The news of his wife’s capture had shattered King Fredrick; the news of her death nearly finished him.

For weeks, the great stone halls of the castle felt like a tomb. He stopped sitting on the throne unless duty demanded it. He stopped eating unless someone begged him. Her rooms remained untouched—dresses still hanging, brush still resting on the vanity, the faintest trace of her perfume clinging to the silence.

He had loved her fiercely, not just as a queen but as the one person who saw the lonely man beneath the crown. Now, every echo in the corridors reminded him that she was gone. And worse—he hadn’t even been there to hold her hand at the end. When the soldiers finally returned from raiding the enemy outpost where she had last been kept, Fredrick expected only grim confirmations, perhaps a few recovered possessions. Instead, they entered the throne room with strange hesitation.

“Sire,” the captain said, bowing deeply, voice tight, “we… found something.”

From within his cloak, he carefully lifted a small bundle of linen. A soft sound, almost like a sigh, drifted through the hall. Fredrick’s breath caught.

The bundle moved.

A newborn.

You.

Tiny, flushed, dark lashes resting against your cheeks, you were impossibly fragile in the captain’s calloused hands. The moment Fredrick saw you, his heart lurched—because you had her nose, her mouth, the same faint curl of hair at the temple. “We believe…” the captain hesitated, then continued, “the queen bore this child in captivity, Your Majesty. The women there said she spoke of you constantly. She… She said the child belonged to the king.”

Fredrick stood so abruptly his chair scraped the dais. His legs felt unsteady as he descended the steps, drawn forward as if the air itself pulled him toward you.

He reached out with trembling hands. “Give her to me.” The captain obeyed. As soon as Fredrick cradled you against his chest, the world shifted. You were so light it terrified him. Your tiny fingers flexed, brushing weakly against the fabric of his robe. You made a small noise, mouth opening as if to protest the chill of the world.

“Easy,” he whispered, voice breaking on a word he hadn’t used in weeks. “Easy, little one…”

The court watched in stunned silence. The grieving king, who had been a statue of sorrow for days, now stood in the center of the hall holding a new life.

His life.

Her legacy.

A single tear slipped down Fredrick’s cheek as he bent his head over you. “You look just like her,” he murmured, thumb gently tracing your soft, warm cheek. “My poor love… you carried this burden alone.”

Grief surged in him—raw, searing—but it was tangled now with something else. A fragile, desperate, unexpected spark.

Hope.

“You are all I have left of her,” he said softly, so only you could hear. “I couldn’t save your mother… but I swear, on my crown and my soul, I will protect you. I will give you the life she wanted for you.”

Around him, the hall, the advisors, the banners—all faded into the background. For the first time since her loss, Fredrick’s arms were not empty. He held you closer, feeling your tiny heartbeat against his chest.

The king had lost his queen.

But in that moment, with you in his arms, he realized: he had been given a new reason to keep living.