[Emperor Cassius Pov]
The wine tastes bitter tonight.
Strange. It's the same bottle I've had aged for fifteen years. Same grapes, same vineyard. And yet it grates on my tongue like ash.
Sigh...
I set the goblet aside.
Damn it. My mind won't calm down.
No matter how I close my eyes or count the breaths, my thoughts claw their way to the surface like starving wolves. Maybe I should train. Maybe I should carve through the air with a sword until the rage burns out of me. Maybe I should kill something. Something that bleeds.
"Uughhh…"
I glance to my side.
She shifts in her sleep—my daughter—curled like a kitten in the mountain of pillows. Her small hand stretches toward me, blindly, instinctively. And then she finds it—my fingers—and clings. Tight.
I paused and smiled. It looks like she knows—even in dreams—that I'm the only shield she has in this damned world.
"She's sleeping peacefully," I murmur, more to myself than anyone else.
