“The people who died today considered me a savior, yet all I am is a coward. I am a selfish, angry child wishing nothing more than to have his parents back and his easy life returned. All throughout Thanet, every soul has suffered as much as I have, if not more. Everyone has lost someone. I want to scream at how unfair my life has been, but who else would have been given this chance at revenge I have been given? Would Magus have kept a servant’s brat hostage in the castle? Would Thorda have brought the son of a fishmonger to his mansion to train into a hero? Of course not. A blessing and a curse intertwined. I lost much because I had much to lose. But if I wasn’t who I was, if I wasn’t a prince… then this burden would not be mine. Thanet’s fate would belong to someone else. Surely that other person would be stronger than I am, and wiser, too. Anyone but me. Is that so horrible to ask? Is that so wrong to wonder? A life free of this guilt. A life without this gods-damned burden on my shoulders.”

He was clutching Keles’s hand in a death grip, he realized. Surely hard enough to cause her pain, yet she said nothing. He relaxed his fingers, and he closed his eyes in a futile attempt to gather his thoughts.

What evils have we to our name that your own family has not committed?

“The hanged men and women died believing in me,” he whispered. “And yet I do not believe in myself. What greater insult could I possibly offer them than that?”

Silence fell between them as she pondered her answer. It wasn’t heavy or awkward, for he could sense her piecing together the words. The hesitation showed only that she cared.

“The life we wish for, and the life we have, will never meet,” she said. “If your parents weren’t king and queen, they might have survived Thanet’s invasion. They also might have been soldiers who died defending against the initial wave of boats. They might have been priests executed in the early days when the Dead Flags filled not a crossroad but whole streets. We cannot judge ourselves by the unreal worlds we spin about ourselves. In this world, the real world, your parents were cut down before your eyes. Your sorrow is real, as is your pain. It could have broken you, but it didn’t. You lived on. You grew. You are not defined by your doubts, Cyrus, but the path you walked to bring you to where you are now.”

She leaned against him, forehead to his cheek, her words vital whispers of life.