The Crown Remembers

I have lost all.

My kin, my crown, my castle, my very station-and above all, my pride.

All of it, reduced to ash... because of him.

That man-whom the world dares to name my husband.
How dare he?

I swore I would never love such a man. Never claim him as mine, nor accept him as my lord.

And yet...

What cruel jest is this, that I now learn the truth too late?
What mean they when they say he shielded me, though it cost him his honour?
What do they mean when they whisper that he wagered his life, time and again, to keep me alive.
What do they mean when they speak of how he bore the scorn of his own companions... all for the faint hope that I might one day trust him?

And what am I to do with the truth of my own blood?

A father who was tender in his love, yet wretched in his rule.
A house steeped in corruption-gold stolen, innocents sold, sins too vile to name.

The man who stood steadfast at my side... I wounded him most of all.

Again. And again. And again.

Yet clarity comes not as mercy, but as torment-
for it has found me only now, as I stand at the edge of my end.
The blade awaits.
The crowd watches.
And I... I am to die.
If the fates were kind-if time itself would bend but once
I would choose differently.
I would not turn from the man who loved me.
I would not raise my hand against my own salvation.
I would be his... not in name alone, but in truth.
But such mercy is not granted to the condemned.
And so, I go to meet my doom...
with regret as my final companion