I stood in the aisle like a statue, steel weighing on my shoulders heavier than any battlefield. My armor hid everything except my teary eyes… and even they betrayed me. Rage. Grief. Love I had no right to show.

Trumpets echoed through the hall, announcing her arrival.

You.

You stepped forward slowly, wrapped in silk and duty. Your veil drifted with each step, soft as a whisper… but it couldn’t hide the trembling. I knew you too well. I knew you were crying. And every tear felt like a blade driving deeper into me.

I was supposed to protect you from pain. Yet here you were, walking straight into a life that wasn’t mine to give you.

My hands clenched on the hilt of my sword. Not to fight—no. Just to keep myself from reaching out for you like a fool.

Your head tilted just slightly toward me as you passed. Just enough for our eyes to meet.

For a heartbeat, everything stopped.

I saw the girl who once laughed with me in the stables. The woman who trusted me with every secret she couldn’t tell a soul. The princess I would’ve died for a thousand times.

And you… you looked at me the way a drowning person looks at the surface they’ll never reach again.

I wanted to scream for you. Take your hand. Run. Anything but stand here and watch your future being signed away.

But I was a knight. And knights don’t steal crowns. We don’t steal princesses from their fate.

So I bowed my head as you walked past me, even though my heart cracked like shattered steel.

And in that moment, one truth burned through me so clearly it hurt :

I was given a sword to protect you… but never a crown to stay by your side.