It was no secret that Pavlos blamed her for the fact that he had never been able to sire a son. After twenty-five years of trying to no avail, her decision to admit defeat had been taken as a sign of guilt in the eyes of the man who had sworn to love and cherish her no matter what the gods threw at them. Sera couldn’t believe that she had been such a foolish girl to believe that he would fulfill this promise. Her head had been filled with dreams of having what Alexios had given her back into her life again, but she had never once thought that the two of them would eventually be caught in this situation. She had never thought that the age difference between them, making him spry and young as her bones began to grow frail, would eventually be the curse of them. But then again, Sera had never thought that she wouldn’t be able to fulfill the unspoken price of a noble man’s devotion. After all, a thousand daughters would never compare to the legal worth of one single boy.

Sera had known when she met Pavlos at the Temple of Hymen that she was not going to have a large family with him. She had been nearing the end of her childbearing years when she had been wedded to the Marikas family. This thought had never eluded her. However, she had already had a boy and he had turned out to be a strong and strapping young man. She had been foolish enough to believe that she would be able to do it again -- she had been so sure of herself that she had not even given the matter much thought when she found herself wooed by a man who was nearly half her junior. It was just an expected outcome that even the mere thought of anything different happening (or it mattering this much to her husband) had been nothing short of sheer ludicrous the day that Sera had been made a blushing bride for the second time.

She could have never fathomed that the fourteen-year-old girl who had been wedded to Alexios could have had more common sense than Sera had had on that wretched day.

Not that such things mattered now, twenty-five years later where Sera was utterly trapped in this loveless marriage. That’s what it was to her -- loveless. Pavlos might have convinced himself that there was still a spark between them, something that he could still cursedly draw out of her with enough honeyed words whispered into her ear, but it was harder for Sera to see. The pain in her daughter’s faces and the deep dripping wound that Pavlos aggravated every time he failed to hide the fact he sought whores to do what Sera could not have blinded her to such silly notions that they were the same as they had been twenty-five years ago. Perhaps if Pavlos had let go of the things that he could not change instead of attempting to play the role of the fates with his olive branches and lectures about the duty of a so-called proper wife, things would have never gotten so bad. However, you would think Pavlos had Xanthos blood with how steadfast he could be in both his determination that he could breathe life into a withered womb and also find fault within the woman who had no control over their children’s gender.

Sera had held her tongue for so long. She had suffered for years in silence as that was a woman like her was supposed to do. For the better part of two decades, she had taken the blame for things she could not control, but there had to be a point where even the most loyal of wives must break. That had come in the past two years where her ever-stubborn courses had finally begun their stuttering halt, informing Sera and Pavlos that it did not matter what the duty of a wife was, there would be no more chances for a stroke of luck. Another son would never take root in Sera. This phase of her life was over. Thus far, Pavlos had been unable to accept this. In fact, the physical reminder that such dreams of siring a son with his wife were concluded had only seemed to spur him further down the path that there was some sort of solution to this pesky problem. His temper with Sera was short, but his need for passion was flared. It did not matter that Sera was exhausted. Pavlos’s need for an heir came first. It came before the daughters they did have. It came before his wife. It came before everything, forcing Sera to cease in biting her tongue if she wanted to protect what little sanity she had left and to spare herself the pain of spending the next decade being told that she was a failure.

Was Sera innocent in this whole endeavor? No. She was just as much of a perpetrator in the misery of the Marikas household as her husband. That much had been on full display when Sera had rebuked the rare attempt from her husband for affection, not willing to have to play the guessing game of what had spurred such things from Pavlos. That had been the start of a screaming match that had lasted the better part of a half-hour and even though it had occurred only within Sera’s chamber with the door firmly latched shut, the whole house practically shook with the fury between them. It was impossible to tell who had been louder; the husband who was blind to the pain of those around him or the wife who had been unwilling to offer love for so long now. Sera had not known that her children could hear the vile things that had been slung at each other, words dripping with poison falling from both their mouths until the chaos had been brought to a bitter end, leaving Sera in a cascade of her own tears as Pavlos stormed off to the gods only knew where. Sera had her suspicions, but she did not ever want to know for sure. There was only so much pain she could take.

As the door had slammed shut behind Pavlos, she had thought that she would have been left alone to wallow in her own misery. Perhaps for a few minutes, she’d be given the chance to allow herself to indulge in the tears she could never shed in front of others due to her role in life. That had been an important lesson that her mother had imparted to her from a young age. No one could ever see her cry as such things were a form of weakness and girls like her could never be weak. That was something else that Sera had spectacularly failed within as she could not think of a weaker person within her life than herself for not having the strength to just bear these troubles as others might. Truly, it felt as if there was nothing that she could do correctly in this world that was determined to take everything that had ever given her a speck of joy away from her -- as if she was some sort of naughty child and not a grown woman who had suffered so much in her long fifty-seven years on this earth.

In fact, she had been so certain in her solitude that Sera had not even thought to check and see if Pavlos had the courtesy to fully close the door as he stormed out. Instead, the tidal wave of emotions immediately overtook her, her own aching sobs as she mourned what little love the couple once had between them had somehow managed to deafen her to the sound of light footsteps crossing the vast expanse of the room. Sera had not known that Agathe had entered until she felt a gentle hand reach to tuck the Princess’s hair behind her ear before a kind hug enveloped her. Had this been Pavlos, as much as she told herself that she hated him, she would have leaned into the touch. However, as it was her daughter, the Princess stiffened beneath her child’s touch.

Agathe might not have seen it amid the sound of the aching sobs that could not be quelled filling the room, but Sera was horrified that her eldest had found her like this. She knew that she could never fully shield her girls from the coldness that unwittingly ensnared Pavlos’s heart, but she never wanted them to see this side of their parents. The ugly side that was kept behind closed bedchamber doors for a reason. Let them think that maybe there was a chance that one-day things would be better… however, if they had to console her when it really should have been Sera tending to their emotional wounds as she had done since they came into this world… there was no way to hide the true scope of this family’s misery, was there?

“Agathe...” The Princess stuttered out uselessly as if her mere words could somehow convince her compassionate daughter to leave and forget that this had ever happened, “You shouldn’t see this…” Gone was the stern voice of the woman who tried fruitlessly to impart the standards she had been raised with into Agathe. Instead, her tone was broken and fragile -- a stark picture from the version of her mother that Sera had ever allowed any of her children to see. Not even Alehandros when she had been deep in grief for his father. Never before would have Agathe seen her mother so utterly broken. This was a side of Sera that she never allowed anyone to witness less they think she is more of a failure than she was already convinced that she had to be.

Even though Sera did not want to know the answer to her next question, fearing that her daughter would know more than Sera ever wanted her to -- lest it might shatter whatever hopes she might have of this misery being fixed; the Princess asked anyway, already knowing what the answer would be. “How much did you hear?”

Enough. Sera silently told herself as tears continued to roll down her face, She had heard more than enough.

She had not thought it possible this mere thought sneaking into her mind was enough to set off a new volley of sobs as Sera was forced to contend with how miserably she had failed as a mother. Her hands gripped onto her daughter, holding her tight no matter how deeply her own fears silently begged the girl to leave. “I’m so sorry Aggie.” She muttered, using a nickname that had not been invoked since the twenty-four-year-old had been a little girl. Oh, how much did Sera long for things to return back to those days before everything had been ruined and they had all been happy.

What wouldn’t Sera give to have that again?