in winter. No messenger could make it there and back alive until spring arrived.

But I was running out of time. The attempts on my life were increasing in frequency. And the nightmare appeared every night. I knew the end was near.

So I took a risk. I decided I'd find my own way to the north. But I was foolish. An imperial princess who'd only ever taken a few horseback riding lessons in her youth, and didn't know the first thing about wilderness survival? I was doomed to failure from the very start.

Worse, my brother followed me. And so the hunt began.

Eventually, there I was again, knees in the snow. Blood at my feet. And that familiar image of my older brother.

"Do you have any final words?"

I could feel the words I spoke in my dream thousands of times over rising in my throat like bile, but I swallowed them down. This time, for the real thing, I would accept my death in silence.

Except, my death didn't come that day.

Just as soon as I lowered my head, I heard the sound of hooves approaching in the snow.

"YAH!"

I snapped my head up to see another man approaching on horseback, flanked by soldiers. He took one look at me, then turned to my brother and fixed him with an angry scowl.

"You will let her go."

My brother just stared in disbelief at first. Then he laughed.

"What makes you think I have to listen to you?"

The stranger just smirked, "Easy. I have more soldiers than you."

And so the fighting began. I tried to stay awake and drag myself out of the fray, but I was losing a lot of blood, and quickly. I could feel my consciousness fading. Right before everything went black, I remember looking up at the sky to see snow falling. It felt as if the heavens were crying.

When I woke up again, I was in a warm bed, the sound of a nearby fireplace crackling softly. I sat up quickly, then instantly regretted it.

As I cried out in pain, the door to the room I was in swung open instantly. A maid turned behind her and yelled, "She's awake!"

From there, I was taken out of the bed by a group of attendants that helped me bathe, and then I was given an examination by their physician and he changed the bandages on my wound.

As he finished, I finally worked up the courage to ask him a question.

"Where am I?"

He smiled gently at me as he packed up his supplies.

"You are in the northern region of Steria. You have reached your destination, my lady. You are safe now."

I didn't know this man, or exactly what had happened, but his words were enough to make my shoulders slump and my eyes tear up. Suddenly I was sobbing, and there was no stopping it. The physician didn't try to comfort me. He seemed to understand that I wanted a moment alone and he left the room.

After a few minutes, I was finally able to calm down some and take in part of my surroundings.

The room I was in was beautiful, but most gorgeous was the view from the window.

It was snowing again.

"... you would like it here, brother." I quietly whispered to myself.

Then I buried myself under the covers of the bed and cried myself to sleep.