Today's Reading
From the Secret Scrolls of Esther
She who was once great among the nations
Now sits alone like a widow.
Once the queen of all the earth,
She is now a slave.
Lamentations 1:1 NLT
The Twenty-Fifth Year of King Artaxerxes's Rule
Let me tell you a secret: Being queen will break your heart.
Young women weave sweet fantasies of bejeweled crowns and magnificent honors when they dream of a title. How little they understand the weight of that crown or the cost of true honor.
They look upon me now and see an old woman whose ordinary life holds little to recommend it to the young. They have no notion that once I sat upon the throne they long for. The king's scepter lifted to welcome me, and a hundred backs bent low when I walked past.
They do not know who I am. And that is as I like it. I have not survived this long without learning a trick or two.
The palace goes on as ever, its courtiers blustering, servants scurrying, scribes administering, wives and concubines scheming, armies marching. The empire grinds slowly forward as if the blood of the king I loved was never spilled by covetous hands. Kings are replaced as easily as dribbled ink, it seems.
His son sits on the throne now. Her son. She gave my king what I never could: a lineage to follow after him. She raised the boy well, I'll give her that. He has been a good monarch, with the steel-hard strength that won his forefathers an empire tempered with grace enough to make everyone love him.
I hope that makes her rest easy in her aristocratic grave.
She died clutching the crown she always longed for, while I sit in my simple house, my head bare save for a modest veil. Esther is gone. I am Hadassah again.
There is a peace that comes when you lose everything. Once, I wielded the power of an empire to save my people. That knowledge is my crown, the throne I sit upon when my losses haunt me.
I survived the sharp edge of palace intrigue long enough to complete the hard tasks that God laid before me. And somehow, on that arduous journey, I made a handful of true friends. You might even say I changed a few lives.
CHAPTER ONE
Roxannah
You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble.
Psalm 32:7
THIRTY-THREE YEARS EARLIER THE TWELFTH YEAR OF KING XERXES'S RULE THE TENTH DAY OF SPRING
Sunsets had a lot in common with cats if you lived in Lord Fravartish's house; Roxannah never knew what they might drag in. This one had wrenched in the mangled corpse of her hopes for the evening.
She threw a hasty look at the door before scrambling inside the half-empty linen chest, her legs folding at an awkward angle in the cramped space. For once, her petite frame proved an advantage as she wedged her body inside the musty confines and pulled the lid closed over her head. At twenty-three, she had long since passed the age of playing hide-and-seek. But finding a place of concealment tonight was no childish game.
The sound of heavy footsteps penetrated the smothering darkness of her hiding place. Her mouth turned dry as the steps reverberated inside the chamber, followed closely by softer footfalls.
A booted foot kicked the chest hard, jostling Roxannah. She pressed her face into the rough folds of a woolen blanket to muffle the sound of her gasp.
"Where is she?" The harsh timbre of her father's voice came slurred.
Wine was a thief.
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