Kratos Marc
Wellknown Ace
The candles had burned themselves into stubs by the time the queen returned to the chamber. Dawn waited outside the windows, patient and cruel, but inside the room the night still clung to everything she touched.
The knight lay where the healers had left him..armor removed, wounds cleaned, hope quietly abandoned.
For the first time in decades, there were no courtiers, no generals, no voices asking her to decide the fate of others. There was only the sound of his breathing slow, uneven, as though even life was unsure it wished to stay.
She sat beside him, the weight of the crown heavier now than any war she had ever fought. All the victories, all the borders she had protected, all the lives she had commanded into battle none of them had prepared her for this moment. She realized then that kingdoms do not fall in fire or blood. They fall in rooms like this, where silence wins.
“I never asked you if you were tired,” she whispered, her voice breaking against the truth. He had carried her reign on his back, shielded her mistakes with his body, buried his own fears beneath loyalty so complete it felt cruel only now, in retrospect.
His eyes opened once just once. Not with surprise, not with pain, but with recognition. As if he had always known this would be the ending. His hand moved weakly, searching, and when she took it, the knight smiled ..not the smile of a warrior, but of a man finally allowed to rest.
“I kept the promise,” he murmured.
She wanted to tell him he had done enough. That he could stop. That she had needed him more than the throne ever did. But queens are taught too late how many words matter only if spoken before the end.
When his hand went still, the world did not shatter. That was the cruelest part. The sun still rose. The bells still rang. History continued its march forward, indifferent to the one man who had held it together.
She stayed long after the room grew cold. When she finally stood, she did something no one would ever record. She placed the crown on his chest, where his heart had been, and left the sword beside him..symbols of a kingdom that had taken everything and given nothing back.
The next day, they would call her the old queen. They would speak of her strength, her wisdom, her reign. But in the quiet that followed her rule, when the halls echoed without footsteps she trusted, she would know the truth:
The knight had not served the crown.
The crown had survived only because of him.
And when her own end came..unmarked, uncelebrated..she would welcome it not as a ruler, but as a woman finally free to follow the one loyalty she had been too proud to name while it still lived.
The knight lay where the healers had left him..armor removed, wounds cleaned, hope quietly abandoned.
For the first time in decades, there were no courtiers, no generals, no voices asking her to decide the fate of others. There was only the sound of his breathing slow, uneven, as though even life was unsure it wished to stay.
She sat beside him, the weight of the crown heavier now than any war she had ever fought. All the victories, all the borders she had protected, all the lives she had commanded into battle none of them had prepared her for this moment. She realized then that kingdoms do not fall in fire or blood. They fall in rooms like this, where silence wins.
“I never asked you if you were tired,” she whispered, her voice breaking against the truth. He had carried her reign on his back, shielded her mistakes with his body, buried his own fears beneath loyalty so complete it felt cruel only now, in retrospect.
His eyes opened once just once. Not with surprise, not with pain, but with recognition. As if he had always known this would be the ending. His hand moved weakly, searching, and when she took it, the knight smiled ..not the smile of a warrior, but of a man finally allowed to rest.
“I kept the promise,” he murmured.
She wanted to tell him he had done enough. That he could stop. That she had needed him more than the throne ever did. But queens are taught too late how many words matter only if spoken before the end.
When his hand went still, the world did not shatter. That was the cruelest part. The sun still rose. The bells still rang. History continued its march forward, indifferent to the one man who had held it together.
She stayed long after the room grew cold. When she finally stood, she did something no one would ever record. She placed the crown on his chest, where his heart had been, and left the sword beside him..symbols of a kingdom that had taken everything and given nothing back.
The next day, they would call her the old queen. They would speak of her strength, her wisdom, her reign. But in the quiet that followed her rule, when the halls echoed without footsteps she trusted, she would know the truth:
The knight had not served the crown.
The crown had survived only because of him.
And when her own end came..unmarked, uncelebrated..she would welcome it not as a ruler, but as a woman finally free to follow the one loyalty she had been too proud to name while it still lived.
