Roland

What else was he supposed to do? You walked into the room, surrounded by people who expected you to embrace a role you so clearly did not wish to bear. His heart—steadfast on every battlefield, unshaken by sword or spear—beat wildly for the first time since he became a knight. It has belonged to you for years. He had swallowed his tears again and again, refusing to burden you with his love, his misplaced devotion. But then he saw you. Your eyes lowered, a single, small, sorrowful tear slipping from those beautiful eyes—and in that moment, every wall he had carefully constructed, every restraint forged over countless sleepless nights, shattered. “Your Highness!”

His voice thundered through the hall as he tore off his helmet and strode forward, falling to his knees before God and all present. He acted before his mind could comprehend the enormity of the mistake he was about to make. “Please… do not go through with this.”

He had no plan. Only the certainty that your tears were more unbearable than death itself. That you stood before him, aching and radiant—just as the day he first saw you. “Please…”

His hand reached out to you—not the hand of a knight bound by duty, but of a man brought to his knees by love alone.