Crown or Sword?

The sombre tale of love

"Oh lord, this is such a wonderful night! You are going to be my sister in law Sash!", Mina said.

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, sure. Just because your brother danced a bit with me-"

"He danced thrice with you! That is socially acceptable only for engaged or courting couples. Not to mention that most of the highly respected debutantes didn't get even one dance "

"Ashley Burgoise sneaked in two.", I said, although I knew this was because Lord Burgoise was suspected to be linked to the rebellions.

"You just don't want to accept that you like him, or that you may be falling in love with him."

"Maybe because I don't want to fall in love..... with anyone?"

She raised her eyebrows .

Sighing, I continued, "Love creates and nurtures at it best and destroys at it's worst . I have seen too many examples before my eyes."

"Your mother?"

"Yes," I said , cooking up a story, "my mother. She lost father, then looked for happiness through the lands far and wide, but it was  now buried, with him, in his grave."

"But the worst I have seen isn't her. We lived for two years in the Duchy of Ferria."

She gasped. "The Duchy of doom, they call it. I wonder why."

"I will tell you why. Ferria is a beautiful land. The strongest, most prosperous Duchy of  the kingdom of Avalon. Yet every face holds only a ghost of a smile. Every wall, pillar, every brick, tells a sombre tale. The sombre tale of lost love. I may be the only one to have heard it from the heart broken himself- Lord Williams, the Duke of Ferria, the for say commander in chief of Avalon, holder of the sword of the commander in chief of the royal armed forces of Avalon, and_"

"And father's best friend."

"Yes. Years ago, he fell in love with a beautiful girl, Lady Symphony, at the royal season where King Jarrod met his match in your mother. They got married and settled down happily in Ferria high castle. She was expecting a child not much after. And then, twenty years ago, when you must have been one year old, when she was due any day, rebellion broke out here, in Capital city. A rebellion like never before. Riots, blood baths, it was horrible. Lord Stephen Williams came up to the capital to suppress them. Little did he know that rebellion had spread countrywide. Ferria was attacked. Lady Symphony was incharge-"

"Rumour says she had delivered by then.", supplied the maid, Mary.

"But fact says she was still with child. And she died, protecting Ferria, while her husband lost his soul, one limb, and lived in Ferria High Castle as a broken hearted haunting, depressed ghostlike presence, never smiling. I don't want to fall in love, for falling in love means you will break, and I don't want to break. "

The night slipped further into darkness and silence, as eyes gently shut. but little did anyone know that rumour had it true this time. A baby girl had been born before brave Lady Symphony had given her life for her Duchy, her nation. And her husband had named this beloved child Sasha