TOOAFP Chapter 117: A Prayer for the Empress (1)

"Your — Your Highness."

Margaret stared at the Empress with her composure entirely forgotten.

She had not expected Empress Ann to look healthy after all this time in a coma. But what lay before her was not merely a sick woman. She was far closer to the dead than to the living.

What was stranger still was that no treatment whatsoever appeared to be taking place. The Empress simply lay there — abandoned. Like an ornamental object in a grand salon, gathering dust on its display stand.

Princess Melissa was gazing at her mother the way a child presses her face against a glass case — longing for something visible before her that she could never reach. Whatever her intent, it was impossible to read.

Watching the princess with growing unease, Margaret found her thoughts drifting to Kasha's letter, which had arrived late the previous night.

It had begun with…