She can smell the roses through the window, and they are making her hopelessly nostalgic. For the days of yore or the days of old, but mostly for the days that might have been but never were.

Sometimes she feels like a ghost in the Residence, drifting from diplomatic dinner to diplomatic dinner. With function but no purpose. She has married and spawned. Mother never taught her what she was supposed to do after that.

Weather her marriage, she supposes. Once there had been flowers. Roses. Full and white, like the ones that grow outside her window. And there had been charming words, romantic rhetoric.

It had been formality. She'd always understood that, understood that no girl would refuse the crown prince. Never. Romance had simply given the illusion of choice.

There had been flowers, and now there was hell.

She would survive, she supposes, to save the child, to nettle her husband and his father. They'd like to see her break and fall; they want her to truly become the ghost she seems and fade quietly into the background. She can't. For the child's sake, she can't.

Sometimes, the attendants stop her, politely, to make sure she is okay.

Your highness, are you looking for something?

Yes, she replies but never tells them what.

Your highness, is that your son?

Yes. She ducks her head and smiles at the child when they ask that.

Oh, he is handsome! Good day, Prince Ezar.

No. Oh, no. His name is not Ezar. He is Gregor.

She doubts the attendants understand the significance, but Ezar understands. Just as she understands that he knows, that he always knew. No, she will not name her son after the old man. And she hopes the shame of it follows him to his grave.