Honestly, the realization that the church would claim her was a bitter pill to swallow, yet it brought a peculiar solace—knowing that her refusal did not originate in feelings for another man she’d chosen over me. This small comfort helped to dissolve the more corrosive strands of my despair, leaving behind a composed, hollow ache. I pressed a hand to my chest, trying to etch into my memory the melancholy feeling of my heart breaking.
In an attempt to rebound from the sting of a lost love, I threw myself into my work. I buried myself in duties and responsibilities, hoping to erase Claudia from my mind as quickly and thoroughly as I could, yet her memory only intensified with time. The persistent strength of my love for her puzzled even me, and before I knew it, a decade had passed.
A month after my coronation, I found myself as an older and wiser man, but that ember of my youthful affection still smoldered in my heart. I was preoccupied with the complex task of solidifying my rule, when on a day like any other, the news of her death reached me.
She’s...gone? Just like that? But she was so beloved by the people! How could she have just...
The official statement from the church claimed she had died after falling from a terrace, but the explanation seemed dubious and insufficient. Given the extensive protections around her, such an accident seemed implausible.
“Raymond!” I roared. “Send someone to the church immediately. We must investigate Claudia’s—”
“We cannot!” he countered, his voice firm and tense. “The nobility would revolt, the people would be up in arms! If we investigate and cannot find proof of culpability, there will be riots in the streets!” He ended his tirade with a shake of his head, fixing a defiant glare on me.
I was acutely aware of the risks. I understood them perhaps even more than Raymond did. I knew it was imprudent to stir up controversy when my rule had yet to stabilize, but still!
“Do you really think me a man so stoic as to hear of the passing of the love of my life and simply let it go? Something’s wrong here, you must see it! Raymond, I beg you!”
In a moment of raw emotion, I abandoned all decorum expected of a monarch and grasped Raymond’s arms, my eyes brimming with tears. He clenched his jaw and averted his gaze; his fists shook, betraying his barely concealed agitation. Torn between allegiance to an old friend and the prospects of the long and prosperous reign of his king, he chose the latter. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty, but I cannot allow you to pursue this path—not this time. You are the king of an entire nation. It is high time you acted like one.”
Anger overwhelmed me. Why couldn’t he understand my pain? Why couldn’t I accept the wisdom and rationale in his caution? Overcome by emotion, I seized him by the collar. “Then I abdicate! The throne means nothing to me without her!”
I’d never forget the shock in my old friend’s eyes at that moment. In a swift, solemn motion, he raised his hand and brought it sharply across my face.
The slap resounded sharply through the room, startling me into silence. It took me moments to register that my cheek was stinging from the impact.
“I have heard quite enough from you today!” Raymond thundered. “You are the king of Celestia. I will not stand idly by as you cast reason to the wayside and let chaos consume the kingdom your family has nurtured for generations! I do not wish to trivialize your feelings, but you realize that this would mean facing the possibility of war? All because you can’t move past a teenage crush?!”
This was the first time in my life I’d heard my friend’s voice laden with such ire, and it jolted me towards a semblance of calm. The emotions that had rocked me like a tidal wave began to recede. I cast my eyes downward, momentarily shutting out the world, while Raymond’s heavy breathing filled the silence.
“Your Majesty. Saint Claudia loved this country,” he continued, his voice softening. “Many of your subjects regard her as their savior. If war were to break out, it would undoubtedly have broken her heart. Is this your intention? You wish to dishonor her legacy by destroying all that she worked so hard to build?”
What could I say to that? To tarnish the legacy of the woman I loved? Impossible. The realization struck me with clarity—I could never rob the people she’d cherished of their joy. I would never forgive myself. So, I swallowed my rage and my grief, and I vowed to let the matter rest forever.
Clutching my throbbing cheek, I looked up at Raymond. Tears glistened in his eyes—tears of sympathy, tears of frustration, shed by a friend who cared deeply.
