Three Kings and a Princess
Myrrh is Mine; Its Bitter Perfume: Part II
#FanFiction #TheApothecaryDiaries #TearmoonEmpire
#wss366 #MastoPrompt
“Why would I care about how the Jinshi reacted?” Mao wondered. She had a #bond of loyalty and friendship with him, and he was useful if trying, but was there something more? Mao, seldom self-reflective, was puzzled.
It was strange; her alarm at the Emperor’s interest in her was mixed with sadness. “It’s like when I find out I missed a good meal or the herb shop just sold a rare medicine I had been looking for.”
She turned the thoughts over in her mind, like a riddle. Somewhere they must be a clue. Then she let go of it, reminding herself of something Loumen had #educated her on: “Don’t speculate. It is worse to say the wrong thing than to remain silent.”
The fragrance of myrrh drifted into the room, pungently bitter. A gift from another suitor. It was hard to picture there being a fourth.
The futility of speculation was instantly revealed when words echoing her dread and sense of loss drifted in through the door. It was a familiar singsong voice:
Myrrh is mine; its bitter perfume
breathes a life of gathering gloom;
sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,
sealed in the stone-cold tomb.
“But of who was it?”
[Continued in “O Star of Wonder”]
#MicroFiction #TootFic #Serial #NMFic #ApothecaryDiaries