A Memory Called Empire Novels & Stories

Not the river. A different body of water. Still. Reflective. “You don’t visit the old skyline anymore,” Pierce said. “I don’t need to,” I replied. “Why?” “Because it’s inside me now.” He nodded. Understanding without explanation. Back home, I opened a new notebook. Blank pages. Not for memoir. Not for legacy documentation. For reflection. I wrote one sentence at the top: An empire is not what you build around you. It’s what you refuse to let collapse within you.

Flora's POV Five years later, Chicago was still the same—familiar and strange all at once. I stood at the floor-to-ceiling window of my hotel room, looking down at the city I'd once called home for three years. A copy of Forbes lay on the table, my face on the cover. "FLORA ROSSI: THE AI QUEEN'S JOURNEY FROM DATA SCIENTIST TO BILLIONAIRE." An eight-billion-dollar acquisition had put my name on the global stage.

“And the *Memory*.” Kael’s eyes narrowed. “Memory?” The Firstborn raised a trembling hand toward the Rift. “It was cast away when the Hollowed rebelled. The Memory is not a person. It’s a place. A part of the world where the future is born from the past. Without it, the heirs’ bond is hollow. That’s what the Pale Guard seeks to destroy. Not the children… but the **gap** within them.”

Inside, a florist stared at a future she had never chosen. And somewhere between legacy and strategy, a contract the empire could not break had taken its first breath.

They were wizards, in Kade’s eyes, of making the world of the rich and powerful dance to their tune. He was too young to remember a time before Sinclair and Associates—their first, noisier, more public child, in a sense. By the time he was born, the empire was firmly established, its roots sunk deep in the foundations of the city. It wasn’t until he was a newly-minted teenager that he understood the full nature of what it meant to be at the head of that empire. What it meant to be a Sinclair and to carry so much power, so openly in his name itself.

He quickly asked, “Is something the matter?” A bell had rung in my head. “You said you're guards of what empire again?” I struggled to ask. “Why, well it's the Royal Spirit Empire! Of course you've heard of it, it's the most popular empire in the Ancient Reality continent!” I shook my head in disbelief. I was not so shocked because of whatever he was saying in praise of his empire, but the reason I was shocked to the bones was because the name of the empire carried the same prename of my unique cultivation bloodline; Royal Spirit.

Spencer was not able to distinguish if it was a mock or not. Emmette gazed at the overview of the Empire. Thrascias was so huge Emmette could not seem to see the end. It was a peaceful, magnificent empire that is the total opposite of Aparactias. If Thrascias is an Empire of Defense and land of peacemakers, Aparctias is an Empire of Offense where most of the forces were war-freak who only obeys the Ruler. Emmette released a stressful laugh. What iconic places to be ruled by one woman.

In the Xie Empire, the Empress, who had regained all of her clones, could not rest easy. Since then, major changes had taken place in the Xie Empire, causing many to feel uneasy. "Why? What's happening to me? Why am I still thinking about that person?" The Empress couldn't understand why there was an image of a man in her head. She couldn't free herself from this problem, so she continued to think about this man. Even though she herself was not sure what the man in her head looked like.

The student body went into applause. “Any question?” Chloe asked “What was behind the name Empire?” Cami was the person to ask the question. Yes Cami was still in school, she was still a grade away from graduating high school. “That is a great question. Empire was the name of my late Godmother; I owe her a lot so I named everything I own after her.” Chloe replied with a smile

(Patricia’s POV) The driver pulled over in front of a familiar building. The name "The Bedford Corporation" stood boldly on a sky-blue plate at the top. The building looked tall and respectable, but still, it couldn’t compare to the Smithfield Headquarters, my empire. My chest tightened as unpleasant memories of this place flooded back. I remembered how I used to come here, back when Mason and I were still something. I used to make lunch with love and bring it to him at his office. I could never forget the first day I brought him lunch, or how his father treated me that day.