Ah, of course. How did I not see that his heart is as heavy as mine?
Self-loathing consumed me. How could I have been so blind to my friend’s feelings?
“Sorry, Raymond,” I muttered quietly. “I lost my composure. That was unseemly of me. Thank you for returning me to my senses.”
“No. I am deeply sorry for striking you. You may punish me in any way you deem fit.”
The ever-serious Raymond dipped his head low in apology, eliciting a wry smile from me. I shook my head in exasperation, reflecting on his conscientious character. “That won’t be necessary. What you did was only necessary to help me regain my composure. But, um, would you mind stepping out for a moment? I would like some time to myself.”
He looked at me for a second. “Understood.”
With a sharp bow of his head, he excused himself at once to the adjoining room. Now alone in that quiet room, one hand nursing my stinging cheek, I cried silently and freely.
Regrets filled my head, pain tightened around my heart—if only I’d torn up that letter of rejection and swept her off her feet that day; if only I’d conveyed to her the true depth of my affection; if only I had locked her in my arms at that first meeting and never let go. Why had I let myself be satisfied with merely knowing she hadn’t chosen another over me? Such folly, so many wasted chances.
Tormented by the echoes of what could have been, my younger self’s blunders haunted me, and I wept. I mourned the loss of a selfless soul, taken before her time.
I returned from my recollection, my gaze narrowing on the tomb in front of me. “But Claudia, Prince Gilbert has uncovered the conspiracy shrouding your death. He has honored your memory, and Mills has been subjected to a divine inquisition, suffering for the full measure of his sins. Isn’t that something? You can rest now.”
Alas, Claudia was no more. I spoke into the eerie shadows of the crypt, fully aware that my words fell upon no living ear—yet still felt it right to impart this news. My hand reached out to caress the cold tomb. There was one more thing I had to say to her.
“Forgive me, Claudia, that I wasn’t the one to avenge your death.” The chill of the stone bit into my flesh, a cruel reminder of her absence. On the twentieth anniversary of her passing, it grieved me as deeply as it had on the day of her departure.
I must confess that I’d had ample opportunity to seek the truth of her untimely death. The instability that marred my reign had been temporary—a transitional phase that had ultimately allowed me to consolidate my power. That turbulent period had ended less than two years following her death. By then, even the most petulant of the nobles had sheathed their barbs, while foreign powers had bowed to the legitimacy of my throne. I could have commissioned an investigation at any point in time beyond those seasons of chaos, but doing so would have been tantamount to admitting a harrowing truth—that Claudia was indeed gone, an actuality my heart had been loath to acknowledge. Thus I’d chosen the coward’s refuge: I’d fled from the truth. By ignoring the reality of her death, I could hold tenuously to an illusion, a fantasy in which she was always just around the next corner, forever elusive, forever and always so slightly out of reach.
“And Prince Gilbert...” I continued. “He told me. You wanted my help in combating the corruption of the church? Yet I in my blindness did nothing as he righted the wrongs I’d ignored for so long. How wretched I feel.” A deep sigh escaped my lips, an audible expression of the disgust I bore for my own impotence, for failing to realize the dreams of the woman I had so deeply cherished.
I traced the engraved letters of her name with a reverent finger. The absence of “Phillips” beside “Claudia” drew a deep frown across my brow. It was merely a name, I tried to console myself, yet without its presence, without my projected fantasy of a world in which we had been together, the gulf between us seemed vast and unbridgeable, as though we had been mere strangers.
Even if I had approached things differently, would you have ever stood by my side?
“I love you, Claudia, from the depths of my heart, always and eternally. May you rest in peace.”
With that final confession, I rose from the cold stone floor, brushing the dirt off my trousers. My gaze held fast to her tomb, as though trying to imprint its every detail upon my memory. Clutching my candle, its light quivering in the draft of the crypt, I took a final, lingering look.
Farewell, Claudia, my first and everlasting love.