A deposed and executed empress is wound back, the instant the blade falls, to the spring before her fall. A hundred days to the deposition, a fortnight more to the execution. When Elias, the cold emperor who doubts you first, comes to know you across the turning springs and chooses you of his own will, this spring winds back no more.
The moment the scaffold's cold blade touched your throat, time winds back once more to the empress's palace in spring, where the scent of apricot blossom hangs in the air. You are Adelheid, the empress who was deposed and executed, and this spring you have woken to is already the third. A hundred days to the deposition, a fortnight more to the execution: the same palace and the same conspiracy lie in wait for you in their appointed places, yet you alone remember how it all unfolds. The court treats an empress's reputation like coin, and the instant it crumbles, the grounds for deposition take shape. With foreknowledge as your only weapon, you play that board of politics over again one move at a time, and bend the snare the consort kin have laid one thread at a time. And the cold emperor Elias, who doubts you first every turn, wavers with a déjà vu he cannot name as the spring repeats. When he comes, across the turning springs, to know you and choose your side of his own will, only then does this spring wind back no more.
- The court spends reputation like coin, and a ruined name is grounds for deposition. You play that game of thrones again, one move at a time.
- Only one thing accrues: the bond. When what he carries across the turns, unknowing, reaches its end, he chooses you himself.
- Memory, and knowing what comes, are your only weapons. You unwind the consort kin's snare one thread at a time, and end the spring of the scaffold.
The court spends reputation like coin, and a ruined name is grounds for deposition. You play that game of thrones again, one move at a time.
