An anomaly.

The gods spoke your name long before your mother ever did.

It was never a question of whether the prophecy would awaken, only when.

There are older things than kings, and older promises than crowns.

I fear the prophecy less than I fear those who seek to fulfill it.

The realm has spent generations preparing for your coming. I wonder if it prepared you at all.

You have mistaken a prophecy for a promise.

Every man who has interpreted these words has reached a different conclusion.

The stars have not been thus aligned since the prophecy was first spoken.

There is another verse, though none alive dare recite it.

The oracle begged that your name never be written.

The prophecy speaks of two heirs, though history remembers but one.

Some truths were buried not because they were false, but because they were true.

You bear the face the prophecy described.

The realm has long awaited a savior. It never considered what such salvation might require.

The scroll has outlived kingdoms.

The prophecy did not foretell peace.

I have devoted my life to preventing what now stands before me.

There are some doors that ought never be opened, and some prophecies that ought never be read.

Fate has a curious habit of finding those who flee it.

Every attempt to thwart the prophecy has only strengthened it.

The gods delight in speaking plainly only after it is too late.

The prophecy named no victor.

You ask whether I believe the prophecy. I ask whether it believes in you.

There are many who would sooner see you dead than see the prophecy tested.

It is no blessing to know the shape of one's own ruin.

The child foretold has become the very thing the realm feared.

We have spent centuries preparing for the wrong heir.

Not every chosen soul is chosen for glory.

You were never meant to inherit the kingdom. You were meant to change it.

The prophecy concerns blood far more than birthright.

There are those who worship the prophecy and those who fear it. I have yet to meet one who understands it.

Your ancestors spent their lives hiding these words from the world.

Every generation has believed itself the last.

I would sooner question the gods themselves than trust the certainty of prophets.

Some prophecies awaken only when spoken aloud.

The oldest lie ever told was that destiny cannot be resisted.

There is a reason the seers refused to finish the tale.

You have inherited a burden no crown could equal.

Even the ravens refused to fly the night you were born.

The heavens marked your coming with uncommon violence.

There are prophecies written in ink, and others written in blood.

The prophecy was never meant for mortal eyes.

I begin to fear that we have misunderstood every word.

The final line has been missing for generations.

A kingdom may survive a poor ruler. Few survive a fulfilled prophecy.

The gods have remained silent ever since your birth.

I do not doubt the prophecy. I doubt our understanding of it.

The greatest danger lies not in destiny itself, but in those determined to hasten its arrival.

I was born to inherit this. From my first breath, it was meant to be mine.

You are not the heir my father chose, whatever claim you may believe yourself to possess.

The council shall convene at dawn, and there decide what is to become of me.

I have been schooled since infancy to sit that throne. No one thought to teach me how lonely it would be.

You are but a second son. By rights, that ought to mean little. Here, it means all.

The succession runs in my blood, heedless of my wishes. I have never once been granted a choice in any of it.

I would surrender my claim for you. 

You look upon that throne as though it were a cage. Of late, I have begun to see the bars as well.

The court has already begun to choose its banners. I must know beneath which one you mean to stand.

You possess the better claim to this crown, and we both know it, though the court may choke upon the truth.

The regency ends when I come of age next spring. I cannot say whether I am prepared for what follows.

My sister gathers allies in the north and calls men to her banners. I do not think she means to wait for the old king to die in his own bed.

I would trade this birthright for a single year lived as any common soul might live. 

The council would have me wed before autumn’s end, that the succession might be secured. Not one among them has thought to ask whom I would choose.

I watched my father die with his fingers still closed around a power he no longer possessed the strength to wield.

You would rule with greater kindness than any of us.

The crown has passed over me and settled upon my cousin’s brow. I have spent my whole life preparing for a future that is mine no longer.

I do not desire the throne. I desire only the right to refuse it, and even that has been denied me.

You were raised in exile, waiting upon a claim that might never ripen. I do not know how the waiting has not broken you.

I have inherited a war I did not begin and a crown I am not certain I have earned.

You would burn the realm to ash before you saw it fall into unworthy hands. I have begun to wonder whether mine are such hands.

The laws of succession favor the eldest son. I had the ill fortune to be born a daughter, and thus wrongly born in the eyes of the crown.

You ask whether I desire this. No one has asked me such a thing in all my life. I find I do not know how to answer.

The realm requires a strong hand upon the throne. I do not know that mine is strong enough. Tell me that it is, even should you have to lie.

You would have made a good queen. I think upon that more often than I should, now that the crown has fallen to me instead.

The ancient laws decree that the crown must pass through blood alone. I fear that law has destroyed far more of this family than it ever preserved.

You stood beside me at my coronation when half the court wished you cast out. I shall remember it until my dying day.

This quarrel over the succession has already claimed two lives. I fear it has not yet taken its full due.

I never wished to rule. I wished only to be free. No one born to this house has ever been permitted both.

You would surrender everything for me. I begin to understand that you count your claim among those sacrifices.

I have worn this crown for but a single day, and already I understand how it broke my father.

You are the rightful heir, and every soul in this chamber knows it, even those who would rather bite out their tongues than confess it.

The throne was never meant to be mine. Perhaps that is the very thing that might set me free of it.

You once told me that power is not inherited, but seized. I did not understand you until I watched my brother reach for mine.

The council fears the ruler I may yet become. On certain days, I find that I fear them as well.

I would sooner lay down my crown than become the sort of monarch my father was.