Empress
A Novel
Chapter One
Endless moons, an opaque universe, thunder, tornadoes, the quaking earth. Rare moments of peace; forehead up against my knees, arms around my head, I thought, I listened, I longed not to exist. But life was there, a transparent pearl, a star revolving slowly on its own axis. I was blind. My eyes stared into that other world, that other existence that dwindled a little every day. Its colors were extinguished, its images blurred. I was still left with cries of astonishment and feeble sobbing. I was oppressed by the impotence of these vague recollections, burned by their melancholy. Who am I? I asked Death as it crouched at my feet. Death moaned and gave no reply.
Where am I? I could hear laughter, voices saying, "It will surely be a boy, my Lord. He is moving. He is full of life."
It mattered little who I would be. I was already weary of this vastness. I was weary of hoping, of waiting, of being myself -- the center of the world.
I was soothed by the rustle of the wind. I listened to the trickle of rain. Across my sky in which the sun never rose, I could hear a li ... read full excerpt from: Empress ebook
