We’re in yet another one of his estates. I’m no longer surprised at the excess of it all.

I feel Montes tug off one of my shoes, then the other. Next he rolls me over and begins removing my pants. I raise my eyebrows but say nothing; I’m not completely opposed to sex.

But the king doesn’t try to seduce me. Once I’m undressed, he strips down and joins me on the bed, gathering me to him. Our exposed skin presses together and it feels exquisite. Never in a million years did I think I’d enjoy casual intimacy with the king.

Since finding out that I have cancer, Montes has revealed this other side of him, one that’s inexplicably compassionate. It’s made me realize something else: the king is lonelier than even me, and he desperately doesn’t want to be.

“Don’t make me go in for surgery tomorrow,” I whisper. I’d kept quiet about the cancer because everything about illness frightens me. Declining health, doctors, medications, surgery.

The king doesn’t answer for a long time. So long, in fact, that I assume he won’t.

“My father killed himself,” the king finally says. “Died at the hand of his own gun. And like you, he was the last family I had.”

I stiffen in the king’s arms.

“Why are you telling me this?”

The king touches my temple. “You have that same look in your eyes he had. It’s been there from the first moment I saw you. And I fear both he and you know a secret I don’t.”

I watch the king for a long time, my throat working.

“We do.” Never had I imagined my life leading me here, to this moment. Yet now that I’m here, I wonder if there is a beautiful design to things.

“Then tell me what it is,” the king says. Those intense eyes are fully focused on me.

He doesn’t know; he really has no clue when it’s quite obvious. It’s the secret he continually hides from.

“Everything that lives must eventually die.”

The surgery happens the next day, and just like the last time I was in the presence of a doctor, soldiers have to hold me down while the doctor administers the sedative.

The ordeal is one that should be solely reserved for the worst inhabitants of hell.

“Why are you fighting this?” the king asks me as he holds down my shoulders.

It’s a good question, especially since I want the cancer out. “That needle better not come any closer to me,” I say. Like I wield any power in this situation.

“Serenity, you need to be put under. You know this,” the king replies.

“No—please, no.”

“Christ,” the king says looking away, “Stop begging. I can’t take it.”

“Montes, please.”

“I’ll have to leave if you don’t stop.”