Summary
Seventeen years after I died, his favorite little daughter was rummaging through his desk when she knocked a book to the floor.
A small portrait of a woman slipped out. She asked him who it was.
He said nothing. He only looked at it, over and over, for a very long time.
That night, he saw me.
For the first time, the emperor who stood above all others wept openly and begged me to come back.
“You can be my empress. You can have all my love. I could even give you the whole empire. Please—won’t you come back?”
Unfortunately, I was already dead.