Role

Chapter 2

Years went by and my father went to war often. He spoke of the Empress with
admiration that seemed to be met with annoyance from my mother. She told me
frequently we came from a noble house but she married for love and left that
life behind. She would often apologize after one too many glasses of wine that
I would never reach the ranks of the matrons that her sisters had. That I had
been cursed with her failings and foolishness.

My father was perhaps the greatest Blade of his generation, or so he would
regale me with stories that suggested as much. My mother drank as he told them,
she had spent too many years living in the mornings after of such boasts. The
battles and the wars he loved so much left him with little time to tend to her
and to make good on the promises he made to her when they met.

She would often look over at the cabinet that kept our fine dining plates and
utensils. The immaculate silver plate that was a wedding present only gathered
dust now, and she resented her husband so that she couldn't bring herself to
clean it, lest she forget what she had given up to be with him.