#idreamonpaper

The woman before you trembles, and for a moment, a moment, you are almost drawn in by her act. But you hold yourself strong.

“I speak the truth.” Her voice shakes almost as much as her frame. “My people… they have lost everything. Their homes. Their loved ones. Their innocence. Making it here alone was a journey that we barely survived. We will not survive if you send us away.

“They say that Haven was founded on… on the backs of refugees. That they do not turn away those seeking asylum, and I kneel here, now, begging you to prove that to be the truth. Please. Do not… do not turn them away.”

You have spent a lot of time thinking about what you would do, if Catherine ever had cause to throw herself upon your mercy. In those daydreams, though, she was alone; her people finally rising up and casting her out. She was still proud, then. Demanding. Not begging.

Seeing her before you now…

You want to feel the thrill of satisfaction. You know it’s wrong—but you don’t know what to do with… this. This choked feeling in your throat; the feeling of secondhand shame that comes from watching someone you have only ever known as prideful and vain knelt before you in supplication.

Still. Your voice is strong when you speaks, because it has to be. You have to be. “You say your people have lost their loved ones. Their innocence. They lost those things long before the ‘Pale King’ ever took your throne,” you say. “He didn’t take it from them. You did. You have thrown their loved ones, their kin, into war, time and time again. And the thing about war… sometimes those you love don’t come back.”

Her shoulders shake.

You stare at her—and after a moment, you realize that she is weeping.

Without meaning to, you find yourself taking a step back. You glance around, looking at your fellow councilors, but you find them staring at their hands—to the side—at the wall. Anywhere but at you and the queen begging you for mercy.

You drop your eyes back to her.

She is no longer kneeling. Both of her knees are on the ground; her hands touch the wooden floor. Her head is bowed so low that her circlet nearly touches the floor. “I know,” she says, and there are tears in her words, even if you cannot see them on her face. “I know what I have done. The things that I have brought upon them. I do not… I did not come here expecting you to understand that, nor to justify it.” Her words crack and break, little hiccups coming between them. She makes pretty speeches even as she’s crying.

“I did not come asking for asylum for me. I do not care what you do with me. Banish me, exile me, toss me into prison. I don’t care. But please.” Her hand comes up. The circlet comes off, and she throws it. It clatters somewhere, and her bare forehead touches the floor. “Do not turn away my people. My children.”

Your breath freezes in your lungs and your heart stills. Children. The word echoes through your mind like a drumbeat. You have never heard of the Queen of Blood having children.

You stare at her. At this woman, who has thrown curveball after curveball into your life.

You once served her. You were happy, then. Both of you just teenagers. She used to talk about peace. About ending the war that her father had started and forging a better life for you and her people. She used to hold your hand, and smile, and you thought—

It didn’t matter what you thought.

Because when her father died—so unexpectedly. Not in battle, not riding off into war. Something else. You never did learn why, only that Catherine called a meeting that same day. She walked in, pale as a ghost… and instead of calling off the war, as she had promised so many times. Instead of putting together a peace treaty… she sat at that table and she called a vicious, merciless strike on a land you knew, you all knew, was civilian land.

And then she sent you to lead it.

It was the ultimate betrayal, in your eyes. You defected then. Told her where she could stuff her plans. She just… looked at you.

You left the castle, and no one stopped you.

And for the next few years you watched as she tore through the surrounding lands, displacing people without a thought. Rivers of blood ran where ever she directed her people. Even more so when she visited in person.

It didn’t take long until you could no longer sit by and watch. You gathered up the refugees. The lost and the hopeless. You founded the first Free City and Haven unfolded around you. You lost people. Good people. People you loved, people you laughed with, people you ate with, people who saved your life on more than one occasion. But in the end, you have made this a sanctuary, a safe-haven for all those who need and now.

And now Catherine has come and she has invaded that safe haven and you can’t even be angry like you want to because all you see before you is a broken husk of a woman.

You turn your back on her. You look into the fire and for the first time in a very long time, you do not hear the screams of the damned and the dying. You hear the sound of children’s laughter. Your laughter. Yours and Catherine’s, from so long ago, when you used to sit together by the hearth and imagine what it would be like in a world where you didn’t have to be afraid.

“Your people… your children,” you say at long last, “are welcome here. But you. You will be transferred to the dungeons. You will see trial. You will explain your actions to all of the people that you have hurt, and then they will decide your fate.” You will decide her fate, because no one else will take that job. They will speak their pieces and they will wait for you to do something—only to condemn you once it is done. But if that is what must happen, then that is what must happen.

There is a shuddering sigh behind you. “Thank you,” Catherine breathes, and the sound of it shatters the heart you thought you turned to iron long ago.

You shut your eyes. “Guards.”

You do not look as they take her away, down the stairs and into the dark of the dungeons.

There is work to be done, and you will do it.