Sarah Z. Creates

In this World-Building Wednesday series, I’m doing just that: fleshing out Talah, one of the worlds in The Sundered Realms.

Alzbetta Seraphina pan’Suoh, Empress of Thycia, laid in her bed and wondered which was worse: being empress or having a conscience.

Yesterday – no, weeks ago, apparently – the question would not even have occurred to her, but she suspected her new-found soul was more to blame for her current malaise than being empress.

Not that being empress felt all that great, either.

“You seem perfectly healthy, Eminence,” the portly man at her bedside proclaimed, and everyone else in the room sighed. Alzbetta wondered how many of those sighs were from disappointment, and she couldn’t help the smile that quirked the edges of her lips. She loved disappointing people. 

Her smile faded. She did now. Weeks ago, she wouldn’t have even noticed the reaction of others. Let alone care.

Not that she cared now. But she noticed.

The physician’s droning slid into her thoughts, interrupting them.

“… slow walks and small, frequent meals–”

“Yes, yes,” she interrupted, waving her hand to dismiss him. “Leave the details with Gretta. Please send for Sven, if he’s not already here.”

The physician and his retinue bowed their way out of her bedchamber, and Alzbetta waited for Sven’s arrival.

It was quick, lending credence to Alzbetta’s suspicion that he’d been waiting to speak with her.

Sven was a painfully thin man of her father’s age with a posture that hinted at military service. Even though Alzbetta knew he hadn’t served.

He’d been her father’s chief of staff and closest advisor, and he had loathed Alzbetta since she was a young girl. The feeling was mutual, but waking up to being empress – and one with a soul, no less – forced her to deal with people she’d rather just kill.