31 DAYS. 1 HOUR. 48 MINUTES.
Jemeena stood in front of her father, who looked at his plate with such empty eyes, laced with disappointment so deep in the cracks of his wrinkles that, for the first time in her life, she saw her father speechless. He wasn’t giving her a command, telling her what to do, offering more lessons in this or that; he simply looked at her from across the breakfast table with his soul on display. She could see the pain he usually hid so well.
Her lifeclock, unwrapped from its usual gold cloth, seemed to tick louder than the others in the room. It was probably just her imagination.
Everyone’s eyes kept flitting back to it with a different variation of the same emotion in them: Mother looked like she might be on the verge of tears but was holding them back with a barricade of politeness; Father looked stern but haggard, as though the years of trying to do something about the issue hanging around like a fog had forever changed him; both of her brothers, though trying their best with light-hearted humor, kept having moments where the inevitable clearly burst their carefully crafted bubbles.
“Father?” Jemeena asked, breaking the silence.
He looked up from his breakfast with a questioning gaze.
“I was wondering if...I could be removed from duties for the next month. I would like to see the world.” It was a lie, of course, but if she told them the truth, they’d be in a difficult position, choosing between the law and their daughter. “There are things I would like to do now that the end is nearing.”
Her father looked at his wife, who allowed a single tear to escape, and a sound of disapproval left his lips. “Jemeena, I would prefer if you stayed close. Stayed at home.”
“The request was a formality. I’ll be leaving in the morning. I do not wish to spend the remainder of my days trapped on the royal floor of Palatina like a bird in a gilded cage. I’ll spend them not as a princess, but as a free citizen of Clepsydra.”
“I cannot stop you if you truly wish to leave,” Father admitted. He could, of course, stop her with guards and confining her to her chambers, but she didn’t think he had the heart to do so. Not anymore. “You are free, then, to explore the kingdom as you see fit.” He looked at her with those green eyes, as though he had more to say but didn’t know what words to put to the sentiment. Finally, he settled on, “I am sorry, daughter.”
Jemeena’s youngest brother, Zalto, shoved his chair out and stood, frustration overflowing the boundary of his control. Without a word, he stormed out of the room, slamming the chamber door closed behind him.
Her other brother simply looked at her, a brief moment of pain in his eyes before he closed that well shut. “Explore the world, go on a romantic adventure with some girl, watch an endless number of those stupid plays you like, see Prago City one last time like you’ve always wanted to?” He stood and walked over to Jemeena, kneeling in his white suit, and removed the ostentatious top hat she had always despised. “I wish you the best of luck, sister, and an ungodly amount of happiness.” He grabbed her wrist and flipped it over, taking one last look at her lifeclock with a shake of his hand. “Seren, I am sorry.”
There was a hidden weight to his words Jemeena didn’t want to acknowledge. That perhaps there was something he could do, if only he deemed her more worthy than the law preventing him from meddling. He left with as much grace as he always walked—a swagger she usually rolled her eyes at, but today she simply watched for what was perhaps the last time. She would miss that stupid idiot’s swagger.
“Where will you go?” Mother asked her.
“To Prago City maybe, or perhaps to the west. I’ve never seen the outlying towns.”
“You’ll take Hera, I suppose?” Father asked, his usual disdain for his daughter’s closest friend barely present. “At least you’ll have a friend there at the end. If you wish to come back, you are more than welcome.” He had barely eaten his breakfast, but he, too, departed, leaving just Jemeena and her mother in a room of tension thick as fog.
“I hope you find what you’re looking for, dear. I really do.”