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CHAPTER NINE. ━━━━━━━━━ Though lovers may be lost, love shall not.
DYLAN THOMAS,DEATH HAS NO DOMINION ━━━━━━━━━
ASTORIA UNCLASPS THE CLOAK THAT marks him as a Kingsguard and it falls to the floor, startlingly white against the carpet painted in dark by the fire that is the only source of light in the room. Arthur is surprised at the profound relief he feels, as if he has not shrugged off a cloak but a mountain. The oaths are suddenly so immaterial. Why has he tormented himself so over them? Whatever is on my shoulders, I can take off, he thinks as he reaches for the ribbon holding her hair; the dark curls tumble over her shoulders, black and lustrous like a Dornish night. But what is in my heart, I cannot pull out. A damned thing, the heart is. That is how it is made.
Something had happened. Arthur is not sure what exactly but it had created a distance between them. Astoria is more quiet and solemn around him now, though still as loving.
"Do you ever think about it?" he asks. "If things were different?"
Astoria stays silent. Her nails dig, hard and red into her palm, and she says nothing. She feels as if she is looking down on herself from a great height, as if she is altogether removed.
"I cannot stop thinking about you," Arthur grits out, sounding like it pains him to say it, sounding baffled.
"Who are you to me?" she questions, her chin raised. For days, the question has been nagging at her mind. What are they? But more importantly — what are they not?
"I am your sword," ge replies, dropping to one knee.
"A man is not a sword," Astoria says. A vise slowly tightens around her chest, grabs hold of her heart.
"That is all I am," he replies, begging her to understand something that he himself does not.
"Do knights not have hearts?"
"That does not change anything," he says, wishing his voice sounded less harsh.
Arthur has watched a king, and a queen, and two princes. He has watched them and found them wanting. Yet he cannot intervene because of duty — the duty he gave himself. His duty is to never love, to serve only the Crown, to die. His duty is not to meddle in the world of men, no matter how objectionable their actions. What is duty but a burden? hisfather had spat out during an argument. He has forgotten his father's voice, an unfathomable thing to forget, but it has been so long. Will he one day forget them all? Forget watching his mother almost die of a fever, or the feeling of Astoria's skin under his fingertips, forget what it felt like to have a heart that beat for something more than honour?
